My grayscale tiffs are printing with some color in them

[Brian_Schlueter@adobeforums.com]

I have some data sheets created with ID 2.0.1 that contain B&W Illust. drawings, color Illust. drawings, colored boxes created in ID, and photos which are tiffs saved as greyscale in Photoshop. When I print to our color HP laser, the photos are made up of all 4 colors of toner.

I would like keep the color elements the way they are, but have the grayscale photos print in only black, as they would at the print shop. I don't know if CMY colors are being generated from PS, ID, or the printer. ID help also says that color management is not supported for grayscale.

Any hints would be appreciated.

[Scott_Falkner@adobeforums.com]

This could be a "feature" of your printer or printer driver to enhance the appearance of GS images by using CMY.

[Boyan_Mladenov@adobeforums.com]

What's the color space of your document? Is it RGB or CMYK? Have you option to choose between "Composite RGB" and "Composite CMYK" in Print dialog?

Boyan

[Robert_Levine@adobeforums.com]

Composite CMYK would only be available with a postscript printer.

Bob

[Brian_Schlueter@adobeforums.com]

When I print, the print space is CMYK.

When a photo is converted to grayacale in PhotoShop and then placed into ID, it should not have any color info associated with it right?

[Robert_Levine@adobeforums.com]

It's technically a CMYK graphic since all you want is black.

Bob

[Guy_Halligan@adobeforums.com]

This is the same problem I'm having. Even if the "grayscale" is converted to CMYK, the final print should be basically the same as a grayscale. Whenever there's a grayscale picture placed above another object, background for instance, the color from the back comes through. I've done this for years in PageMaker and QuarkXPress with no problem, so what's the problem here—or more importantly: what's the solution?

If you fill the picture box with white, will that stop the other colors?

[Robert_Levine@adobeforums.com]

> Even if the "grayscale" is converted to CMYK, the final print should be basically the same as a grayscale.

Not necessarily. If done in Photoshop, you'll get a four color gray.
Additionally, if that graphic overprints instead of knocking out the
background the color underneath will bleed through.

Bob

[Guy_Halligan@adobeforums.com]

Bob, I appreciate your reply, but I need a solution!

Does anyone from Adobe look at this forum?

I really need a work-around or whatever will work.

[Robert_Levine@adobeforums.com]

The solution is make sure that the graphic is not set to overprint.

Bob

[Guy_Halligan@adobeforums.com]

I only see how to set fills and strokes to overprint. How do you set or not set the graphic to overprint? By the way, neither of the above is set to overprint since I want the picture itself to knockout and the strokes are CMYK.

[Robert_Levine@adobeforums.com]

With ID 2.0, the only way you're going to be able to see if you're
getting proper separations is to print the seps to a postscript printer.

If you have Acrobat 6 Professional, then you can export to PDF and check
the separations in the separations preview on screen. ID CS also has
this feature.

Also, make sure that any color management in your printer's driver is
turned OFF to keep it from conflicting with ID's color management.

Bob

[Mike_McCallion@adobeforums.com]

Hi:
If, in the printer dialogue set up, there is a "print grayscale" box, check it. Your printer is printing CMYK with all four colors present and it may be somewaht blueish. It is not true grayscale.
Mike

[Gernot_Hoffmann@adobeforums.com]

A safe method in Photoshop:

Convert RGB to Grayscale

Color Settings / CMYK (your default profile) /
Custom / Black generation 100%

Convert Grayscale to CMYK

Result: 4 plates, but CMY are empty.

Using Grayscale directly is not safe.

Best regards --Gernot Hoffmann

[Bob_Levine]

> Using Grayscale directly is not safe.

Could you expand on that a bit? I've used grayscale graphics on many
occassions for one color jobs and have never had an issue.

Bob