HP 700W: Printing a good black

[bERT bRYAN]

Good morning all,
We have printed both CMYK, RGB, and a couple of different pantone black colors ( Process Black, hexacrome, etc)

When doing some graphics for a police car, we noticed that when the black is in the sun, it almost looks like a deep dark purple with the RGB, and a Dark Grey on the CYMK.
The Pantone colors when printed small look great, and then when upsized, look dark beigy and dark purple in sunlight.

We are putting down quite a bit of ink: We have it turned up to 12 pass and an ink density at about 150.

We are looking for pointers on a good deep black color.

Thanks in advance.

 

[dypinc]

Why aren't you using 100% Output Black or is the pure black that you see in the calibration target not good enough? I am sure your RIP (which ever one it is) has the tools to print pure 100% black. I always print my pure black as pure black and use those tools to not colormanage 100% input black.
If you happen to be using linearization make sure that it is setting 100% black at 100% black. Using Caldera RIP I discovered that Preserve Pure Black was using the percentage set in linearization instead of sending pure black.

 

[RyanECS]

Good morning all,
We have printed both CMYK, RGB, and a couple of different pantone black colors ( Process Black, hexacrome, etc)

When doing some graphics for a police car, we noticed that when the black is in the sun, it almost looks like a deep dark purple with the RGB, and a Dark Grey on the CYMK.
The Pantone colors when printed small look great, and then when upsized, look dark beigy and dark purple in sunlight.

We are putting down quite a bit of ink: We have it turned up to 12 pass and an ink density at about 150.

We are looking for pointers on a good deep black color.

Thanks in advance.

Try making a CMYK swatch in illustrator: C-60, M-40, Y-40, K-100

 

[Fechin]

Try making a CMYK swatch in illustrator: C-60, M-40, Y-40, K-100

Same, I keep two Swatches in mine, Black 0/0/0/100 and True Black 75/68/68/100 as Spot colors, and I even printed little cards to keep at the computers and counters to show the difference.

 

[lesao]

We use true black. If we don't in the sunlight it looks blue.

 

[ToTo]

This is a contone printer. Even if sending 100% Black it will be printed using C and M. I would go for 100/60/60/0 KCMY, because until 60% it uses Lc and Lm, which will use way more ink. Or you create a media preset with CMYK only to prevent from using light inks
Have you done linearization and ICC creation for this substrate?

 

[dypinc]

This is a contone printer. Even if sending 100% Black it will be printed using C and M. I would go for 100/60/60/0 KCMY, because until 60% it uses Lc and Lm, which will use way more ink. Or you create a media preset with CMYK only to prevent from using light inks
Have you done linearization and ICC creation for this substrate?

It is a contone printer but you can tell your RIP to print pure primaries. I did test Print Factory and it would not print pure primaries even when selected. May be other RIPs that have this fault as well.

But be careful with your RIP linearization as it can knock down you pure colors even with print pure primaries selected which I think is a flaw. Might not be all RIPs do this but I caught Caldera doing it. In my testing with media presets that allows you to calibrate the printer, linearization is not really necessary.

 

[Geneva Olson]

Try making a CMYK swatch in illustrator: C-60, M-40, Y-40, K-100

THIS.

 

[Ron at Forest Litho]

Never print in RGB Black! that is 90% Black and 62%-78% of the other 3 colors. In CMYK you can set 100% Black, To get deep black I sometimes do 100% Black plus 15% - 20% cyan and magenta. Alternate- I don't know if you an do this on a Jet, But on a laser you can put a 2nd black toner in and print with 2 blacks. one at 100% and the other at 30-60% black, Now that's black. If you replaced, say, the magenta, with another black I'm sure it would be very black- but - could you every get the nozzles clean again?

 

[bERT bRYAN]

Hey! I’ve dealt with similar issues when printing graphics for outdoor projects. To get a deeper black that holds up in sunlight, I found a mix of 60% cyan, 40% magenta, and 100% black works pretty well. It helps prevent that purple tint you’re seeing. Also, applying a UV-resistant coating can really protect the ink and keep the colors from shifting over time.

Thank you very much!

 

[bERT bRYAN]

Never print in RGB Black! that is 90% Black and 62%-78% of the other 3 colors. In CMYK you can set 100% Black, To get deep black I sometimes do 100% Black plus 15% - 20% cyan and magenta. Alternate- I don't know if you an do this on a Jet, But on a laser you can put a 2nd black toner in and print with 2 blacks. one at 100% and the other at 30-60% black, Now that's black. If you replaced, say, the magenta, with another black I'm sure it would be very black- but - could you every get the nozzles clean again?

I will keep that in mind