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Blackest black?
- Thread starter Accelerated Graphics
- Start date
Chiproller
New Member
Always try to use true black for your blacks which is 100% of each color.
C 100 M 100 Y 100 K 100
Chip
GK
New Member
If you are only using the normal build for black it will turn out that way. To achieve a rich black you are going to need to bump up all of your colors more. I wouldn't get too crazy with it unless you run external heaters. We only print rich black but running at production speeds and on the take up reel you need to use at least 1 IR heater if not 2 (recommended) because it will ruin the prints when it rolls up.
Chiproller
New Member
Thanks, always learning myself. I was told to use 100 on each for true black. Guess logistically speaking it's not needed.
bob
It's better to have two hands than one glove.
Everyone has their secret formula for a good black but it really depends on just what you're printing and how your rendering intents are set.
For bitmaps a rendering intent of perceptual will deliver a good black with any decent profile.
For everything else, a rendering intent of 'spot', or even better 'no color correction', will yield a good black with just 100%K. Black is black and 100%K is as black as it's going to get with no or minimal color correction that results from using 'spot' or 'no color correction'.
When you use other rendering intents black is interpreted and corrected and may come out a bit anemic. This is because black is seldom interpreted as black in most typical profiles and translations. With 'spot' or 'no color correction' there's no interpretation, it just dumps 100% K on then print. Exactly what you want to have happen.
Note that using perceptual and spot can generate other amusing color shifts. More so for spot than perceptual. But for the most part, these result in more robust color. To properly deal with this, you need to print out a Pantone chart as 'spot'. then you can see just what color will look like what when it's printed. I've been doing this long enough that I just do it out of hand. I pretty much know what things are going to look like on the print regardless of what they might look like on my monitor.
AKWD
New Member
Ya... Run 400% saturation there, and see how either your prints are a puddle of black/rainbow goo, or the rest of your colors fade because you had to crank down the settings.
Quite commonly, for a nice black, a --bit-- of cyan stronger can make your blacks a bit edgier. 25-20-20-100 is usually what I do when sending jobs or running across my press here. 20-20-20-100 is a pretty safe bet. However, keep in mind even with other colors even you may want to check to make sure you're not over saturated. 100-100-0-20 can be too much for some printers/presses as well. Most equipment I've handled doesn't like more than 160-180% total saturation (Add together the 4 numbers), though one I handled did do up to 220% without problems. It also does depend on coated/uncoated materials, ink adhesion and print surface quality.
Quite commonly, for a nice black, a --bit-- of cyan stronger can make your blacks a bit edgier. 25-20-20-100 is usually what I do when sending jobs or running across my press here. 20-20-20-100 is a pretty safe bet. However, keep in mind even with other colors even you may want to check to make sure you're not over saturated. 100-100-0-20 can be too much for some printers/presses as well. Most equipment I've handled doesn't like more than 160-180% total saturation (Add together the 4 numbers), though one I handled did do up to 220% without problems. It also does depend on coated/uncoated materials, ink adhesion and print surface quality.
bob
It's better to have two hands than one glove.
No such animal. Black is black. There's no such thing as rich black, pale black, or any other adjective black. There is only black. K is black, all else is some color of mud.
If your printer isn't producing black it's because your rendering intent and your profile are interpreting black as something other than 100%K.
In a typical auto body shop there's usually an entire collection of cans of paint, one for each and every color of every vehicle they've every repaired. There's a bazillion shades of red, blue, green, white, etc. Except for black. There's only one can of black. That's because black is black, there are no variations possible.
AKWD
New Member
Strongly disagree with you bob. Been in the print business long enough. While it may be the tale with RGB print, CMYK is a different monster altogether. Sure, your wide-format printer MAY interpret 100%K at TRUE black (I have a smaller machine that can) and exchanges it for the right balance of black, if you run just 100%K black, it will look somewhat washed out. The reason is 100%K is intended to be mixed with other colors to get true colors; It needs other colors to get good blacks.
And yes, there is such things as True Black, Rich Black, Cool Black, Thick Black, etc. If you don't believe me, walk into any offset press that has been in business for more than a year or two (And who don't run theses 'push a button to start' presses) and they'll clear it up for you. 100%K Black on white paper (Especially a nice press quality gloss) will look like a washed out gray, and look awful next to the vibrant colors.
I think the biggest problem in the world is that we made the mistake of 2 common color formats; RGB and CMYK. A lot of the RGB mentalities carry over to CMYK because we all design in RGB at some level digitally (-- If you design in CMYK, please let me know; I want the CMYK monitor and vid card.
--) When I started in the print business, it took me a while (and some repeated pesterings from my pressman) that RGB black is nowhere close to CMYK black; That RGB black in photos can be evil too; that 100%K is not a substitute for Real Black either. I am much wiser now however.
As for your metaphor for paint; The last time I checked, spray can car paint 'black' was manufactured to be true black in itself, and not intended to be 'mixed' for accurate color reproduction (For the spray paint cans). Actually, used to be around a couple franchise paint shops, and when they do mix their own colors for painting, black is a mix too, and their black does look a bit faded, compared to the intense blacks on a car.
And yes, there is such things as True Black, Rich Black, Cool Black, Thick Black, etc. If you don't believe me, walk into any offset press that has been in business for more than a year or two (And who don't run theses 'push a button to start' presses) and they'll clear it up for you. 100%K Black on white paper (Especially a nice press quality gloss) will look like a washed out gray, and look awful next to the vibrant colors.
I think the biggest problem in the world is that we made the mistake of 2 common color formats; RGB and CMYK. A lot of the RGB mentalities carry over to CMYK because we all design in RGB at some level digitally (-- If you design in CMYK, please let me know; I want the CMYK monitor and vid card.
--) When I started in the print business, it took me a while (and some repeated pesterings from my pressman) that RGB black is nowhere close to CMYK black; That RGB black in photos can be evil too; that 100%K is not a substitute for Real Black either. I am much wiser now however.As for your metaphor for paint; The last time I checked, spray can car paint 'black' was manufactured to be true black in itself, and not intended to be 'mixed' for accurate color reproduction (For the spray paint cans). Actually, used to be around a couple franchise paint shops, and when they do mix their own colors for painting, black is a mix too, and their black does look a bit faded, compared to the intense blacks on a car.
bob
It's better to have two hands than one glove.
Really? How then do these various hues differ? Black is the only color that is definitive. That being the case adding colored pigment to black might do a number of things for you but it won't make black any blacker. It might make the ink thicker but it sure as hell won't make it any blacker.
Perhaps you really don't know what black is. I'm not about to deliver an 8 hour lecture on color theory but...
In this business when you deal with an image on a monitor and then an image printed on media there's a natural schism between the two. On a monitor white is pretty much what you want it to be and how hard you drive your monitor. But there is no black. What you perceive as black is really just the color of the monitor when it's turned off. Which is a hell of a long way from black.
Just the opposite with printed media. Carbon black ink is black, there is nothing blacker this side of the inside of a cave 500 feet underground. But the white is whatever color the media might be. Which is never white, or at least white enough.
Dealing with this fundamental difference is part of the job.
I was running offset presses when you were making in your pants. I don't have these problems and I can only wonder why others do.
AKWD
New Member
Don't want this to deteriorate into a flamefest bob (Maybe I shouldn't have worded quite the way I did.)
I know that 'black' is 'black', hands down. Depending on what you're dealing with, black is simply the absence of all light (reflected or filtered) Doesn't matter how that black is achieved with mixing to black or absence of color to black. The problem with print media as you'd be well aware, is that black inks are slightly transparent (Including the imperfections in the surface smoothness). As you said, if you don't do any color correction, 100K should be BLACK. Problem I've seen is when you do run that way, your other colors won't look as sharp compared to the black. I know any 'named' and anything not 0-0-0-100 black isn't true black, but perception of that black is different than actuality. Its nice to run a nice, rich black, especially in the case of text.
Gloss Black is another monster altogether, but we'll leave that for another discussion.
Edit: And please; Don't run RGB black unless you have to
(Maybe I shouldn't have worded quite the way I did.)I know that 'black' is 'black', hands down. Depending on what you're dealing with, black is simply the absence of all light (reflected or filtered) Doesn't matter how that black is achieved with mixing to black or absence of color to black. The problem with print media as you'd be well aware, is that black inks are slightly transparent (Including the imperfections in the surface smoothness). As you said, if you don't do any color correction, 100K should be BLACK. Problem I've seen is when you do run that way, your other colors won't look as sharp compared to the black. I know any 'named' and anything not 0-0-0-100 black isn't true black, but perception of that black is different than actuality. Its nice to run a nice, rich black, especially in the case of text.
Gloss Black is another monster altogether, but we'll leave that for another discussion.
Edit: And please; Don't run RGB black unless you have to
