Info Palette and Grayscale Images

I have the second section of the info palette set to show total ink; however, when the image is grayscale Photoshop is still reporting numbers of 0 to 255, as opposed to 0 to 100 as it should be.

Am I missing something, or is this a bug?

Grayscale format is measured in units of 0-255. I don't know why you say it should be in percent.

Brian,

The Total ink readout should go from 0 to the total ink value set in the CMYK working space profile, which is likely to be greater than 255 - probably at least 300 - and will be the total ink if you converted the greyscale to CMYK.

The K readout will be what you will get when printing greyscale

Values are indicated: RGB 0..255, CMYK 0..100.

Choose first indicated values RGB and second CMYK.

A Grayscale CAN be converted to K-only by
choosing a custom CMYK profile with black generation max.

A Grayscale CAN be packed into a PDF as spot black (one
channel), but this doesn´t work always as expected.

A very useful tool for the investigation of what really happened in the PDF is the free trial version of Quite a Box of Tricks by <http://www.quite.com>

Best regards --Gernot Hoffmann

wrote:

Grayscale format is measured in units of 0-255. I don't know why you say it should be in percent.

Because I'm asking for total ink (which is always measured as a percent). If the image mode is CMYK then I get a percent, why should greyscale be any different?

If I'm being stupid or dense here please let me know, but to my way of thinking total ink MUST be 0 to 100% for each ink, and since there's only one ink being used for a greyscale image there's no validity in measuring any other way.

Brian

Values are indicated: RGB 0..255, CMYK 0..100.

Choose first indicated values RGB and second CMYK.

This image *is* greyscale mode, not RGB or CMYK.

A Grayscale CAN be converted to K-only by
choosing a custom CMYK profile with black generation max.

That's not what I have. I have a greyscale image, one channel only. Not CMYK with blank C, M and Y channels.

The Total ink readout should go from 0 to the total ink value set in the CMYK working space profile, which is likely to be greater than 255 - probably at least 300 - and will be the total ink if you converted the greyscale to CMYK.

Interesting, so it's not reporting the actual ink that would be used to print this greyscale image?

I guess I'm misreading how this is supposed to work, because to me intuitively if I set the palette to show total ink that's what it should show, not the total ink that would be used *if* I was to convert to CMYK. Why is Photoshop making the assumption that I'm going to convert this greyscale image to CMYK?

Brian,

Why is Photoshop making the assumption that I'm going to convert

this greyscale image to CMYK?<<

It's not really making any assumptions - it is merely providing you with ADDITIONAL information SHOULD you convert to CMYK, since the ink coverage in greyscale is already indicated by the K value.

It's not really making any assumptions - it is merely providing you with ADDITIONAL information SHOULD you convert to CMYK, since the ink coverage in greyscale is already indicated by the K value.

Understood. It just seems very counter-intuitive to me, since I'm asking for total ink, not total ink if I convert to CMYK.