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tlaakso
tlaakso
Inspiring
July 2, 2020
Answered

Exporting CMYK 0,0,0,100 or 0,0,0,98 are muted bad

  • July 2, 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 2465 views

I'm stuck here. Illustrator will not export CMYK 0,0,0,100 or 0,0,0,98 as dark blacks. 75, 68, 67,90 looks like full black and darker than 0,0,0,100. 

 

I started the document in CMYK for color mode. Using the correct color settings. Nothing seems to work. Everything looks good in program but an export for pdf, jpg, eps are all far off from true printable black. 

 

I've used full black in CMYK in illustrator before and know the limitations of printing CMYK but you can definetly do black still right? lol 

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Ton Frederiks

I suppose that you have set in your Preferences that all blacks should be displayed as Rich Black.

That explains why all blacks look very dark in Illustrator.

When you export to a CMYK file (jpeg, pdf, eps), the correct values are exported and black ink only will look lighter (because black ink is not as black as an RGB black).

Exporting as an RGB file will make your blacks look darker.

2 replies

Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
Ton FrederiksCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
July 2, 2020

I suppose that you have set in your Preferences that all blacks should be displayed as Rich Black.

That explains why all blacks look very dark in Illustrator.

When you export to a CMYK file (jpeg, pdf, eps), the correct values are exported and black ink only will look lighter (because black ink is not as black as an RGB black).

Exporting as an RGB file will make your blacks look darker.

tlaakso
tlaaksoAuthor
Inspiring
July 2, 2020

Ok, so my setting were set as display as Rich black. I understand inks and printing and RGB color will always be more vibrant. 

 

But it's like all of a sudden my 100k blacks are super muted like never before. I can do 75,68,67,90 and it's basically full black and prints great. This color change just suddenly happens to be totally different. 

 

I also noticed Adobe Acrobat displaying the colors odd and I had to reinstall but they are still not how it was say a month ago. 

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

    "odd" is not something we can help with. Can you please specify?

    Also: when something color related works now differently: check color management

     

    Where will this finally be printed?

    And yes, of course 75,68,67,90 is super dark. But it won't help you to make friends in your print shop.

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

    100 K just is not pitch dark black when printed.

     

    If you want to print pitch dark black, you will need to talk to the printing service. They have different measures to deal with this. Some use special inks. Some ask you to add Cyan, Magenta or even both.

    tlaakso
    tlaaksoAuthor
    Inspiring
    July 2, 2020

    I've never had issues with this in the past. It's suddenly way worse. Likee 100 K black looks like it's a 75 K black. I understand printing and have been doing this for awhile so I'm not sure if I'm having a program error or did adobe change something or is there a glitch happening?

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