CS3: CMYK black prints as gray

[ppc_michael]

I've been working on a thing in InDesign CS3, and the text is set to CMYK black. InDesign adjusts it properly so that it displays true black on screen, but when I actually print my document, the text is a bit gray.

This also happens in Illustrator.

What's up with that?

 

[bexster]

I've not come across your problem - maybe thats cos i rarely print 100% - generally if i want to print black i do 100% black & 40% cyan.

Maybe google your printer make and model and known issues with CS3? I always have printer issues with new updates of Quark -usually its a printer driver out of date somewhere!

 

[rjfiske]

Yeah from what I understand this is actually normal behavior believe it or not. 100% K and 0% of C M Y isn't in fact true black. True black (or rich black) is 100%K and some percentage of the others, as bexter made reference to.

I believe Steve Holmes from Total Training recommended 20% C, 40% M, 50% Y and 100% K but don't quote me on that. Deke McClelland recommends 40/40/40/100, also again from memory. Other users, PLEASE feel free to correct, as I don't do a bunch of printing.

See this for how to view this onscreen when using InDesign or Illustrator:
Rich Black Preferences

Hope it helps!

 

[Belly-laughs]

I had the same issue with both my printers from AI and InDesign. It´s a profile/PostScrip/printer setting issue, I think.

I tried the "richest" of blacks, still they printed grey. Printing a PDF of the documents from Preview made the black print as expected. Fiddling a bit with profiles and settings on the printers sorted the problem.

 

[Blue Velvet]

My usual rich black is 40C 20M 20Y 100K... dense enough but won't flood. Been using it for years.

 

[ppc_michael]

Oh! Thank you, adding some CMY worked. I had no idea!

 

[tsd]

adjust settings

You can adjust the color settings in the program's Preferences panes to always output rich black also. That way you don't have to worry with the percentages, though I do prefer having the control over how my blacks output.