1. Check whether you have black ink left. It may be doing this because color is all it has...
2. if that's not the case, then open the image in photoshop. Select Image>Adjustments>Selective Color, then use the dropdown to select Black, then turn the black up on it until it's a truer black.
snowsuzi -- hopefully i've interpreted your problem correctly, but if you're in CMYK mode, i've also found that using pure black gets what you've described.
if you have an image somewhere in your layout that shows what rationalist describes as "true" black, use the eyedropper tool to select that color. you'll notice that your CMYK color spread is a mixture of all four primaries and creates a deeper, richer black. apply that to your spot color area and you're good to go.
beyond that, i can only quote the great Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap: "it begs the question...how much more black could it be? and the answer is none...none more black."
Not sure I quite understand broccolijet's suggestion. It depends on your printer. You want CMYK mode, and you need to make sure that your black bits are 100% K, and 0% anything else. That way, the printer will use your black ink. If you are using RGB black (100%R, 100%G, 100%B), you get that muddy blueish mess.
This is made a bit more complicated by the fact that some printers take RGB input and convert it to CMYK themselves.
the above suggestions are top on, however depend on the printer you have. I've found most HPs (high end) will allow you to print true black & colour; however most the run of the mill, particularly the all in ones won't
I've never had any problems printing 'true' black on my Epsons. The new ones have two dedicated black inks, but when they were just CMYK they still printed well, just wasted tons of ink.
I've only used the better ones, though, so I'd guess anything less than the photo printers might have problems.
To get a propper black, you first need to do what others have suggested: check all the inks are present, make sure the image is in CMYK.
You also need to make sure you choose a specific black and stick to it. Otherwise, things could end up messy.
-Plain black is the slighly-greyish black you get from 0C 0M 0Y 100K. It's quite cheap looking and certainly not the black you want to use for quality prints.
-Rich black is the deep black that you see in professional, good quality printing. As brocolli says, you can just use the eye dropper to get the rich black, or you can do it manually using these settings: 63C 52M 51Y 100K
-There's also 'cool' black: 60C 0M 0Y 100K
-and 'warm' black: 0C 60M 30C 100K
As I say, make sure your blacks are consistent though, otherwise you end up with this:
It's worth noting that you won't see this on screen though, ONLY when you print (due to the differences being on the CMYK scale, not the RGB of the monitor)
good luck
PS agfa8x 100R 100G 100B makes white, i think. it's zero values you want.
agfa8x - Is it me that you are correcting? It's hard to tell. Ignore me if you are talking to someone else.
100C 100M 100Y is not black, it is a dark grey. I would advise snowsuzi not to use this as you'll only get what looks like a faded image with no depth of tone.
0R 0G 0B is black - but that is what I said. It's not a biggie - I just want to make sure snowsuzi is acting on accurate information. You said "If you are using RGB black (100%R, 100%G, 100%B)", and I merely wanted to make sure that snowsuzi knew that 100%R/G/B creates white. RGB is for light, CMYK for pigment and, as such, 100% of all R G & B results in white light while 0% results in the absense of light - ie. black.
Also, snowsuzi asks how to "print the black tone in proper black". I guess it depends on your definition of proper, but I consider proper black to be rich black. 100%K (plain) is not enough to ensure a deep black tone as it is too thin alone to cover all the bleached paper below. That is one of the reasons why adding some C Y & M in the right amounts allows for a balanced increase in depth of tone. K on its own would be fine for home printing - it will appear black enough - but for presentation quality, rich black is the way to go.
-----
Also, I agree with brocolli - I'm a bit confused. I thought snowsuzi was asking how to get the correct black and the information she gave on her ink was just a symptom of the main problem (mentioned to help us diagnose what's wrong) rather than the main problem itself. Care to clarify, suzi?
Thanks guy! I have also been using RGB for my images which I guess is not the prefact setting for quality presentation...
Yes to Chch that the black that I am after is 'rich black'. Your figure are great and my image really came out black now!
Yes to agfa8x that I wanted to know how to get the printer to output black using the black cartridge too... Although Chch solution helped on printing my images' background in rich black, the printer is still using the CMYK cartridges to do the black.
May be there isn't a solution for using black cartidge on colour images?
P.S. My HP officejet printer uses 4 individual CMYK cartridges and I normally print my images on Satin paper.
If you're printing photographs and want 100K black, it's probably going to look pretty funny. You'd just have to select the black bits in photoshop and paint them out in 100K black. But the problem is that anything thats slightly off black will come out much darker than the bits that are supposed to be black.
agfa8x- actually through the method I described in my first post on this thread, you can adjust the CMYK balance for a color through 'Selective Color', and because it does it uniformly does not tend to have that problem.
Oh My God! We need to get everyone over to the "Photoshop Gladiators" soundstage, suit you all up in rich black (63C 52M 51Y 100K), pure black (0C 0M 0Y 100K), grey (100C 100M 100K), and white (100R 100G 100B) leotards and break out the big padded Q-tips! Only THEN can you TRUELY duke it out and discover who is truely Archinect's photoshop CHAMPION!
How do you print black colour black?
I have a black background colour image in photoshop and wanted to print it on my HP office jet printer. Here the problems came....
1. The black background turns out to be 'greyish blue'
2. It uses up all my colour ink instead of proper black ink to print the background
Does anyone know how I can print a colour image (not greyscale one) but at the same time still able to print the black tone in proper balck?
1. Check whether you have black ink left. It may be doing this because color is all it has...
2. if that's not the case, then open the image in photoshop. Select Image>Adjustments>Selective Color, then use the dropdown to select Black, then turn the black up on it until it's a truer black.
or take it to a print shop and use up their ink...
snowsuzi -- hopefully i've interpreted your problem correctly, but if you're in CMYK mode, i've also found that using pure black gets what you've described.
if you have an image somewhere in your layout that shows what rationalist describes as "true" black, use the eyedropper tool to select that color. you'll notice that your CMYK color spread is a mixture of all four primaries and creates a deeper, richer black. apply that to your spot color area and you're good to go.
beyond that, i can only quote the great Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap: "it begs the question...how much more black could it be? and the answer is none...none more black."
yeah, your problem is CMYK, as broccolijet pointed out.
save the ink and just print on black paper...like, duh
just cutout the images and make a hanging wind chime
Not sure I quite understand broccolijet's suggestion. It depends on your printer. You want CMYK mode, and you need to make sure that your black bits are 100% K, and 0% anything else. That way, the printer will use your black ink. If you are using RGB black (100%R, 100%G, 100%B), you get that muddy blueish mess.
This is made a bit more complicated by the fact that some printers take RGB input and convert it to CMYK themselves.
the above suggestions are top on, however depend on the printer you have. I've found most HPs (high end) will allow you to print true black & colour; however most the run of the mill, particularly the all in ones won't
Oh and if you have newish plotter (large format printer) it will do it as well
I've never had any problems printing 'true' black on my Epsons. The new ones have two dedicated black inks, but when they were just CMYK they still printed well, just wasted tons of ink.
I've only used the better ones, though, so I'd guess anything less than the photo printers might have problems.
No way around wasting tons of ink on it.
Use black paper
To get a propper black, you first need to do what others have suggested: check all the inks are present, make sure the image is in CMYK.
You also need to make sure you choose a specific black and stick to it. Otherwise, things could end up messy.
-Plain black is the slighly-greyish black you get from 0C 0M 0Y 100K. It's quite cheap looking and certainly not the black you want to use for quality prints.
-Rich black is the deep black that you see in professional, good quality printing. As brocolli says, you can just use the eye dropper to get the rich black, or you can do it manually using these settings: 63C 52M 51Y 100K
-There's also 'cool' black: 60C 0M 0Y 100K
-and 'warm' black: 0C 60M 30C 100K
As I say, make sure your blacks are consistent though, otherwise you end up with this:
It's worth noting that you won't see this on screen though, ONLY when you print (due to the differences being on the CMYK scale, not the RGB of the monitor)
good luck
PS agfa8x 100R 100G 100B makes white, i think. it's zero values you want.
oh, yeah, and don't use cheap inks. The no name brands print somethings good, but in my experience, solid black is not one of them.
I only use Epson ink. Ain't cheap, but it is much better than anything else (just like make sure you are using Photo quality paper)
No, I think you'll find 100C 100M 100Y is black. You're thinking of 0R 0G 0B.
But snowsuzi asked how to get the printer to output black using the black cartridge. So the answer is to make sure that s/he is using pure K black.
sounds like there's some confusion into what snowsuzi's problem really is...
snowsuzi -- if any of this input has already helped you fix your problem or is completely missing the boat, please say so.
agfa8x - Is it me that you are correcting? It's hard to tell. Ignore me if you are talking to someone else.
100C 100M 100Y is not black, it is a dark grey. I would advise snowsuzi not to use this as you'll only get what looks like a faded image with no depth of tone.
0R 0G 0B is black - but that is what I said. It's not a biggie - I just want to make sure snowsuzi is acting on accurate information. You said "If you are using RGB black (100%R, 100%G, 100%B)", and I merely wanted to make sure that snowsuzi knew that 100%R/G/B creates white. RGB is for light, CMYK for pigment and, as such, 100% of all R G & B results in white light while 0% results in the absense of light - ie. black.
Also, snowsuzi asks how to "print the black tone in proper black". I guess it depends on your definition of proper, but I consider proper black to be rich black. 100%K (plain) is not enough to ensure a deep black tone as it is too thin alone to cover all the bleached paper below. That is one of the reasons why adding some C Y & M in the right amounts allows for a balanced increase in depth of tone. K on its own would be fine for home printing - it will appear black enough - but for presentation quality, rich black is the way to go.
-----
Also, I agree with brocolli - I'm a bit confused. I thought snowsuzi was asking how to get the correct black and the information she gave on her ink was just a symptom of the main problem (mentioned to help us diagnose what's wrong) rather than the main problem itself. Care to clarify, suzi?
no, sorry, you're right. wasn't paying attention to what i was typing.
i prefer to use 100K black because rich black on all the inkjets I've used is a muddy mess that saturates the paper.
Thanks guy! I have also been using RGB for my images which I guess is not the prefact setting for quality presentation...
Yes to Chch that the black that I am after is 'rich black'. Your figure are great and my image really came out black now!
Yes to agfa8x that I wanted to know how to get the printer to output black using the black cartridge too... Although Chch solution helped on printing my images' background in rich black, the printer is still using the CMYK cartridges to do the black.
May be there isn't a solution for using black cartidge on colour images?
P.S. My HP officejet printer uses 4 individual CMYK cartridges and I normally print my images on Satin paper.
If you're printing photographs and want 100K black, it's probably going to look pretty funny. You'd just have to select the black bits in photoshop and paint them out in 100K black. But the problem is that anything thats slightly off black will come out much darker than the bits that are supposed to be black.
agfa8x- actually through the method I described in my first post on this thread, you can adjust the CMYK balance for a color through 'Selective Color', and because it does it uniformly does not tend to have that problem.
live and learn. thanks.
Oh My God! We need to get everyone over to the "Photoshop Gladiators" soundstage, suit you all up in rich black (63C 52M 51Y 100K), pure black (0C 0M 0Y 100K), grey (100C 100M 100K), and white (100R 100G 100B) leotards and break out the big padded Q-tips! Only THEN can you TRUELY duke it out and discover who is truely Archinect's photoshop CHAMPION!
Yes!
I promise I'm not a hater.
but Liebchen, the rich and pure blacks will look the same on an RGB tv screen! What should we do?!
Crap. Print it out frame by frame and mail the viewers a flipbook version of the program.
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