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Oliver TLOF
Participant
September 1, 2025
Question

Grey Images (grey/8bit) from Photoshop in Indesign to flat

  • September 1, 2025
  • 3 replies
  • 177 views

Hello Indesign Community,

we are preparing a fine art print for a client.

Our pictures are grey/8bit converted RGB.
In photoshop (and on our Canon Imageprograf printer) blacks are great.
But in indesign pictures flatten out to grey. No real blacks. Also in exported PDF.

We tried different color profiles. No success. The printing company says, there is no black in the file, but when we open the linked files in PS everything is great.

preview in Indesign vs. Photoshop.

 

Any experience with that problem? Would be a great help!

Oh, we just print the K channel for fine art. So no rich black discussion, please 🙂

 

Oliver

 

 

3 replies

rob day
Community Expert
rob dayCommunity Expert
Community Expert
September 1, 2025

we got RGB images from the photographer and converted them to grey 8 bit in Photoshop

 

Hi @Oliver TLOF , InDesign does not have grayscale color management. It displays grayscale images as they will print on the Black CMYK plate when you have Overprint Preview turned on. With Overprint turned off grayscales are displayed as sGray (2.2 Gamma), which is useful for screen only projects.

 

If you turn on Oveprint Preview the grayscales will preview using your document’s assigned CMYK profile—Edit>Assign Profiles... Here are some related threads:

 

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign/exporting-rgb-cmyk-and-grayscale-to-print-pdf/m-p/10990825?p...

 

 

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign/dot-gain-or-gray-gamma/td-p/8365606?page=1

    Willi Adelberger
    Community Expert
    Willi AdelbergerCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 1, 2025

    Did you save the geyscale images without color profie? Try that!

    E
    Community Expert
    Eugene TysonCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 1, 2025

    Your file is in RGB - so there is no black. 

    You should make your images Grayscale in Photoshop if that's the case of no rich black. 

     

    Try it on some test documents - duplicate some images and try to convert them to grayscale. 

    The better way is with UCR/GCR adjustment. 
    https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/apply-ucr-gcr/m-p/11786684

    O
    Oliver TLOFAuthor
    Participant
    September 1, 2025

    Hi,

    as I explained, we got RGB images from the photographer and converted them to grey 8 bit in Photoshop. Great till that step!

    Now we place them in an Indesign Document. There we have CMYK document, as some pages have color. 

    And the picture immediately flattens out in preview and in the PDF. As if Indesign misinterpretes the File/Color profile?

     

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