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alisham97053135
alisham97053135
Participating Frequently
May 2, 2020
Question

Black is printing dull - help me!

  • May 2, 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 1312 views

For awhile, my product labels were being printed from Illustrator with a rich, deep black. At some point, something happened and now the black is printing very dull. It's been like this for months - I've contacted Brother to troubleshoot and they said the problem was not my printer, but rather a setting in Illustrator. I've tried contacting Adobe but can't get through to them (on hold forever).

 

I've messed around with settings on both my printer and Illustrator and have already tried a factory reset on both. Nothing seems to work. What do I need to do in order to get my labels printing rich black again? Someone, please help me! TIA

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2 replies

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Monika GauseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
May 2, 2020

What kind of printer is that?

And can we see a photo of that print? Possibly very close up, please.

    alisham97053135
    alisham97053135Author
    Participating Frequently
    May 2, 2020

    It's a Brother laser printer L3270CDW

     

    You can see that the label on the left is a rich black - how they've always printed for me.

    The label on the right is now printing much duller.

     

     

    Monika Gause
    Community Expert
    Monika GauseCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    May 2, 2020

    If you look at the bottom of both pictures and look at the border on the labels, you can see that the left label is much richer. 

     

    Yes, it is postscript enabled.

    The halftone screening is turned off in the print settings.

    I've tried on black and white, as well as color, and auto. The mono tone comes out the best, but still not as rich as it's supposed to be.


    OK, I see.

    Now Illustrator sends what you define. And the "Print Rich black" setting shouldn't change anything for PostScript enabled printers. If the printer received it, then I suppose it's more likely this happened because of some weird color management setting (in the print dialog).

     

    What happens when you set up the black as rich black in the document?

    Just add some CMY to the black.

    Doug A Roberts
    Community Expert
    Doug A RobertsCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    May 2, 2020

    What is the makeup of the black you're using? What is the colour mode of the document you're printing from?

      alisham97053135
      alisham97053135Author
      Participating Frequently
      May 2, 2020

      I've always used 0/0/0/100 and the appearance of blacks has always been rich black. I've never had to mess with the color properties before - so I'm not sure what could have changed to make the printer stop printing a rich black. The color mode of the Illustrator document is CMYK.

      Doug A Roberts
      Community Expert
      Doug A RobertsCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      May 2, 2020

      In Preferences > Appearance of Black, what do the settings there say?

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