Adobe Illustrator - Issues with black colour management when printing

[ThorLeo]

Hello Community!
I have to say, I'm just an amateur graphic designer (I do have a Graphic Designer Diploma tho, took ages ago).  I read million posts about this issue, watched youtube videos and tried all the options, etc but nothing worked out for me. I wonder why there are so many people having issues with managing printing blacks? It feels to me it's more about how the black is blended and managed in the printed process and  if could be an issue that should be solved from a software perspective/communication incompatibility with some printers/setting.

I've been using Illustrator for many years and I've never had this issue before until more recent times - hence my big struggle to understand when, how it happens and comes from. 
As many others, the issue is that my blacks comes slightly greyish/magentaish (as if it's a bit faded) through all the document affecting also illustrations from the web or photographs etc.
So, it happens not only to text or any vector I personally create but it's a general issue of any graphics. For example, even if I print a photograph I took or any other image/vector from the web, the issue still persists.

Because of that, I believe it has nothing to do with me setting the right % of colours to get a true black on vectors/text etc. You can see the difference on my attachment. The tube stations line is an image from the web; the crown is also a vector also from the web. In the copy underenath both text and illustrations have a much deeper/rich blacks (which are used for shadows etc too).
I even cleaned and printed the catridges test and the "100% black" comes out fine.

Weird thing: I saved my file in pdf and printed through Adobe Acrobat: the blacks/colours come out correct. I need to print borderless tho and it seems there's not such an option with Adobe Acrobat.
I tried printing the pdf file with Preview and even with Preview there is again the issue of the black been less rich.
With Preview, It also happen even when I printed some photographs on glossy photo paper. I wonder if there is somehow an issue of communication between those softwares and the printer and why it doesn't happen with Adobe Acrobat or any other platform as LiberOffice, Google Docs, etc.

I am on a Macbook Pro (late 2017 OS Ventura 13.7.1 (22H221)) and I run AI 2025.
The printer is an inkjet Canon PIXMA Ts7450i.

This is what I tried or the settings I used:

• The AI doc is in CMYK Mode - I also tried to convert everything in CMYK (on the printing panel I still get the warning that some images are in RGB somehow..)
• I opened the pfd file that printed the black correctly with AI and in this case AI printed the black faded
• Appeareance of Black section in the preferences - tried them all
• Used rich back parameters for text/shapes anything I created (again, it's an issue about the black is managed through the whole document anyway but I saw now difference between what I created after using true black and pictures for example)
• Uninstalled AI and reinstalled it
• Reset all the preferences in AI
• Set the printing in High Resolution
• Used default printing setting without touching any
• - and anything else I found on this community or online!

HELP! LoL
Thanks in advance to everyone who'll reply 😃
Thor

[Monika Gause]

You only print to the inkjet printer?

Make the image in RGB and send it to the printer that way.

[ThorLeo]

Yes, I do. I will try to convert the doc in RGB and print it that way.
I haven't done so as, from my knowledge, RGB settings are for screens only. I'll def give it a try later, thanks for your suggestion!

[Monika Gause]

CMYK is for offset printing and for using PostScript RIPs with your inkjet. But plain vanilla inkjet printers are optimized for RGB input.

[ThorLeo]

Thank you Monika 🙂
I converted the whole doc in RGB colour mode (File > Document Colour Mode > RGB Colour) but still same results on the printing...sigh...!

[Bobby Henderson]

If you want deep blacks when designing and printing in CMYK you'll need to use a "rich black" formula. A black that is only 100% K will indeed print as a dark gray rather than a deep black. A CMYK-based formula such as C:75-M:68-Y:67-K:90 will yield a deeper looking black when printed. By the way, that's the standard mix you'll get by opening the Fill and Stroke color picker and dragging the sample to one of the bottom corners in the color box.

When experimenting with rich black formulas it's very important to take into account the kind of paper or other media being used for print output. The total ink number should not exceed what the specific paper stock can handle. The C:75-M:68-Y:67-K:90 value adds up to 300. That's good for magazine stock. For newsprint the formula needs to be a lower value between 220 and 270. With too high a value the black will bleed. The C:30-M:30-Y:30-K:100 formula is popular for that, but certain CMY values may need to be tweaked a few points up or down to offset any color cast.

Do not use a 400% value where all four inks are ramped to the max. I once received some customer art that turned out to have a CMYK black with all four inks set to 100%. The Roland VersaCAMM large format thermal ink jet printer we were using back then simply printed the black as is. Wet ink was literally dripping on the vinyl print.

The magenta color cast you mentioned may be a quirk in the Canon printer's color management settings. Some printers also have a difficult time printing a true gray. The Roland printer we used long ago was terrible at printing grays (there would either be a faint green or red cast). The latex-based printers we use now do a much better job.

[ThorLeo]

Hi Bobby!
Thanks a lot for your reply! I've tried that too and it failed even with a good combo of % as you mentioned.
I'm wondering if it's a conflict between the Printing Setting Panels of both AI and Canon...possibly AI not able to bypass completely the Canon colours management somehow? Again tho, it's been happening only recently, so I really don't get it (perhaps after updates then?)....gosh 🙃

[Bobby Henderson]

The problem could be a conflict between Illustrator and the Canon printer. Are you printing artwork directly from Illustrator or doing something else, such as printing a PDF created by Illustrator but using some kind of printing app Canon provided with the printer? A situation where a print job is being color managed twice is as bad as no color management at all.

A lot of consumer printers and office laser printers often have limitations at printing the kinds of PDF-based artwork Adobe Illustrator can generate. If the printer doesn't have an Adobe certified PDF print engine it may struggle printing objects that have transparency or complex clipping masks or clipping groups.

[Rafael290293043hrm]

Hi my friend,

I do not have a  right answer for you, but i can suppose two things for you to test. First, in illustrator preferences you have appearence of black, and there you have "print / export" output as intense black.
The second thing is your print settings for your printer. Maybe you can get a PPD for your printer, or you can try some settings in the printer window (color management). If your printer is CMYK, it should be as usual. But if it has other cartidge colors for fine art print, then the color conversion between, colour spaces has to be configured.  Also you have Color Configuration window on Edit > Color configuration.
But maybe the best process for high quality print is to export as PDF and then print. For example here in my office i can´t print directly from illustrator, the printer do not recognize the illustrator command.

[ThorLeo]

Hey Rafael, thanks a lot for your inputs!
I am quite surprised about how many challenges there are considering that technology is evolving so much...and kinda glad to know it's not just me struggling with this little silly settings! hehe! Thanks again for your suggestions 😃

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

" I need to print borderless tho and it seems there's not such an option with Adobe Acrobat."

That would be a feature of your print driver for your Canon, either by selecting the appropriate Borderless paper in Page Setup, or a setting for Borderless in Printer... settings (or both). I don't have your model so I can't say what you might see.

Often, the Borderless Printing will be greyed out if you have not first selected a Borderless paper Size.

e.g. (I'm just using another Canon driver to show what it presents)

 

[ThorLeo]

Hi Brad! Thank you so much for your suggestion, I would definitely have a look into it!
I thought it wouldn't be possible to override the Adobe Acrobat options 😃 You gave me hopes and hope it works!
Thanks =D

[ThorLeo]

Hello Everybody, thanks for all of you who tried to help so far!

After many many other different attempts, I can almost 100% certaintly say that there is definitely a huge issue with the actual printer's printing settings (even if the printer'snot touched) despite its brand and I believe it affects the whole colours management. I believe the black is more evident (as black texts etc) but the issuet then affects all the colours as it seems like the black isn't blended with them, leaving all the colours and artwork print with a "faded" effect.

In my many desperate attempts, I tried to convert my ai file in pds and print from there. on Photoshop at least, interestingly, I got a warning about turning off the colour management of my printer (see attachment). Unfortunately, there isn't such an option despite I'm using the latest driver etc of my printer (Canon PIXMA TS7450i).

I also noticed that, having printed with Adobe Acrobat with a successful colours results (but unable to do so borderless despite again many tries), the artwork turns once again faded if I use the actual printer's dialogue in order to obtain a borderless print.

I am wondering if it's a case of programmed obsolescence at this point (I'm on a MacbookPro mid 2017 which still perfectly works...). For those who have no issues with printing, would you mind tell me which Mac OS are you on?
I noticed that drivers for my printed skip the Ventura OS somehow...which is sadly the latest iOS possible on Macbooks Pro mid 2017.

I'm quite astonished by the amount of posts in different forums regarding this same issue and how Apple and Adobe haven't worked to fix this, especially as it impacts a field like professional graphics etc.

I have really no idea how to solve this, I will try to contact Canon for future jobs, unfortunately I have no time to do so for this one (it was just a personal project tho) - I will update this if something gets solved.

Thank You All!!!

[Monika Gause]

Most printer manufacturers do not care about Mac OS enough to deliver functional drivers. On top of that they do not care enough for older systems to support it as long as the printer lasts.

Yes, I've had them all: Canon, hp, EPSON, brother. Their Mac drivers suck.