23 replies to this topic

[frax]

smellykev - I took the liberty to edit the quotes to, so your comment got removed from there. Keep in mind that even though we - members - may not be that picky (and easily offended), that there are a lot of lurkers and the threads here gets indexed (and quite good ranking) in google.

Great to see the forum self-policing in good spirits, so that we moderators don't have to intervene!



Now back to the discussion of color separations in graphic design programs!

[pfyfield]

On a related subject, I get rich blacks with similar CMYK values to Greg's whenever I import data using MAPublisher. I contacted Avenza about it and they're looking into it, but I was wondering if anybody else had similar problems and had found a solution. I would like my MAPublisher imports to come in 0-0-0-100. It seems like there should be some setting somewhere to fix this.

I have Illustrator 4, MP 8, Windows XP.

[Matthew Hampton]

What sort of data are you importing into MAPublisher? Are you importing shapefiles?

[pfyfield]

Yup. Shapefiles. I get these values:

C 75.02
M 67.79
Y 67.02
K 90.16

I just installed CS4 and this was the first thing I checked. The values are actually a little different than what I got with CS3.

[kay]

C 75.02
M 67.79
Y 67.02
K 90.16

When RGB = [0, 0, 0] is converted to CMYK, I get the values pfyfield indicated. Does it mean "rich black" in RGB is CMYK = [75.02, 67.79, 67.02, 90.16]? On the other hand, when I converted CMYK = [0, 0, 0, 100] to RGB, I get RGB = [35, 31, 32]. So it means the rich colour in RGB is different from the one in CMYK?? (I am new to the colour thing.. )

[natcase]

On a related subject, I get rich blacks with similar CMYK values to Greg's whenever I import data using MAPublisher. I contacted Avenza about it and they're looking into it, but I was wondering if anybody else had similar problems and had found a solution. I would like my MAPublisher imports to come in 0-0-0-100. It seems like there should be some setting somewhere to fix this.

I have Illustrator 4, MP 8, Windows XP.

From a workflow standpoint, why would it matter how freshly imported files are styled? Wouldn't you want to
restyle them anyway? Just curious. I rarely if ever use imported artwork as is... I guess I've never considered any alternatives.

[pfyfield]

Kay- yes, these values are very similar to those that result when you switch between RGB and CMYK black in Illustrator. I doubt that's a coincidence.

Nat- no, it's not that big a deal. It's only an issue when the linework is going to end up black anyway and we can't tell visually that it's four color.
We also do some 2 color mapping (usually black and cyan) so we wouldn't want it there at all. We have added a step to our final "get it ready for press" process to select by stroke and by fill all objects with these values and convert them to 100k in case we miss any (and usually we have).

It just seems like something that could be fixed. Perhaps I'm obsessing a bit.

[CartoAddict]

I'm new to cartotalk and still a student with cartography and GIS.

I am a senior graphic designer and pre-press technician. Sorry to those of you who have had frustrating experiences with your printers, I usually don't send a customers file back, it's typically easier to fix the issues for them.

Everyone has had great suggestions. First off I'd say check your document color settings in Illustrator, File>Document Color Settings. Make sure its set to CMYK. Always check your work. Select a black object that should be 100K, if its rich black select>similar (stoke or fill), change the color values to 0/0/0/100. Export to PDF, in the output settings make sure your are exporting as CMYK.

Double check your PDF. In Acrobat Pro you can go to advanced>print production>output preview. If you want to make sure your black objects are true black, uncheck the black separation to turn it off. If the black objects are still there it is not true black.

Someone mentioned being new to "the color thing". If you convert to or from RGB you will always have rich black. You will need to go through the steps mentioned above (select>similar) and manually change the color values.

[hotrodart]

If you haven't been able to figure this out yet, the solution that I used was going into my preferences window, and from there there is a tab/option of the appearance of black. It has options for on screen and for output. Change the options for both to Display/Output All Blacks Accurately and it should solve the issue.

I was having a similar situation with Illustrator sending my 100% K to rich black format.

.

Lately I have been having quite a few jobs come back from the printer because there are a few text items or symbols that have been processed in rich black

Which reads as;

C - 73.73%
M - 63.92%
Y - 65.49%
K - 72.55%

I do all my drawing at 100% K in a cmyk illustrator CS3 document, but sometimes the objects i copy from other documents have been processed as 100% K spot or process color. When I export, It automatically converts to rich black, which when printed has a ton of registration issues, and ends up looking blurry.

There IS a setting in both Illustrator and InDesign under preferences that sets the appearance of black to either accurate (100k) or Rich. I have this set to 100k, but my exports seem to still output Rich on occasion.

I would like a sure fire way to either ensure my documents are saving without rich black, or an easy way to check the file for rich black once it has been exported to an eps.

Hopefully someone out there can assist!

Cheers