How to make Photoshop default to non rich black

N
Posted By
nomadicink
Nov 28, 2006
Views
706
Replies
12
Status
Closed
I have the CS2 suite under XP and a problem.

My blacks in Photoshop, Indesign & Illustrater default to a rich black as opposed to a 100% K black, which is what I want. By default, I mean whenever I start any of these applications, create a new document and apply black to a color, it’s a rich black.

The defaults color for the rich black varies from application to application also:

Indesign
C-57
m-46
y-47
K-76

Photoshop
c-75
m-68
Y-67
K-90

Illustrater
c-56
m-47
y-47
K83

We’re a newspaper and our profile is set to:
Ink colors: Swop (Newsprint)
Dot Gain: Standard- 20%

Separation Type GCR
Black Generation- Light
Black Ink Limit- 90%
Total Ink Limit- 240%
UCA Amount- O

How do I set up a color profile to make all the blacks default to 100% K? Or am I going about this the wrong way?
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black default how make rich
Nov 28, 2006
Set it with an action and assign it to a button.

Aside: Have you unified the color management settings in all applications?
B
Bernie
Nov 28, 2006
We’re a newspaper and our profile is set to: <profile>

But that’s not what your software uses as a working space. Photoshop has ink coverage totalloing 300%

Start by making sure you set your profile to be the CMYK working space in all your softwares.

If you don’t want any rich black, you have to have black generation set to Maximum (this may introduce other problems though…)
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nomadicink
Nov 28, 2006
Yeah, all the profiles are synched via Bridge.

Photoshop has ink coverage totalloing 300%

Good point! Where’s it getting the idea to do that from?

What sort of problem might setting black to Max cause? Over saturated blacks?
B
Bernie
Nov 28, 2006
What sort of problem might setting black to Max cause? Over saturated blacks?

Lack of rich black comes to mind (though for a newspaper it may not matter too much)

Good point! Where’s it getting the idea to do that from?

Don’t know, I assumed it was because the application profiles were not synched.
L
LenHewitt
Nov 28, 2006
What sort of problem might setting black to Max cause?<<

Soggy media, long drying times (thus smearing on sheetfed) and broken webs…
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nomadicink
Nov 28, 2006
Soggy media, long drying times (thus smearing on sheetfed) and broken webs…

That would suck. Is there no other way to make a simple straight black or must we change it every damn time?
CC
Chris_Cox
Nov 29, 2006
That depends on the press.
Some presses run just fine at 350%.
BS
Bryce_Steiner
Nov 29, 2006
In Indesign you can specify rich blacks or true blacks in the preferences (ctrl + K)
CC
Chris_Cox
Nov 29, 2006
And rich blacks won’t vary from application to application if you set them all to use the same profiles and conversion options.

But you MUST stop using the obsolete custom color settings in Photoshop! Use one of the supplied profiles, or get a profile built that matches your press settings.
DT
Dorinda_Troutman
Dec 1, 2006
It has been my long experience in printing on newsprint that PS will not produce simple black. It always produces rich black. Whenever I get a PDF sent to us from someone who has produced a b/w ad in PS, I run it through Acrobat> Advanced> Output preview, and then click off the black to see if any other colors show. If it does, I return it to the provider to fix.

However, I place PS files in ID and they will change to simple black as I have the settings in ID as such:

Edit> Preferences> Appearance of Black> (checked)Overprint (black) swatch at 100%.

Sorry, do not know Illustrator settings.
CC
Chris_Cox
Dec 2, 2006
Photoshop will do what you tell it to do.
If you have your color prefs set to a profile that generates 0,0,0,100 – then that’s what Photoshop will do.
And if you have your color prefs to to a profile that generates 37,45,20,70 – then that’s what Photoshop will do.
And if you start in CMYK color mode, you can use whatever values you want.
JS
John_Slate
Dec 3, 2006
….including 100% in all 4 colors, if you invoke the Edit>Fill>Black(normal 100%) command.

Too easy for inexperienced users to make that mistake IMHO.

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