From: Clare [mailto:clare@typeshop.co.nz]
Date: Fri, Apr 14, 2000, 2:41 PM
RE: Rich black
What percentages do you think best for rich black? I used to use 30-30-30-100 but read somewhere it is better to leave out the yellow because it can muddy the rest of the job, although jobs with rich black looked fine with that configuration. I am curious about what people on this list use.Thanks
Clare Strange
From: Dan Margulis
Date: Fri, Apr 14, 2000, 8:53 PM
RE: Rich black
Clare writes:>>What percentages do you think best for rich black? I used to use 30-30-30-100 but read somewhere it is better to leave out the yellow because it can muddy the rest of the job, although jobs with rich black looked fine with that configuration.>>
I've always seen 40C 100K. Adding yellow is useless, the ink is too light. The idea of adding the undercolor is not so much to darken as to eliminate printing inconsistencies. Generally it would be better to use a single undercolor than two or three because of the possibility of misregistration. And using cyan rather than magenta makes for a marginally cooler-looking black, which is what most people are looking for. Going beyond around 50% of the undercolor really doesn't add that much darkness when there is that much black present.
Adding other colors may make sense if there is a trapping problem.
Dan Margulis
From: Chris Murphy
Date: Fri, Apr 14, 2000, 5:55 PM
RE: RE: Rich black
>Our standard is 60/40/40/100. I would think you'd want a CMY that is
>relatively nuetral, so I can't see what eliminating the yellow would
>accomplish. I've worked at one place where the standard was 40C, 100K.
>They swore by it.Well it's a matter of gray balance. If they have a redish black, 40c 100k is probably a good thing for them. I'd be looking at a better black ink of course, but sometimes it's the paper or just the color gods.
For SWOP, the blackest black I'm getting based on TR001 measurement data and a particular profiling package is 78, 71, 71, 100 - which not coincidentally comes out as the 320% total ink limit.
Chris Murphy
From: J Walton
Date: Fri, Apr 14, 2000, 5:44 PM
RE: RE: Rich black
Our standard is 60/40/40/100. I would think you'd want a CMY that is relatively neutral, so I can't see what eliminating the yellow would accomplish. I've worked at one place where the standard was 40C, 100K. They swore by it.I like the 60/40/40 standard, simply because I can get away with common color in a lot of trapping situations, and it's pretty nuetral, if on the cool side.
From: Bryan Stalcup
Date: Fri, Apr 14, 2000, 4:06 PM
RE: RE: Rich black
My company's house rich black is:65C 50M 35Y 100K
this is a pretty deep black
bryan stalcup
classic graphics
bryans@cgraphics.com
From: leeb@ids.net (Lee Blevins)
Date: Fri, Apr 14, 2000, 6:52 PM
RE: Re: Rich black
Applied Color Theory in Photoshop
> Our standard is 60/40/40/100. I would think you'd want a CMY that is
> relatively nuetral, so I can't see what eliminating the yellow would
> accomplish. I've worked at one place where the standard was 40C, 100K.
> They swore by it.That's the exact numbers we use.
It also falls at a 240 dmax which should meet anyones specs.
From: leeb@ids.net (Lee Blevins)
Date: Sat, Apr 15, 2000, 5:35 AM
RE: Re: Rich black
> I've always seen 40C 100K. Adding yellow is useless, the ink is too light.Your're showing your age Dan. We did that years ago.
Now that modern rips that handle trapping deal with the keep aways for rich (4 color) blacks it's not a problem.
From: Dan Margulis
Date: Sat, Apr 15, 2000, 11:58 AM
RE: Re: Rich black
Lee writes:>>Your're showing your age Dan. We did that years ago.>>
Amazing how practicality never goes out of style! In-rip trapping has been a viable option since 1989, before most people knew what a rich black was.
>>Now that modern rips that handle trapping deal with the keep aways for rich (4 color) blacks it's not a problem.>>
Certainly, if you can give me a guarantee that the job will always under any future conceivable circumstances run with such a RIP; that the RIP will always function perfectly; and that you will eat the cost of the job if either of these things fail to happen.
As with your ideas about total ink, you have to ask yourself, what do I think I'm gaining in return for the very small risk of something going wrong? Adding 40% of either cyan or magenta seems to me to help enough that it's worth the risk. Then adding more of the second color will have almost no impact, and adding yellow as well *will* have no impact. So what's the point?
It sounds to me like you have been hanging around with the color management types too long. You are saying, I have a new and more complicated way to do things; all you have to do is buy a piece of expensive equipment and get trained on it, and provided that everything works properly, you'll have just as good a result as if you hadn't bothered.
Dan Margulis
From: Shane Steinman
Date: Sat, Apr 15, 2000, 1:57 PM
RE: Re: Rich black
Okay, just one more...Lee Blevins wrote:
> There is a BIG difference between how a "rich black" looks in 4C repro
> than how just putting 40% cyan under a solid black looks.True - but usually only if there's a point of reference to judge it by. Eg. A photo Black in close proximity.
Most clients are predisposed toward coolness in shadows anyway.
On a very long run with large Black areas, you can save a lot of ink by leaving out the M & Y.
Cheers,
Shane
-- Shane Steinman
dMACS Project Head
Digital Magazine Advertising Canadian Specifications
c/o ArchAngel Media Inc.
15 Kirkland Court, Richmond Hill, ON L4C 9H4 Canada
Tel/Fax: (416) 410-3355 mailto:shane@dMACS.org
From: Shane Steinman
Date: Sat, Apr 15, 2000, 1:50 PM
RE: Re: Rich black
Just one more note on Rich Black...Under the MAC Specification (Canadian Magazines) it's quite possible to drive your Black right up to the 300% max, maybe composed of 70C 65M 65Y 100K but I wouldn't call it advisable.
If there's a real need for DEEP Black, I'd err on the side of caution and go 60C 50M 40Y 100K - or something in that range. That gives you 250% coverage in that area, which should be enough for even the most enthusiastic noire-ophile.
Cheers,
Shane
-- Shane Steinman
dMACS Project Head
Digital Magazine Advertising Canadian Specifications
c/o ArchAngel Media Inc.
15 Kirkland Court, Richmond Hill, ON L4C 9H4 Canada
Tel/Fax: (416) 410-3355 mailto:shane@dMACS.org
From: leeb@ids.net (Lee Blevins)
Date: Sat, Apr 15, 2000, 1:45 PM
RE: Re: Rich black
> Certainly, if you can give me a guarantee that the job will always under
> any future conceivable circumstances run with such a RIP; that the RIP will
> always function perfectly; and that you will eat the cost of the job if
> either of these things fail to happen.There are no guarantees in anything. I can't guarantee the operator who outputs your job is competent. I would hope that any output would include the ability to choke back color under solid black. If they can't do that they're probably not trapping other things so there's more to worry about than just keep aways under solids.
I think the reason we used to use a 40% cyan kicker under black didn't have as much to do with how it looked but rather the cost of producing it.
In the days that was fashionable we charged per screen tint to lay up so the cheapest way out was to use a single 40% screen on the cyan. To lay up tints for a "rich black" would require two more tints be stripped and angled. That would be more tints, more mylar and more stripping time and more burns in either film composting or plate making. It costs more and took longer so using only a cyan seemed like a good idea.
There is a BIG difference between how a "rich black" looks in 4C repro than how just putting 40% cyan under a solid black looks.
In my shop we routinely convert large black solids to 100, 60, 40, 40.
Actually, I don't even remember the term being called "rich black" untill we had desktop publishing and laying up screen tints wasn't an issue anymore.
It would be interesting to know when the term "rich black" actually came into being.
From: Shane Steinman
Date: Sat, Apr 15, 2000, 1:26 PM
RE: Re: Rich black
> Lee writes:> >>Now that modern rips that handle trapping deal with the keep aways for
> rich (4 color) blacks it's not a problem.>>Hi Lee,
Even if you're not running IRT or a Scitex Brisque or whatever, this is an easy problem to overcome regardless of your personal Rich Black preference.
Just swell white type, but compose it of 0.1% of each of CMY.
No sweat. No IRT? No problem.
If your type is yellow or some other colour, just add 0.1% of any unused colour to the type - if that colour's used to reinforce the Black - and swell. C'est tout.
I've been using 40%C 100%K for years as my standard Rich Black, but occasionally I'll deviate from that for special circumstances, like;
- if my flat Black needs to match a photo Black on the same page
- if I want to "cast" the look of the Black for aesthetic purposes
- if my contracted printer has a tendency to thin out the Black
- if there's no possibility of trapping due to software problems
- if I'm doing process fingerprinting
- if I HAVE to add M to the CK, I'll always add Yellow, too
- if I feel like doing something different - just because
- if my client insists s/he HAS TO HAVE IT THAT WAYBut, in 95% of standard jobs, 40%C 100%K just works so well. If I go 4-colour Black, I don't get too fussy about the values. Usually, 40C 30M 20Y 100K does the trick, but I might vary this if the muse takes me.
Best,
Shane
-- Shane Steinman
dMACS Project Head
Digital Magazine Advertising Canadian Specifications
c/o ArchAngel Media Inc.
15 Kirkland Court, Richmond Hill, ON L4C 9H4 Canada
Tel/Fax: (416) 410-3355 mailto:shane@dMACS.org
From: Chris Murphy
Date: Sat, Apr 15, 2000, 1:25 PM
RE: Re: Rich black
>As with your ideas about total ink, you have to ask yourself, what do I
>think I'm gaining in return for the very small risk of something going
>wrong? Adding 40% of either cyan or magenta seems to me to help enough that
>it's worth the risk. Then adding more of the second color will have almost
>no impact, and adding yellow as well *will* have no impact. So what's the
>point?The point is that it's not always the same on all presses. 40c,0,0,100k has a predicted Lab value of 1,-1,-1 which is pretty darn black and neutral. This is for SWOP using the ColorMatch 3.01 SWOP profile that's been floating around for some time and proven to work very well in SWOP applications (and in applications where you don't know the conditions it will be printed in).
40c,0,0,100k has a predicted Lab value of 22, -5, 2 on a press using CTP platemaking, for which I made a profile they've been using for a number of months with very good success as well. In order to balance out the black and make it darker (22L* isn't good enough), that press needs 67,76,68,99 in order to get to Lab 2,0,0. Even 60,40,40,100 comes up as 18,0,-1. Not dark enough.
So let's look at black only on these two presses. 100% black on the SWOP press is 4,0,0 and on the CTP press it's 21,-2,2. For the SWOP press, adding 40% cyan doesn't help it out a whole lot. For the CTP press adding a lot of ink is necessary to get a richer black.
My conclusion then as it is now, with all of these people talking about how much ink they have to add to their blacks explains their unbelievably high need for a total ink limit. They're black sucks. I thought it looked grey then and they said their customers didn't have a problem with it. So I did my job anyway, things are better than they were, but I held them to a 310% ink limit, and even though it ended up with gobs of ink, they got their black; despite a 100%k bringing in only 21L*. I still haven't heard a logical explanation for needing 400% TAC.
I think these two issues are interrelated and are consistently showing those needing massive amounts of all three process inks to get a rich black are also saying "to hell" with specifications limiting out total ink limits, "we" get better results our customers like when we print 400% ink. There is a trend and it's saying something loud as a bell, at least to me and I'm sure Dan is going to agree at least in spirit if not in words.
>It sounds to me like you have been hanging around with the color management
>types too long.I will pretend you didn't say that, Dan.
Chris Murphy
From: Dan Margulis
Date: Sun, Apr 16, 2000, 12:33 AM
RE: Re: Rich black
Chris writes:>>The point is that it's not always the same on all presses. 40c,0,0,100k has a predicted Lab value of 1,-1,-1 which is pretty darn black and neutral. This is for SWOP using the ColorMatch 3.01 SWOP profile that's been floating around for some time and proven to work very well in SWOP applications (and in applications where you don't know the conditions it will be printed in).
I don't know where that number came from but it certainly isn't real-world. You wouldn't get something that dark even with two hits of black ink.
>>40c,0,0,100k has a predicted Lab value of 22, -5, 2 on a press using CTP platemaking, for which I made a profile they've been using for a number of months with very good success as well. In order to balance out the black and make it darker (22L* isn't good enough), that press needs 67,76,68,99 in order to get to Lab 2,0,0. Even 60,40,40,100 comes up as 18,0,-1. Not dark enough.
I don't know where this number comes from either. You can hardly characterize this printing as CMYK, it's more like CMYG. If the number is accurate, then, yeah, I guess we'd have to add more undercolor to get a rich black. >>My conclusion then as it is now, with all of these people talking about how much ink they have to add to their blacks explains their unbelievably high need for a total ink limit. They're black sucks.
Possibly. More likely it's force of habit. Go back to 1990 and a 340 shadow would be made of 95C 85M 85Y 75K, because the technology of the time didn't allow any other option. Under those circumstances, going higher than 340 in some images made sense. Nowadays we can arrange for the black to be 95% in the shadow without bombarding the rest of the image with it, so the old arguments aren't really valid, but some people still remember them.
>>I think these two issues are interrelated and are consistently showing those needing massive amounts of all three process inks to get a rich black are also saying "to hell" with specifications limiting out total ink limits, "we" get better results our customers like when we print 400% ink. There is a trend and it's saying something loud as a bell, at least to me and I'm sure Dan is going to agree at least in spirit if not in words.>>
I agree that they are interrelated. I also agree with Lee that specifications should be read as suggestions and not as commands. As far as "our clients like it this way", this cliche is an occupational hazard for persons of intelligence such as Lee and yourself. People who think about the way things work and who are willing to try new approaches are almost always going to get better results than those who blindly follow the conventional wisdom. Obviously, Lee is going to get better results than the average printer and his clients will appreciate this. Similarly, when you go in and profile a new printing process things are almost certain to go better afterward and the client will appreciate that as well. This, however, does not prove that every technique the two of you use is the correct one.
Dan Margulis
From: RCP
Date: Sat, Apr 15, 2000, 11:52 PM
RE: Re: Rich black & Press Conditions!
I have a slightly stronger Rich Black (Nicknamed Richie Blackmore!!) for the digital press I work on (Agfa Chromapress) 70C 60M 60Y 100K. I will experiment taking out the yellow in the future, being a big risktaker!! The aforementioned recipe should work well with all Xeikon based presses.Question about profiles, my press conditions change almost weekly, so how can I "Profile" my press? What I have done is Print a file weekly so customers can match it to their monitors. I started with 50 prints and have received 0 pickups! I have done this for a month, and will keep it going, but I am discouraged.
Alan is quite correct about clients doing the least and expecting the most.
I work in a service bureau and one of the toughest aspects of my job is dealing with clients who do not prepare files properly. Indexed color, RGB, PSD, and yikes Multichannel are a regular occurence. Being a service bureau, we have a lower markup on printed jobs than a full service print provider. That said however, I gladly fix jobs for a price, which brings margins up, and gets the customer the job on time. Of the hundreds of customers that I have dealt with in the last year, only 2 have made Postscript files and fixed images to meet the press requirements. A dozen or so customers have left, vowing to never work with me again, for not fixing files! Half came back, sheepishly, admitting error, several cameback with attitudes and several, well MIA!
Customers would do well to call and simply ask for directions. It would save time and MONEY!
Have a great weekend
Rodip
From: Chris Murphy
Date: Sun, Apr 16, 2000, 3:26 PM
RE: Re: Rich black
>Well, the clients must like it, right?The clients really don't know any better. I made the profile as a means to be able to proof the press which they currently don't do (at least not very well); not for making separations although with the press behaving the way it does I would think the separations using the profile would be more appropriate given the bizarre condition.
Chris Murphy
From: Chris Murphy
Date: Sun, Apr 16, 2000, 3:21 PM
RE: Re: Rich black & Press Conditions!
Rodip writes:
>>Question about profiles, my press conditions change almost weekly, so how can I "Profile" my press? >>I personally wouldn't bother. I would first get some process control going. Start out with GRACoL, then optimize the press from there. Once optimized, good process control strategy makes it much easier to keep the press behavior consistent. If the problem in consistency is your ink supply or paper, a good quality control program will allow you to figure this out. As you move to a new batch of ink or paper, pressman need to be more keen on looking for consistency problems. I know dozens of printers that allow themselves to receive slightly different batches of ink and paper every month. You must include the paper and ink vendors in on your quality control program and make them accountable for their products, just like your customers hold you accountable for yours.
>>What I have done is Print a file weekly so
>>customers can match it to their monitors.You're wasting your time. That method is not only archaic, but is the least best way to get a monitor to simulate a press. The problem is not with the monitor, the problem is with CMYK Setup. They don't have applicable separation tables or ICC profiles set in Photoshop, and therefore they will not and can not see an accurate preview of CMYK images nor make good separations of RGB images.
>>I started with 50 prints and have
>>received 0 pickups! I have done this for a month, and will keep it going,
>>but I am discouraged.If they don't care to improve their process control at their location then perhaps high quality color isn't important to them. In my opinion the customer needs to be a part of the process too and if they are simply unwilling to do anything at all, then they get what they get. If you have the resources and they have the money, you can do all of it (scans, separations, proofing, and output) and produce a high quality product. But if they want to do the scans and separations to save money, they need to either become a part of a SYSTEM or they need to realize their complaining about color is their fault too.
>I would tend to make the profile with the Photoshop
>built-in setup rather than with ICC methodology inasmuch as I would expect
>to have to edit it frequently. I suggest also running jobs with color bars
>that contain small images, not just color swatches. This helps in
>diagnosing how the press is behaving on a given day.These are reasonably suggestions for getting started, and until we have ICC profile editing in Photoshop (or separation tables go away entirely). I would add for ALL printers they need to be checking for each job and through a run the following:
1. ink densities, make sure they are where you want them (either per a specification, or if you are deciding to print better than a specification that they are meeting your target in-house numbers)
2. dot gain, again make sure the dot gain is at the target dot gain and control it on press (NONE of the top 20 printers in the US use the imagesetter to control dot gain; packing, ink tack, water-ink balance, temperature - and other effect dot gain)
3. Print contrast
4. Gray balance
Fewer than half measure dot gain for each job during the press run. Fewer than 10% are measuring gray balance for each job during the press run. If you do this, you will have a more consistent process than most printers.
Chris Murphy
From: Dan Margulis
Date: Sun, Apr 16, 2000, 11:18 AM
RE: Re: Rich black & Press Conditions!
Rodip writes:>>Question about profiles, my press conditions change almost weekly, so how
can I "Profile" my press? What I have done is Print a file weekly so
customers can match it to their monitors. I started with 50 prints and have
received 0 pickups! I have done this for a month, and will keep it going,
but I am discouraged.You're basically doing all you can, other than looking for the specific reasons that there is such variability. Climate control can help a lot with this type of device, for example. But still, like any other press, there is going to be variability. So, you try to make an "average" profile based on what you see over time. I would tend to make the profile with the Photoshop built-in setup rather than with ICC methodology inasmuch as I would expect to have to edit it frequently. I suggest also running jobs with color bars that contain small images, not just color swatches. This helps in diagnosing how the press is behaving on a given day.
As for the clients who are not interested in the process, this does not come as much of a shock.
Dan Margulis
From: Dan Margulis
Date: Sun, Apr 16, 2000, 11:18 AM
RE: Re: Rich black
Chris writes:>>That press I measured myself and it did have a weak black. I pointed this out, but they didn't think it was a problem.
Well, the clients must like it, right?
>>Old arguments for lots of undercolor addition, or old arguments for total ink limits?
UCA is a very lame way of strengthening a shadow. In the old days it was needed because there wasn't any way of generating enough black to get a reasonable shadow otherwise. Nowadays those people who are using it generally do so because they have the Photoshop max black set at 100% in CMYK Setup. This gives a very cheesy-looking shadow in CMY, so, having shotthemselves in the foot, they apply UCA as a bandage.
Ink limits both old and new are quite arbitrary. Nobody really does any testing AFAIK to see what problems if any actually develop on press if the limit is too high. It's certainly true that running large areas of 320 on newsprint or 350 on a non-heatset web is going to cause smearing and ink contamination. But AFAIK nobody really knows how big those areas have to be or what the realistic number is that might cause the effect, or whether certain mixtures of certain inks adding to a certain total would not be a problem, but another mix adding up to the same thing would be.
I therefore think the question is not whether 340 or whatever is technically feasible but whether the printer will reject the job if it's prepared that way. Getting a phone call in the middle of the night from the printer explaining that your film has just been used to line the bottom of a bird cage because of an ink limit violation is not a pleasant experience, trust me.
Dan Margulis
From: Chris Murphy
Date: Sun, Apr 16, 2000, 3:01 AM
RE: Re: Rich black
>I don't know where that number came from but it certainly isn't real-world.
>You wouldn't get something that dark even with two hits of black ink.Those are based on measurements. I didn't do the measurement so I can't say for sure if the editing process is causing a few L* lower to occur.
>I don't know where this number comes from either. You can hardly
>characterize this printing as CMYK, it's more like CMYG. If the number is
>accurate, then, yeah, I guess we'd have to add more undercolor to get a
>rich black.That press I measured myself and it did have a weak black. I pointed this out, but they didn't think it was a problem.
>Nowadays we can arrange for the black to be 95% in
>the shadow without bombarding the rest of the image with it, so the old
>arguments aren't really valid, but some people still remember them.Old arguments for lots of undercolor addition, or old arguments for total ink limits?
>I agree that they are interrelated. I also agree with Lee that
>specifications should be read as suggestions and not as commands.Yes but sure you don't agree busting total ink limit by more than a little, like 10%. Going from 340% to 400% I don't think you would say is "OK" and that it's probably a better idea to find out why so much ink is needed. There are logical reasons why we don't print with 400% ink, even today.
>This, however, does not prove that every technique the two of you use is the correct one.
That's not what I'm arguing. I'm arguing total ink limits exist for a reason, and on this list is the first I've ever heard of people printing 400% ink without problems, without any modification of ink tack (or other modification for that matter), a reason why so much ink is needed, or anyone with more press experience (both theory and application; classroom and real life experience) saying this is OK. I've never heard this and I've even asked a few of them and they feel they aren't getting all the information on why this is being done.
Chris Murphy
Adobe Photoshop training classes are taught in the US by Sterling Ledet & Associates, Inc.