Ink density warning indesign

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
January 7, 2023
4 replies
693 views

Hi,

I was designing a menu in indesign. My logo, which consists of an icon and name of the company was made in photoshop. I exported that logo as a png file. Before I exported the file I had checked the ink density of the name in the logo in photoshop. It was CMYK - 0 0 0 100. When I imported the png in indesign on an background which has a CMYK value of 0 6 13 13, for some reason the Seperations preview warned me that my ink density reached over 300%. I couldn't find out why this happened. I worked around it by typing the company name in indesign. Instead of via the png file which was created in photoshop.

But I still don't know why this happened. Can anyone explain?

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer Derek Cross

Try Placing the logo in InDesign as a PSD file.

rob day

Community Expert

My logo, which consists of an icon and name of the company was made in photoshop.

You can not save a CMYK file in the PNG format. You can Export a CMYK file to PNG, but it would be converted to RGB.

Separation Preview would show the expected color conversion of placed RGB color to the document’s assigned CMYK profile. Here’s a placed RGB PNG (top) and a placed CMYK PSD with no embedded color profile (bottom). The document’s assigned CMYK profile is Coated GRACoL 2006, which allows a total ink of 340% on a conversion from RGB to CMYK:

C

Chi5C80Author

Participating Frequently

Makes sense to me now. Now I know that png files can't be CMYK even though exported to CMYK in for example photoshop. Thx again all.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

The real issue is that PNG is only RGB. The RGB black would be converted to a CMYK black (numbers may vary depending on color settings).

For black-only (100K) logos, I use LZW-compressed TIFFs. Ideally, created/scanned at high-resolution (1200-1500) as line art (Bitmap mode). The logo will be as crisp as a vector logo and can be re-colored in InDesign.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)