My black background looks perfectly black on the screen:
But when I export to PDF, high quality, it looks TOTALLY GREY. Why?
http://musicfortheliturgy.org/In_Design_Questions/PRIVATE_SAMPLE_SPREA D.pdf
The PDF displays black in Acrobat and Preview on my screen. Here are my color management settings (sorry Acrobat 8 at work but should be similar)
This link should work (removed the space in SPREA D).
http://musicfortheliturgy.org/In_Design_Questions/PRIVATE_SAMPLE_SPREA D.pdf
2,329 posts If anyone wants to try to CLARIFY for me, please do !
The preview of CMYK color, including black mixes like 0|0|0|100 or 65|50|50|100, is managed by your document's CMYK profile. The current generation of CMYK profiles correctly previews those two colors differently because that's what happens on press. The difference is more pronounced on an uncoated sheet than a coated sheet, and the correct profile will show that difference. You can check your document's profile via Edit>Assign Profiles... Below are examples of black only on a rich black field
US Newsprint (SNAP):
US Sheetfed Uncoated:
US Sheetfed Coated:
First generation profiles like Photoshop 5 Default do not show the difference:
When an image like your's is alone on the sheet the effect of black vs. rich black is not as noticeable. Because of the details you don't have much choice but to run black only.
Thank you so much for bearing with my extreme ignorance.
However, I don't understand why you say the TEXT is the issue.
My issue is that the outer edge looks grey, and the picture looks "rich black"
Right?
http://musicfortheliturgy.org/In_Design_Questions/PRIVATE_SAMPLE_SPREA D.pdf
I would like the edge to look the same "darkness" of black as the pictures on the inside.
Maybe I should just take a "sample" section of the black from the pictures and blow it up as the background to the entire page? So they will "match" ?
2,329 posts Those 40 pages will be printed BLACK AND WHITE by Sheridan.
You should communicate with the printer on this so they know what you want.
The PDF you posted can be converted correctly to grayscale in Acrobat—where everything is 100% black—but you have to be careful because CMYK black (0|0|0|100) usually does not convert to 100% Grayscale black—the default US SWOP to grayscale will convert to 91% grayscale.
In AcrobatPro you can correctly make the conversion via Tools>Print Production>Convert Colors if you check Preserve Black
When you make that conversion the Output Preview will show your page as a grayscale object with your 4-color text converted to 100% grayscale:
Here's a screen capture of your spread with the black plate turned off:
As you can see, the only things on that page that are rich black are the type in the scrolls and halo, and you DO need to fix that before going to print.
If you think the edges look gray in comparison to the illustration it's probably an optical illusion caused by the large amounts of white inside the illustration providing contrast. Remember, too, that 0,0,0,100 is not as dark as a rich black and will look gray in print if there is a rich black for comparison.
2,329 posts My issue is that the outer edge looks grey, and the picture looks "rich black"
Right?
You are confusing the soft proof preview with output. You have to look at the numbers to know what the output will be.
Here I'm sampling your text and the readout is a 4-color CMYK mix:
And here I'm sampling the woodcut which reads as 0|0|0|100:
The woodcut soft proofs as a lighter value because a 4-color black would print relatively blacker than 100% grayscale black
2,329 posts Peter, one problem with the posted PDF is it has CMYK, RGB, and grayscale objects, which you can see via the Show dropdown in Output Preview:
You could go into Illustrator and get everything on the CMYK black plate, but because it's a 1-color job the print operator would need to output the CMYK black plate and not convert to grayscale at print time. She probably will know to do that but it's not guaranteed—there's the risk that a print time conversion to grayscale would output 90% and not 100% black.
2,329 posts I have to tell you that I am so confused by the above. I am sorry: but I am just so confused by the comments above.
This is your spread converted to grayscale in AcrobatPro—all of the spread's blacks are 100%
http://www.zenodesign.com/forum/PRIVATE_SAMPLE_SPREAD_GS.pdf
Here is the Acrobat Convert Colors setup:
Dear Rob,
I went in and changed the TEXT to be 0/0/0/100.
I changed the BACKGROUND to be 0/0/0/100 instead of "rich black".
Here is the result:
http://musicfortheliturgy.org/In_Design_Questions/707_Black_Ink_Tester .pdf
Is there still RGB ? It is hard for me to understand why there could have been RGB to begin with.
Thank you for converting using Acrobat Pro. What is Acrobat Pro? I have CS5.5 Suite which has Adobe — is that Adobe Acrobat pro?
When I viewed your file, Rob, all the blacks appear to look "uniform" as far as I can tell. Here's a screen shot I took of viewing your file:
Does that mean if I get "stuck" I should use your conversion method of "problem" pages?
