Where did "appearance of black" menu go in Adobe CC2019? And why is brush cursor barely visible?

[needforname]

Hello. For many years Photoshop and Illustrator had an "appearance of black" option in the preferences menu. Yet I'm no longer seeing it in the most recent Adobe CC version. Yet I can't find any answer to where it went and why. Does anyone know?

The reason I want to know is because I want to make sure Photoshop is displaying blacks properly. In the past, by default Photoshop and Illustrator had all regular blacks (0,0,0,100) set to be displayed as rich black on screen. This has obvious problems because in print those regular blacks will not print as rich black.

Even Adobe guru Deke made a video saying how it was very odd why Adobe would by default have blacks not displaying as they would in print. I'm guessing Adobe finally realized how dumb of a default setting this was and got rid of it. Does anyone know? I just want to make sure the settings are correct.

Also, does anyone know why the cursor (when using a brush or eraser) is now very hard to see? I don't remember this ever being a problem in the past. I'm working on a poster design and trying to erase away some halftone graphic, yet I can barely even see the cursor.

It's very frustrating. I'm working on a well lit new Macbook Pro, so screen quality or brightness is not the culprit. I've tried every cursor setting available in the preferences menu. The cursor is just too thin. Others have mentioned similar issues with the cursor in latest Adobe CC version. I don't remember this ever being an issue in older versions.

If anyone has an answer to either of these issues, please do let me know. Thank you.

[D Fosse]

This is an Illustrator / InDesign setting; Photoshop never had it. The alternatives are "display all blacks as rich black" and "display all blacks accurately".

The "rich black" option treats 4 color black and 100K black identically - it remaps to the working RGB equivalent of max ink (TAC) in the CMYK profile.

The "accurate" option does the same for 4 color black; but then displays 100K black correctly relative to that; that is, a fair bit lighter.

Photoshop always uses the second option, there never was a choice.

In reality, of course, it's not quite as simple as that. Offset print has a very high ("weak") black point, nowhere near what you see on a monitor out of the box. The contrast range may be down to 100:1 or thereabouts. You still need to calibrate your monitor to a black point that visually matches max ink as it comes out of an offset press, in practice a black point around 1.5 - 2 cd/m² or so. If you don't do that, you're guaranteed a monumental disappointment when you see the final result.

EDIT: It's possible that Ai/ID remap rich black to 0-0-0 in the monitor profile (have to check this). That would obviously never work in Photoshop.

[needforname]

Thanks D Fosse. That make sense as to why I couldn't find the "appearance of black" setting in Photoshop. I had it in my mind that Photoshop had that menu option as well. Regarding calibration, I can't remember what settings I used for black point, but I'll double check to see if I'm using the levels you mentioned.

With that out of the way, if anyone knows a way to get the cursor thicker / more prominent / easier to see, that would be great. I'm currently having to use the brush icon option, but it's far from suitable because it doesn't show the brush size / circle. When I have the circle showing it's very thin and I easily lose track of it when brushing or erasing in any area that is not a solid color. Very annoying. Not sure what Adobe was thinking. If there is a way to change this, I'm not seeing it.

[Rod Gregg]

I have the same problem. 

[NB, colourmanagement net]

Hi

Black onscreen is made to match print black in the "proof settings" dialog. 

Go to view / proof settings / custom

Choise your printers icc profile 

Check the  "ink black" checkbox. 

pleaselet us know how it goes. 

Neil Barstow / Adobe Firum Volunteer 

google me: Neil Barstow colourmanagement for lots of free colourmanagement tips. 

[Rod Gregg]

Thoughts on making the brush cursor line thicker?