PDF black is not black!!

[feelingprettyred]

hi, i have a major issue, and please bare with me as im new to everything, i have a job which is being sent to print (press ready). I created it on a press ready document. when i export the file as a press ready pdf, and bring into acrobat to check my colours, the black is not black and doesn't knock out, it comes through as a grey tone. spot colour knocks it off but the client doesn't want to pay for a extra colour. my cmyk sliders are set to 0 0 0 100 for black, the padlock is NOT locked, and it still isn't coming out black? i really really need help with this. i just got taken off the job as after 2 hours i couldn't work it out. all and any help is greatly appreciated. im not super technical so laymen's terms if possible please. its the second job ive been taken off for the same reason, colleagues have attempted to help but they don't use serif and haven't found a solution either.

 

i really need to be able to send work to print and refuse to learn illustrator as in depth as i understand AD. But having no knowledge in repo and print i might be missing something?

 

i hope this is a solvable problem and not a problem in AD.

[feelingprettyred]

further images to help explain...

one image of the black in acrobat

 

one of the black unticked in acrobat showing as grey

 

one of the original document showing 000100 cmyk black.

[MikeW]

While I am certainly a Dunce & an Idiot in Training...

There are typically two ways this can happen.

One common way is that you really are not using a true 100% K for black like you think you are (assuming that is what you really want). Affinity applications can, and do, lie to the user in this regard. A possible route is using what Affinity says is 100% black when picking from the as-installed Grays palette. They are really hsv/rgb values.

Another common means of this issue is using a different output profile than the document profile.

Another is not viewing the pdf in Acrobat using a profile that is not the Affinity application's document profile. I've also seen documents set to use an RGB profile but exporting to a cmyk profile.

There are other issues that can happen too.

It would be best if you uploaded a sample, stripped-down version of your document to look at.

[walt.farrell]

As MikeW mentioned, the Grays palette is an RGB palette. The swatches to the right of that, though, provide a true black, white, and 50% gray when you use them in a CMYK document.

[lacerto]

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