Rich black when converting RGB to CMYK

X
Posted By
Xycer
Feb 22, 2008
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964
Replies
1
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Closed
I’m working in an older version of PhotoShop (7) but any help on the topic would definitely help.

My problem is that I am converting RGB native images to CMYK and my Key (Black) comes out rich, contains equal levels of CMY and K, instead of true black, only k.

Currently my way around this is to do the standard convert to profile CMYK and with my path selected to the section I would like to be true black simply turn off all CM and Y channels and re-save the image but this is a little labor intensive.

Is there a way that I can go straight from RGB to CMYK and achieve true black without alteration?

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PF
Peter_Figen
Feb 23, 2008
Yes, there is. You can use a CMYK setup or ICC CMYK profile that uses Maximum black generation. Unfortunately, that will almost always hose anything photographic in your image.

Is it typographical elements that are becoming four color? If so, then they should be done in a page layout program where they can be rasterized separately from the photographic image. If it is type you’re worried about, is it large type or small? If you have to set large type in Ps, then it’s probably fine to let it run four color.

If it were me and I had to do everything in Ps, I would probably make two conversions of the file to CMYK – one with a standard black generation and one with Max K. I would then select the black you want from the max K version and paste into the K channel of the "normal" document, and then use that as a selection to delete from the other three channels.

A third way is to do type in Ps and leave the type as a vector type layer, then save the file out as a Photoshop PDF, which is then placed in a layout app. or just sent to the printer through his RIP. That should work too, but there are too many places for things to wrong for my taste.

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