CMYK Black

[Belly_Buckle@adobeforums.com]

Hi all.

I just have a quick question: why is the CMYK black a dull black? When I create my files for print, I like to set all the CMYK colours to 100% for a nice rich black.

Is there any advantage to using straight K black as it is?

B.

[Bob Levine]

> When I create my files for print, I like to set all the CMYK colours to 100% for a nice rich black.

That is not a nice rich black...it's registration and going to result in
lousy output and/or increase fees for fixing it. 300% is about as high
as you should go for ink coverage and even that's going to be too high
with cheap uncoated paper. A nice rich rich black is 100% black with
about 20% cyan.

> Is there any advantage to using straight K black as it is?

Depends on what you're doing. But that's what you should be using for
text. Take a look at a newspaper...black is never black...it's more like
a very dark gray.

Bob

[Belly_Buckle@adobeforums.com]

Thanks, Bob!! I really appreciate this.
b.

[Marco_A_SantaMaria@adobeforums.com]

You might like to do a search on this forum, we have discussed what makes a nice rich Black, and from what I can remember it all depended on what you wanted to portrait.
Some like 60C, 40M, 40Y, 100K; others different variant on the CMY, and also depending the paper they might use.
One thing remains certain, watch for the % of ink coverage, you do not want it to look muddy. (never more than 300, once I heard keep it between 275 and 295, but that might have been a preference of my friend.)