Muddy Blacks

[Snazzyd1]

2.1.1 Designer always defaults to not a true black but it creates a mixture of: C=72, M=68, Y=67, K=88. No matter what I try to do. I have to select each black element and turn up all the colours and black in order to make a full black and not a greyish black. What setting am I supposed to use or change to fix this frustration.

[Hangman]

Hi @Snazzyd1,

I assume you are referring to converting between sRGB R:0 G:0 B:0 and CMYK/8 U.S Web SWOP Coated V2, which will result in C:72 M:68 Y:67 K:88.

This is to be expected because you are translating colour between two different colour spaces.

Questions

1. Are you working in RGB or CMYK
2. What is it you are wanting to achieve, is it simply to see a solid, rich black onscreen or do you need to export black to a pdf as K100?

[walt.farrell]

If you are not converting between color spaces, but are working in CMYK and looking for a true K100 black, there are 4 swatches in the Swatches panel, to the right of the palette name, that give no color (transparent), true black, true mid-gray, and white. You can use the true black swatch from there.

[Hangman]

I'm guessing from the comment...

7 hours ago, Snazzyd1 said:

I have to select each black element and turn up all the colours and black in order to make a full black and not a greyish black.

the 'issue' is that C:72 M:68 Y:67 K:88 isn't providing a black enough onscreen black for some reason, though it should be sufficient as it is equivalent to R:0 G:0 B:0 when using the U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) V2 profile.

K100 is a greyish black so I guess it all comes down to what @Snazzyd1 is looking to achieve, i.e., whether a true K100 for PDF export or a richer black for onscreen purposes only which of course is then reliant on a number of other factors.

At the moment it sounds as though @Snazzyd1 is effectively using a Registration Black if all four colours are being set at 100%.

Hopefully, @Snazzyd1 can provide a few more details...

[Snazzyd1]

Working in CMYK for print and trying to use a 100% black by default. I have provided an image of what happens when I create a black square (chose extreme black in the colour triangle/wheel).

As you can see, not 100% black and have to override all my black colours by dragging pure black.

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, Snazzyd1 said:

when I create a black square (chose extreme black in the colour triangle/wheel)

The colour wheel is HSL, which is an alternative representation of RGB, so choosing the black vertex of the triangle is equivalent to choosing (0,0,0) on the RGB sliders. You need to choose the CMYK true black swatch, as Walt advised.

2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

If you are not converting between color spaces, but are working in CMYK and looking for a true K100 black, there are 4 swatches in the Swatches panel, to the right of the palette name, that give no color (transparent), true black, true mid-gray, and white. You can use the true black swatch from there.

 

[Hangman]

@Snazzyd1,

Depending on the CMYK Colour profile you're using, but assuming the default U.S Web Coated (SWOP) v2 (based on the RGB/HSL to CMYK colour conversion values), then the default CMYK values when creating a new CMYK document are C:0 M:0 Y:0 K:10.

If you're working in CMYK, then you should ideally use the CMYK sliders rather than the HSL sliders.

As @walt.farrell has also mentioned, there is the K100 swatch in the swatches panel which you can use to set your blacks to K:100. Currently you are converting between RGB and CMYK values, hence the C:72 M:68 Y:67 K:88 values you're seeing.