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Participant
September 19, 2018
Answered

What color management settings should I use to accurately print rich black?

  • September 19, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 6435 views

When printed via Adobe Acrobat (or printed directly from Adobe InDesign), a .pdf with #000000 (C: 30, M:30, Y:30, K:100) text is coming out with a blueish hue, while printed via Chrome gives an accurate rich black.

On a PC with Windows 7.

Thanks!

Kirby

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Dov Isaacs

Forget about directly printing from InDesign in terms of high quality printed output.

From Acrobat or Reader, R=G=B=0 (RGB “black”) does by default print as CMYK=(0,0,0,1) if the proper option is set in the Advanced (Color Management) print options. This option is treat grays as K-only grays, which outputs R=G=B to CMYK=(0,0,0,1-(R=G=B)). This only works properly for PostScript printers.

Printing R=G=B to non-PostScript devices depends on the printer and its driver.

          - Dov

2 replies

Dov Isaacs
Dov IsaacsCorrect answer
Legend
September 21, 2018

Forget about directly printing from InDesign in terms of high quality printed output.

From Acrobat or Reader, R=G=B=0 (RGB “black”) does by default print as CMYK=(0,0,0,1) if the proper option is set in the Advanced (Color Management) print options. This option is treat grays as K-only grays, which outputs R=G=B to CMYK=(0,0,0,1-(R=G=B)). This only works properly for PostScript printers.

Printing R=G=B to non-PostScript devices depends on the printer and its driver.

          - Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
c9637m
Participant
June 13, 2023

Dov, Thanks.  Just what I was looking for!  Regards, Charles
Upvote from me though I can't click for it.

Legend
September 20, 2018

What printer? What driver?

What do you mean by "#000000 (C: 30, M:30, Y:30, K:100) " - #0000000 is RGB black, and its conversion to CMYK will depend on the profiles used or assumed for RGB and CMYK. So what actual colour and profile is used?

Lukas Engqvist
Community Expert
Community Expert
September 22, 2018

The exact value for a neutral Rich Black is device and substrate dependent. Also I would strongly discourage rich black for text (Unless it is large bold heading type, but this also is dependent on substrate and process)