Matching blacks

[detritus books]

I'm so baffled by this. The cat/shoe on the left is a .psd that is set to CMYK black, 100% K. The border around and the text on the left are done in InDesign, CMYK black, 100% K. All are set to 50% opacity, so that the yellow shows through the gray. Why is the cat/shoe showing up a different color? The one on the right I did in Illustrator. I added the border and the text to it there, hoping it would make the colors match. But it looks the same. Why don't the blacks match up? CS6//Mac

[SJRiegel]

It looks like the cat/shoe is set to Multiply or Overprint, and the rule and text are not.

[detritus books]

Is this the setting you're talking about? It's set to Normal...

[detritus books]

Nobody?

[Laubender]

Hi,
I cannot see any differences in the screenshot of reply 2.

Used the Digital Color Meter app of my Mac OSX to verify this.

We need some numbers, I think.
Best turn on Separations Preview and meter some values of CMYK.

Regards,
Uwe

[rob day]

All are set to 50% opacity, so that the yellow shows through the gray.

It looks like you might be applying a Tint with no Overprint from the Swatches panel rather than Opacity from the Effects panel:

[detritus books]

I most definitely applied the 50% transparency in the Effects panel to both the border and the cat/shoe .psd. I don't understand which object you think I applied a "tint with no overprint" to?

[rob day]

Your Swatches panel capture is showing the Fill of the selection and not the stroke. The Effects panel capture in your #2 is for the image and not the stroke, we can't tell what transparency effect and/or tint has been applied to the stroke. Maybe you could share the file otherwise we are just guessing.

[detritus books]

[detritus books]

So it looks like there is Tint on the stroke. This matches roughly half of the rest of the book cover. So, it seems the problem then is to make the cat/shoe image match this setting, instead of what seems like would be the easier turn off the tint on the stroke...is this possible?

[rudo123]

Pls measure colours of both your stroke and cat in InDesign. Use Separations panel, turn on View: Separations, place cursor on your blacks and give us colours from that panel.

Are you sure your cat picture is really 100 % K cmyk image (in PSD or TIF format)? Should not be darker than your stroke, but it is.

[detritus books]

Well that's interesting. Separations shows them as being different. I'm not sure how as I've checked numerous times that both were set to 100% K...

[detritus books]

Okay, it get's more interesting. It looks like maybe the original cat/shoe wasn't 100%K. The one here on the right should be. And yet, it still doesn't match the stroke and everything else. It seems like maybe the Tint is different (shows nothing in Swatches, while the one for the Stroke shows 100)?

[rob day]

So it looks like there is Tint on the stroke.

I'm not seeing that, your stroke is at 100% [Black].

With the stroked box selected can you show us your Effects panel with Stroke highlighted?

[detritus books]

[rob day]

I'm trying to confirm that you don't have Isolate Blending checked. You've applied the transparency to the Object not the Stroke, so click on Object:Normal in the Effects panel to see if that box is checked. Otherwise share the file via DropBox or your cloud accunt.

The Separation panel shows the output values under your cursor, not the values of the selected object.

[detritus books]

No Isolate Blending as far as I can tell...

[rob day]

Looks like your original Cat bitmap file is either RGB or if it's CMYK  it's not black only.

[detritus books]

Yeah, though the second one should definitely be 100%K, which makes me more confused that it still doesn't match...

[rob day]

Yeah, though the second one should definitely be 100%K,

I think the CMYK PSD file is over complicating this—there's no reason for the mode of the Photoshop file to be CMYK. Save it as a grayscale with the cat at 100%, which will by default get assigned InDesign's {Black] swatch.

With a grayscale you don't need transparency or overprinting because grayscales can be assigned any swatch color. So here I've placed a grayscale and then assigned the yellow background color to the frame and then direct selected the grayscale art and assigned it a swatch made with the background color + 50% black.

[detritus books]

And more annoyingly, when I check the Isolate Blending box for the Stroke, it then matches the cat/shoe on the right. But I don't want that to happen, I want the cat/shoe to match the Stroke and everything else...

[rudo123]

Your text and stroke (and other InDesign’s elements on page) are in 100 % [Black] tint, so they overprint background by default, even if 50 % opacity is applied. So full (100 %) background + 50 % black of your things.

Your (now) 100 % black cat placed psd image is not overprinting background (when at 100 % opacity, there is NO background under black cat, use Separations panel for check). When you apply 50 % opacity at it, result will be 50 % black + 50 % from background (so 50 % less background as text + border, so looks and really is lighter).

To match your blacks, set Multiply to your cat image in Effects panel (keep existing 50 % opacity), so cat will overprint full background, same as text and border.

(When you check the Isolate blending for stroke, you just isolate it from background (so no more overprinting), resulting in 50 % of black and 50 % of background. It will too match your black (with no Multiply on cat), just different way.) You say you prefer keep 100 % background, so use Multiply for cat and no Isolate blending for stroke.

[detritus books]

Yay! That did it! Thanks so much for the help rudo123 and Rob Day!!!

[detritus books]

Okay maybe I spoke too soon. It looks right in InDesign but the exported PDF is still mismatched...

[detritus books]

Only now the colors are flipped, the border being the more grayish gray...