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Amateur Alert: Printing Black

Forum Index > Printing & Prepress > Amateur Alert: Printing Black
2010-06-13 18:36:30
JaneSez
Registered: Jun 13 2010
Posts: 2

Amateur Alert:
We are trying to print a 28-page newsletter on a leased KonicaMinolta printer that charges one price for b/w and a higher price for color. 8 of the 28 pages should be "counted" as black and they are not. Newsletter is created in InDesign (by people who know nothing about printing) and exported to PDF. I have only the slightest understanding of 100% K vs Process Black vs Rich Black and know nothing about color profiles. Using Acrobat (Advanced, Print Production, Output Preview) I can see where objects and text contain varying percentages of CMYK but is this useful information? Should I be doing something in the "Convert Colors" menu? Converting to "Preserve Black" didn't seem to help. Any help or suggestions would be oh-so appreciated ... Jane

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro 9.3.1, Macintosh
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2010-06-14 00:53:39
#1
UVSAR
Expert
Registered: Oct 29 2008
Posts: 1357
If your document is using all four plates to represent black (a method we call "rich black") then it will be printed using color toner at high cost. To force it to only use the black toner (K) the most flexible solution is to use Acrobat to convert the colors, as follows:

Advanced..Print Production..Convert Colors

Matching Critera: leave as default (any object / any colorspace etc)

Conversion Attributes: Convert to Profile / Dot Gain 15%*, use document intent**.

Leave output intent and convert options all UNchecked and pick your page range.

The result will be a file with only the K plate active. You can prove it by opening the Output Preview panel and unchecking K - the page should then be empty.

NOTE: You can't undo the convert process, so be very careful not to save over your original file!

* Dot gain is a correction factor for different printers to adjust how dark the image looks. You may need to try a few to get the desired effect on your printer.

** If your document has color photos, changing the conversion intent to another method (perceptual, etc) will slightly change the way each color maps to gray. There's no "correct" method so it's another case of trying a few and seeing which you prefer.

Finally, make sure that your printer drivers don't take it on themselves to reverse the process - some have a checkbox buried in their settings along the lines of "print all blacks as rich black".
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