Rich Black Color in AI CS3

Hi, everyone!
I am using AI CS3. I want to apply the rich black color to my name card as below. Please let me know whether it's good to apply a rich black color in this condition. If so, please tell me how to make it as a rich black color for CMYK Process ( C=? ; M=? ; Y=? ; K=? ).
Everyone helps me! I will be very pleased and surprised to get the fastest answer.
Luck

Are you printing digitally in colour? If not, then there is little reason to use a rich black. On an offset press you can use a custom black to get a very dark and saturated result.
If you’re still here, then I guess it’s four colour digital. I would use 40, 30, 30, 100 for by black. I would also add a process black only (0, 0, 0, 100) keepaway around the type. Select the text objects and go to the Appearance panel. Click on Add New Stroke and drag the stroke below the Characters line. Make the stroke 1 point (half will be hidden under the text) black (0, 0, 0, 100). Use Separation Preview to verify that the black stroke does not overprint. Do the same in Acrobat Pro using Advanced > Print Production > Output Preview.
Appearance panel…
Separation Preview with all colours…
Separation Preview with black off…
(See that the text looks bolder? That’s what you want.)

Similar Messages

Help with rich black color for print project, please

We are using CS5 photoshop to create a 3ft x 8 ft vinyl banner. We've never created something this large for print before. Included layers are a black to white gradient, a black filigree graphic from DigitalJuice, and black text (that was created in Illustrator by someone else). We set the project up using CMYK. The printer informed us that we need to change the blacks to rich black (C50%, M40%, Y40%, K100%).
How is this best done? I can see how to change the color picker to the rich black %, but this doesn't appear to change the blacks in the project. Is there a way to change them, or to export the project with rich blacks?
Do we have to begin from scratch - and if so, how do we get the graphics and gradients to the rich black color settings.
Any help will be greatly appreciated -

In RGB mode I can't create non - rich black. For example if I set the color palette to CMYK, choose C=0%, M=0%,Y=0%, K=100%, fill the canvas with this color, and then measure the color with the eyedropper, the color reads C=70%, M=68%, Y=64, K=74%.
This means that if your document is in CMYK mode and you have blacks that read C=0%, M=0%,Y=0%, K=100%, converting the document to RGB and then back to CMYK these blacks will become rich. Though the numbers of the rich black my vary depending on how your color management is set.
Have in mind that the numbers above preserve the tonal intensity of non-rich black when converted to rich black. If you want the numbers your printer suggested they will be fine for elements like text and flat colors but for things like photo images this will intensify the blacks and will alter the tonal balance appearance which may be not what you want.

PDF creation causes rich black colors to shift

I'm designing a book cover. There are three main areas: front, back and spine. Each area has specified the default "black" color in the swatches panel. This color uses 100% K in the CMYK color space. In the preferences panel, under "appearance of black", I have checked to print and display blacks as rich black. Everthing looks great on the Indesign file. My blacks are as specified. Everything has been double-checked on the swatch panel to be set to this black color, which is a non-editable color (always remains 100% K on the CMYK setting).It has been displaying just fine on the file, as a rich black, no color shifting ever whatsoever until doing the following:
When I make a PDF using the "Export" window, I select PDF/x-1A as my printer specifies. I create the PDF, and open it, only to see that my blacks are being shifted to a shade of deep brownish black.
On the first few attempts, only two of the three areas specified above did this. ON the next attempts, all three areas look the same. This is weird. I'm very disappointed with the strange issues present in Indesign, as I am trained with Quarkxpress and find it to work flawlessly in comparison, especially with something like color output.
What am I doing wrong?
When I change settings, for example, change the color management to "none" or leave it in the default for the PDFx/1-a, it doesn't make any difference in this glitch in the output.
Help!
Thanks.

The Appearance of Black setting to print all blacks as rich black ONLY affects printing or exporting to RGB devices (essentially printing to desktop printers or PRINTING to PDF with Composite RGB or Composite Grayscale selected). It has no effect at all on EXPORT to PDF.
>I changed my 100%K only blacks to genuine rich blacks of 100%K 25%C 25%Y 25%M and the problem is corrected.
You said this is a book cover. That implies that the output will be printed, not viewed on screen. For printed output it is ESSENTIAL that you set blacks to display accurately. You should also turn on Overprint Preview when judging color. You'll probably get away with your rich black in any type over 12 points or so where it might be applied, but it's generally not a great idea to use rich black for type in small sizes. Rich blacks also generally use slightly more cyan than yellow and magenta to compensate for ink impurities.
Do you have a high-end monitor? Is your monitor calibrated and profiled using a colorimeter? If not, you can forget what you see on screen. The odds that it is anywhere near accurate are similar to the odds of winning the lottery. Are you using the same color space in Acrobat as you are in ID? If you change the color space, the appearance of your colors will change.
When you export to PDF/X-1a you are converting everything to CMYK using a target color space. By default the conversion option is set to preserve numbers. If your imported art has an embedded profile that differs from the destination, that will be honored and color numbers will be changed to preserve the appearance of color, as much as possible taking into account different gamuts, and untagged imported art, along with native objects will all be presumed to be in the current working space in ID, and cmyk numbers for those objects will be preserved. If the destination space differs from the working space, thew appearance of these colors will shift, but 100% K native objects will continue to be 100% K in the PDF. A conversion to a destination that differs from the working space WITHOUT preserving numbers will result in 100% K being changed to a 4-color mix that mimics the appearance of 100% K output in the working space.
Knowing the destination space in advance is vital if you are doing a CMYK conversion. CMYK profiles are "device dependent" and CMYK-to-CMYK conversions are destructive, both in terms of potential loss of color (and you don't gain by going from a smaller to a larger gamut space) and conversion of solid colors to 4-color mixes which is particularly problematic for black type and thin rules.

Semi-transparent block, pure black and rich black problems

Hi!
I'm new to inDesign, and I'm currently designing a book cover, for which I need some special effects. I'll try to explain as best as I can.
The background is rich black, on top of it I have a text in white (all over it). I applied a block with 80% opacity, in rich black color. I cut out some shapes in it. The point was to have the text in dark gray all over the book cover, but in white in the places where I have the shapes.
Everything is working exactly like I want, but a friend of mine told me if I apply rich black over white, I'll get a kind of magenta gray, so I have to apply pure 100 K to avoid that and get the dark gray I want. I tried that, and of course, applying some pure black block on top of my rich black cover gives all the cover a "grayish black" look. How can I work around that? I tried setting my semi-transparent block to "darken", but it didn't change anything.
I put the links to the pdf, I hope that's ok.
That's the one with rich black: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/68049919/coverlayout_print_richblack.pdf
and that's how it looks with the pure black: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/68049919/coverlayout_print.pdf
Thanks a lot!

There's no need to use transparency to create your background text color—just make a text frame filled with the rich black then select the type and fill it with an 80% tint of the rich black swatch or any other gray mix. Like this:
The text frame selected with its fill showing in the Colors panel:
Here the text is selected and the Colors panel shows the text fill as an 80% tint of the rich black. There's no transparency in this case.
In general it's bad practice to use transparency when you can get the same effect with color fills.
Also if you are worried about the neutrality of the gray check with your printer on whether the gray text should be 4-color (your 80% tint) or straight black (95% black).
The accuracy of the InDesign softproof depends on an accurate monitor profile and the assigned CMYK profile (Edit>Assign Profiles...). The assigned CMYK profile affects the preview including the profiled gray balance. For example the default SWOP CMYK profile previews your 4-color dark gray bluer and as a lighter value than US Sheetfed.
The preview of your 85% rich black mix with different CMYK asignments

Rich Black removal from PDF

Hi Team,
The PDF which we are supplying to prointer is reporting issue of rich black color used. Is there any way we can remove rich black from PDFs using acrobat professional.
Thanks in Advance!

Here's a previous discussion of the topic:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/851346?tstart=0
And here's another helpful answer from another forum:
http://acrobatusers.com/forum/printing-prepress/how-keep-total-area-coverage-under-240

Rich black from laser for positives

Hello,
I have a RICOH Aficio SP C811DN printer, and I am having the worst luck getting it to print real rich black. I'm using it to print film positives on polyester vellum for burning silkscreens.
Between the 30+ printer profiles and numerous other settings, there are over 20 million different ways to print one document.
[code]Illustrator Color Management:
2 Choices for Color handling
Let Illustrator determine colors
Let PostScript printer determine colors
30 Printer profiles including:
Generic CMYK
U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2
150-line Pantone
RICOH Aficio SP C811DN
4 Rendering Intent Choices:
Perceptual
Saturation
Relative Colorimetric
Absolute Colorimetric
Printer Dialog Color Matching:
ColorSync or In Printer
Which Profile for ColorSync? Printer profile?
Printer Features:
Color Smoothing: On or Off
Color Mode: Black/White or Color
Gradation: Fast, Standard, Fine
Color Setting: Off, Fine, or Super Fine
Color Profile: Auto, Photographic, Presentation, Solid Color, User Setting, CLP Simulation1, CLP Simulation2
Dithering: Auto, Photographic, Text, User Setting
Gray Reproduction: Black/Gray by K, Black by K, CMY+K, Black/Gray by K (Text only), Black by K (Text only)
Black Over Print: On or Off
CMYK Simulation Profile: Off, US OffsetPrint, Euroscale, JapanColor, PaletteColor[/code]
Add all these options up and you get[b] 24,192,000[/b] different, unique ways to print a document. I really don't have the time to try them all out. How can I make sense of it all? :?:
Do you have any advice? I'm stuck with dark gray printouts. :(
Thanks
-Dodd
Art Department
Calconix, Inc.
TimeZone ®
(888)256-2544
(610)642-5921
(610)642-5928 Fax

make sure your art is 'rich black (color space CMYK-assign new color 40-50-50-100)then...assuming that you have Acrobat--save illustrator file as PDF and print that from acrobat(high quality print setting)...or...further assuming that you have Indesign--save illustrator file as EPS and place in Indesign and print from there.

InDesign CS3 - Default Black color issue

Default Black color converted as Spot color in Indesign CS3.
I'm using default color "Black" in InDesign CS3. While creating PS from InDesign CS3 and convert it as PDF using Distiller 7 & 8, it would have changed as "Spot Color Black" instead of color "Black(CMYK)".
Open the swatch and duplicate the color "Black" and renamed as "C=0,M=0,Y=0,K=100". It would work properly. i.e. output PDF has CYMK black instead of Spot color.
We are unable to find/change globally because the Default color [Black] has both text and object.
We do not have any problem with this default black color in Indesign CS2.
It would be better if you provide a solid solution for this issue immediately. I need to send a test file to the printer on tomorrow (05/27/09).
I have attached Testing.pdf and screenshot for your reference.
Picture 1 shows the Default Black color converted as Spot color.
Picture 2 shows duplicate black color created from Default [Black] color and we don't find any issue.
Thanks
Johnson

First, this is a user forum, so all you'll get here is advice, not a "solid solution" from Adobe.
Second, the current versions of InDesign and Acrobat are 6 and 9, respectively, and there will never be any new patches issued for earlier versions. Adobe does not divert effort away from current development to patch old software.
This has been discussed here in the past few months. You should be able to find the thread if you search for keywords like spot black. For what it's worth, Acrobat 9 Pro's preflight does not detect a spot black in your sample PDF (though Pitstop might).
I'm curious why you feel the need to distill PDF rather than export (as I see you did with the file you posted)?

Rich Black in AI CS3

I'm a long-term Freehand user so please bear with me!
OK, I've got some experience with AI but have used Freehand extensively for the past 10+ years. Decided to give AI a try via the CS3 30-day trial, since I know it will handle Freehand MX files. I've come across a problem almost straight away, however.
I noticed, when I opened an MX file in AI CS3, that all my rich blacks had been changed into 0,0,0,100k blacks - and all the 0,0,0,100k blacks had been left as they were. I can't work with that - I need a rich black and I need a 100k black. Does anyone know why this is happening, and how I can solve the problem?

No, unfortunately that makes no difference. Basically, my work files always include two blacks: the basic 0,0,0,100k black and a rich black, which Freehand always composes as 75,68,67,90. Whenever I opened a Freehand file in AI CS2, it would respect the two different blacks as I'd originally set them in the Freehand document. Opening the same file in CS3, for some weird reason CS3 is altering ALL the blacks to the same: 0,0,0,100k.
When I look at the colour swatch in CS3, whether using a brand new AI document or opening one of my Freehand files, I see two blacks listed. One labelled "black", the other labelled "K=100". However, both have an identical makeup: 0,0,0,100. That's surely not correct? The colour named "black" should surely be a rich black, not just 100k. Otherwise, what's the point of the K=100 colour?
I have to say, apart from this issue I've been impressed with AI CS3. For a Freehand user, it's much easier to work with than previous versions. I'm very tempted to make the switch, though probably to CS4 now that it's available.

Importing PS tranparencies and Rich Black

Hi
Im having a problem importing photoshop files containing transparent backgrounds.
Evertime I place one on a black background and publish ,the background appears dark grey
Output all blacks as rich blacks is defined
and my PDF present is Press quailty
Indesign cs3
Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!

The user has sent me the files, and her settings, and I think I've finally found the problem.
You are printing to PDF, which is OK, but exporting is simpler, and less prone, I think, to problems. I was finally able to reproduce the rich black by printing to PDF and using the "standard" joboptions in the printer properties (though it wouldn't be limited to just that particular option set). Those options do an internal conversion to RGB, which is then getting converted back to rich black.
Make sure you click the setup button in the print dialog to access the printer driver, then change the default settings to something that either converts to CMYK or preserves color, and you should be fine, or export and set the color in the export dialog.
Peter

Print quality of grey text on rich black background

I've been working on various print materials that require me to use a lot of grey text at various shades set on a black background. My understanding is that this can easily look terrible due to the misregrestation of the four colors. Here's an example of the kind of text I'm working with:
This is how I have things set up right now:
Rich Black Swatch: C70 M50 Y30 K100
All text uses the same swatch at various tints in InDesign (15% tint for headlines, 25% tint for body text)
Body text size is 8 pt/10.8 pt, headlines are 14 pt
These are being printed on an offset press and the printer isn't local, so we don't get proofs. Is there are better way to set this up or is this the best I can hope for? Thanks for any help!

I wonder what type of paper are you planning on using for these pages? Your total ink amount is 250. What you should be concerned about is dot gain and ink spread. Oh, nice rich Black on screen isn't so nice on press for a number of reasons. Have you thought about using a Spot Black? Why use process if all you have is Black? Unless, ofcourse, you have other elements that use process colors. You have to know the press and the paper before you can make a judgement about the effectiveness of rich Black with screen tinted variants. You could bite the bullet and let the file fly. Or, you could use just Black with screen tint variants to lesson problems on press and with readibility. No proofs? No press check either?

Creation of PDF from Excel 2013 - problem with black color

Hi,
I am a publisher of crossword magazine and I use Excel to write crosswords. Then I create PDF's and import them into InDesign.
In past I used Adobe printer and it works fine with Excel 2000 and 2010 (only these two versions I used in past) Now I switched to Excel 2013 and when I use Adobe printer to print crosswords into PDF problem occurs with lines done in Excel (insert - shapes - line). I use black color for these lines but in PDF they appears as rich black (TIC 300%). Why it is not 100% black? I know that Excel works in RGB but in past I was always able to change settings in printer profiles (Adobe printer) to reach 100 % black without CMY colors. Now I have no idea. I attached picture of pdf how it looks in Adobe Acrobat in Outpur preview.
Thank you in advance for any advice

These are tough issues I suspect and the answer you need is probably trivial (it is finding it). I will make some suggestions, but I have no idea if any will work.
- In the printer under the Properties>Layout>Advanced>print quality, I use 300 dpi (default is 1200).
- Under the printer preferences>settings>edit the settings file, I use again 300 dpi (default is 1200 dpi).
These may not fix your issue, but migth be worth a try. You could also try using the preflight script to change to gray-scale. It may not make any changes, but again may be worth a try.
All I am trying to suggest are the things I would be looking at. Maybe they will lead you someplace. Others may be by with better suggestions in time.

100k black exporting to PDF as rich black

Hey guys,
I've rattled my brain for long enough over this issue, it's time to ask the wider community.
When I export a pdf with any of my export profiles, all overprint 100k (black swatch) blacks are exported as CMYK. It doesn't matter if it's text or a graphic, the whole document is CMYK.
My export profiles have been bulletproof for the past 2 years, I use numerous printers so I always export using a very generic profile. Within the last two days, something has happened with my settings and eveything I export has this issue. I've poured over my settings and none of it has led me to an answer.
My only solution is converting to my generic profile with numbers preserved.
This makes the problem go away but it doesn't answer the question of why it has changed after all this time.
Help.
Screenshot of doc open in InDesign with text selected with black swatch selected:
Screenshot of doc in Acrobat pro seps with black unchecked:

Actually, a better question might be how you avoided the rich black using what you believe are the exact same settings over the past two years!!
Simply stated, if you do a PDF export and the CMYK content in your document is in a different CMYK color space than that specified for your output and your export setting call for converting colors to the output color space without the preserve CMYK values specified, there will definitely be a CMYK to C'M'Y'K' conversion occurring. This has been true since at least the first CS version of InDesign (InDesign 3).
The problem with CMYK to C'M'Y'K conversions is that they are a 4-3-4 conversion. The CMYK values are not directly converted to C'M'Y'K' but rather, converted first to the color management connection color space by use of the input profile and then from that color space back to the CMYK color space specified in your export settings. Such 4-3-4 conversions do not preserve pure colorant values. Thus you have the possibility of ending up with rich black if your content's color space and the output color space differ. The preserve numbers option was put in to effectively ignore CMYK to C'M'Y'K' conversion entirely and only deal with the conversion of RGB color spaces to the output color space. (Another technology, known a “device link profiles” can be used for CMYK to C'M'Y'K color conversions, preserving pure colorants, especially black. Unfortunately, InDesign doesn't support device link technologies!)
Then we must come back to why things supposed worked the last two years without specifying the “preserve values” option?!?!? One possibility is that previously your default CMYK color space exactly matched the output color space, thus bypassing any color conversion at all!
- Dov

Exporting CYMK Black as Rich Black

I continue to struggle with getting CYMK Black as rich black. I have Illustrator CS4.....
Settings that seem relevant follow:
The Document Color Mode is set to CYMK
The Appearance of Black is set to both display and export as Rich Black
When I do an export to JPG or Print to Adobe PDF driver, the black come out as dark gray
The object color appear correct 0,0,0,100
The black displays as rich black when I am working on it in illustrator
What am I missing here..... The way I work around it to send a proof to a customer is change the doc color mode to RGB.....but that really only is suitable for all black art......and it's seems to be a cludgy work around.
I guess the question is why isn't illustrator CS4 outputing rich black when I set ouput as rich black for export?
I have read other posts here on the subject but they seem to be work arounds as well.
Is there something I am missing here fundementally?? Perhaps another setting I am unaware of?
Thanks!

Rich Black is more like 100% Black 60% C 60% M and 60% Y there are all types of combinations printers use.
What you should do is to make swatches of your various rich blacks after discussing it with your printers as to their preferences and your needs and name them to correspond to the printer (vender) and then save it as a rich black library that way you won't even have thin about it in the future.

Rich black in Reader 9?

Every document I print from Adobe Acrobat Reader 9 comes out with rich black text. If I "Let the printer determine colors" the text in the PDF is printed in accurate black. Other people do not seem to have this issue. Apparently the default Acrobat Color Management being used on my system has rich black set as the default. Is there any way to change this? I would like to use the Acrobat Color Management, but I do not want rich blacks. I want accurate blacks. There must be a setting in the CMM, but I can't even locate the CMM. Any help would be appreciated.

Post your question in the forum for Adobe Reader.

Designjet that will not print rich black

I'm using hp premium satin photo roll 24x100. My poster is of a nebula and dark space with stars. When I print on 8.5x11 it looks wonderful. Very rich black. When I print the large version the dark areas of space looks milky. The black space clearly is not being printed correctly. The poster looks good, but when compared to the letter size (hp glossy photo paper) it's depressing to think how awesome it could look. Is it the satin paper? I don't think so. I managed to print rich black on it from a png.
There are so many dialogue boxes and options to define where the color conversion is performed. I tried every setting and used all my color ink trying to learn this printers protocols. I'm a student @ RMCAD studying graphic desing focusing on print. I'm trying to make money on the side with this printer to help pay for school. I've tried color sync both on and off, no printer conversion w/ acrobat pdf conversion when saving both on and off. I've tried rgb default conversion, and hp premium photo satin paper on the drop down menu. I use the maximum detail option. All this to no avail, I can tell when printing the poster within 3" whether or not it's rich black or not. Regardless of all the settings I've tried the results are always the same. So, I started darkening the image in photoshop with curves saved and still no luck. It looked worse.
Why is it printing so perfectly on the glossy letter size and so disappointing when the poster size is printed?

Can I ask are you based in the US?
Thanks, Ciara
Although I am an HP employee, I am speaking for myself and not for HP.
Twitter: @Ciara_B_HP

Rich Black Color in AI CS3

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