3 Deadly Sins of Print Design
We’ve all had the painful experience of being handed a brochure that was “designed” with Word Art (or the slightly less painful Pages). The “designer” (we’ll call him Larry) beams, happy to see that his arched, distorted, glowing type is burning holes in your hands. You wouldn’t make those mistakes, would you? Of course not! You are an experienced designer, right?
Right. That’s what Larry says.
Some of the best designers have been tripped up by simple mistakes when designing for print. Obviously, we aren’t just talking about WordArt. We’re talking about a design that looks great on the screen, but it sits next to Larry’s best when you try to transfer it to paper. These are some common mistakes that many designers unknowingly make when coming to the print world.
1. Designing in RGB
CMYK color
RGB color
The Problem
It is important to know that printers have eyes. Well… Sort of. Printers interpret data that is sent to them from an application or a device. That application or device outputs using a certain language, called a color space. The printer interprets the output, and then prints. So let’s say your Macbook Pro and CS4 are speaking Spanish, but your printer is speaking English. What basically happens: the printer listens, hears the Spanish, and tries its best to interpret it. Now, despite the fact that your printer may have taken AP Spanish in high school, it still doesn’t know every word in the dictionario.
The Fix
Fortunately, it’s fairly easy to fix this problem. On the first opening screen in Photoshop and Illustrator, you have the choice of working in RGB or CMYK. Pick CMYK if your design will ever make it to the print world.
Photoshop settings for print design
A word about color spaces…
Without going much into detail, RGB refers to two different color gamuts (sRGB and Adobe RGB), both based on modeling light to produce colors. Red, green, and blue light can theoretically be added together to create any color of light, the “100%” mixture resulting in white. The natural “blank canvas” of RGB is black, or an absence of light.
On the other hand, CMYK is based on mixing four colors (cyan, magenta, yellow, and “key,” an old printing press term for black) to theoretically reproduce any color. The natural blank canvas for CMYK is paper.
Unfortunately, there are colors that cannot be reproduced in the gamut of CMYK that exist in the gamut of RGB, particularly brighter colors, especially in the cyan area. This is where we run into our problem. Simply put, RGB speaks better spanish than CMYK. There’s tons of literature on color management available online or in print. (Note: CMS, in the print world, stands for color management system.)
2. Forgetting to use Rich Black
The Problem
If there is an unforgivable sin, this would be it. Again, a simple understanding of CMYK is needed.
A printer takes the CMYK info it is sent and puts out ink according to that info. CMYK value refers to a set of 4 numbers between one and 100 representing the amount of each color mixed in to achieve the desired color. So you would immediately guess that k=100 would mean black, right?
Larry said so.
K=100 produces a dark grey that is definitively not black.
The Fix
Once again, easy fix; use values for rich black. Rich black mixes in some cyan, magenta, and/or yellow to darken the 100% Key. There are many different opinions on what is best, but there are basically two kinds; warm and cool. Generally accepted values (in order of CMY) are 70, 50, 30 (known as “designer black”), 60, 40, 40 (cool black) and 40, 60, 40, (warm black). All of these are mixed with k=100.
Some people say that a “C” value of 40 and a k value of 100 does the trick just fine; the point is to add some kind of extra into your blacks to make them… well, black.
Do NOT use rich black for smaller text; registration problems (where one cmyk ink prints slightly in the wrong place) will make your text unreadable. And no one wants that. Usually using k=100 for black text is readable enough.
Another neat trick: if your text is large enough that you want to use rich black, but is just small enough that registration may pose a threat, outline your text with .5 or 1 pt of k=100. This will take care of the registration problems. Note: the outline should be on the inside and should replace the original area it lays over, so that your text is not improperly displayed.
3. Using the wrong resolution
A low resolution will show pixelation both on screen and in print
Using high-resolution images ensures clarity
The Problem
Using the wrong resolution in your works can be detrimental to your final outcome. It is important to know the final destination of your work so that you can design at the correct resolution. Most printers print at about 300dpi (dots per inch), some even at 600dpi or above. The resolution of a monitor is 72ppi (pixels per inch), and is a default setting in Photoshop and Illustrator for RGB design.
A few things to note…
So let’s talk about some basic differences between dpi and ppi, and then decide what is best to use for different projects.
Simply put, pixels are square, dots are… well, dots. They consist of one color. Obviously, the more dots or pixels per inch, the more detailed and accurate your picture will be. It is important to design at 300ppi so that when you print on a 300 dpi printer, each pixel is translated as a dot. It is okay to design at a higher ppi than your printer’s dpi, but be careful designing below 300ppi.
The Fix
Unless you are designing something huge, the magic number for print design is… you guessed it, 300dpi. Generally, anything that you can hold in your hands should be designed at or above 300dpi. It is especially important to note that though you can go down in dpi, you cannot go up without quality loss (when working with rasterized elements). Therefore, as long as your processor can handle it, it is best practice to work at 300 dpi or the maximum for your specific printer.
Depending on the size of a particular piece, you may have to design for perspective resolution. In other words, a billboard, from the road, appears to be a couple of inches wide, so therefore the dpi can be much lower (often around 18-20 dpi).
The End.
There are a million more mistakes that can be made in print design, but these are three of the most-often committed sins of print design.
Last tip: to avoid mistakes, ALWAYS proof your prints, even if it costs you a little extra.
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Great read!
Definitely going to pass this along to others… and remind myself to double check for rich black… lol. Spend so much time in web that I often for get the little things.
great article Jonathan!
~ Aaron I
Your CMYK image link is dead: http://www.fuelyourcreativity.com/files/2008/12/cmyk1.jpg
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I’d like to point out that if your printer asks you to convert your rich black to 100% black only, don’t argue with them. I used to work for a printer and rich black would cause no end of trouble for the pressman using a traditional offset press.
Uh oh, I’m a sinner. I will repent!
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Thanks for the comments everyone! I think the link is working on this end, Fred. And good point, Raygan! It’s always important to do whatever the printer asks, whether it has to do with using k=100 or specific file types, resolution, etc. Always listen to the printer!
We were talking about rich black today at work. Great thing to remember! Thanks!
In addition to these three items I’d like to add TrueType Fonts. Stay away from these completely if you plan on printing anything. Stick with PostScript and/or OpenType fonts.
It’s one thing to use rich black, it’s another thing to OVER use rich black. It’s important to know when the use of rich black is warranted.
Also, while using rich black you need to be careful that your total ink coverage does not exceed 300%. You can preview this in InDesign.
Re resolution: People who scale images in layout programs (like InDesign) should be kicked, repeatedly.
A point about rasterization of type; If you place an InDesign shadow over type, the shadow will rasterize the type and your type will appear blotchy or bold when it isn’t. I don’t know how many times I have to tell designers to place their dropshadows on a layer BELOW the type layer or use “send to back.”
Nice post! I haven’t designed anything digital for print in awhile, but I remember this when I was lead designer for a local newspaper.
You will need to be careful of your ink density when using rich blacks. Depending on the paper and the press, there will be a maximum ink density you shouldn’t go above. For example, max ink density for a newspaper might be 240% and a magazine might be 320%. Too high and the ink will bleed through, cause excessive dot gain or dry too slowly. Too low and your colors will be washed out.
20 C
40 M
60 Y
100 K
========
220% total ink density
Ask your printer what they recommend.
I would say “always have a conversation with your printer” not just always “listen” to them.
The ink densities of rich blacks also depend on what paper stock you’re printing on and what kind of press. Newsprint cannot handle the same amount of ink as, say, a premium coated cover sheet. Again, talk to your printer. All print is not equal.
You can have neutral rich blacks as well as cool and warm, and you can use “colored” blacks which are even more extreme.
As much as I like rich black, I would not put it in the top 3 sins. I would cite something like: forgetting to add bleeds, placing the wrong kind of file (i.e. JPG), or having spot colors in a process job or vice versa. Those are worse “sins” in print design. After all, if it is a spot color job, it would be a sin to make it with CMYK.
Good post, though.
I really love this post. Not much blogs write about this topic. Thanks!
That was really interesting and a good read – thanks for sharing. Especially the “rich black” tip!
About the rgb-cmyk thing: It is not true.
For years now we hear “work in cmyk for print, rgb for screen”. but…
You work on a screen right? So your screen won’t display cmyk colors anyway.
I think the best method/worklow is to ALWAYS work in RGB.
Then, when you give your file to your printer, you export it in hi-res pdf with the proper cmyk setting and the color profile.
Yeah, I know, it’s the kind of thing a bit hard to hear after year of cmyk stuff, but it really works.
bonus, you don’t have to create one file for the web, one for the press, one for the magazine…
One rgb file, and export in pdf with the right cmyk profile.
Hi
We always use 40/40/40/100. It’s easy to remember.
Also keep in mind that when you use rich black the prints will take longer to dry. So if your client is in a hurry and you use a lot of rich black it might take a day longer to get the job finished.
Use rich black for example when you place a black rectangle over an image. If you use just 100% black the image will come trough.
Why is that? When they print, black is the last color they print so this color will be put on top of everything else. Take also into account that black is standard set as overprint color. That means that the black rectangle I previously talked about won’t be cut out of the image that runs below it. If you would put a cyan rectangle above an image, the rectangle will be cut out and no image will run under it so in that case you won’t have a problem. I hope you get this somehow :).
Another thing to avoid … In illustrator and indesign you can make use of transparency. That can cause problems when making your pdf. A pdf can do weird things with transparency. If your pdf doesn’t look right, the print job won’t look right either.
I always copy my work and place it in photoshop and make an eps of it. In that case you won’t have a damn problem with transparency since everything is nicely flattend in one image.
Regarding truetype, previously mentioned in the comments. You can use them … Sometimes you have no choice. Well, just make outlines and you won’t have issues.
But, remember no to over save your file! Keep an editable version!
It’s nice someone writes a post about these things! Cool!
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It’s good to see that print design isn’t forgotten about completely. Most blogs I read focus more on web, so this is a nice refresher. Print design is much more appealing to me than web… I like to be able to touch, feel and smell my work LOL Great post!
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@binocle
I don’t agree with everything you say there.
If it comes to Photoshop I agree. It’s better to work in RGB. When you work in CMYK you even can’t make use of all the filters and so on.
But there are situations in which you can’t. When you are working on corporate identities for example. Corporatie identities work with fixed PANTONE colors and accordingly fixed CMYK values. If you would work in RGB and let the pdf do all the conversions for you, you will never get accurate values for your colors.
Why are these values so important? Just to get consistency in color between 2 color prints and 4 color prints.
Print design is sadly becoming a dying medium. Sadly, I dont the general public appreciates it anymore. Hopefully more inspired design will turn the tide.
Sorry I forgot something …
@binocle
You should try to convert RGB black to CMYK.
RGB black: R0 G0 B0
converted to CMYK
CMYK black: C91,37 M78,82 Y61,96 K97,65 (This is a lot of ink)
So 100% RGB black is not equal to 100% CMYK black.
@Martijn
Yep, of course, corporate identities with fixed colors are an exception.
For the rest, it makes no sens to convert the colors to cmyk before the final export.
I often hear/read “don’t forget to turn your images in cmyk before importing in indesign” and in my opinion it is complete bullshit and a huge waste of time and productivity…
Nice article. The Rich Black is definitely one that most people don’t know about. I just wish there were most tips. Like file formats and program for handling printing best. Best practices for printers, and paper selection. Good stuff though, thanks.
If you send that rich black to a printer, they will either change it or reject it out right. Sure, black comes out dark grey but using all 4 plates and at those values is a complete no! If the registration is just slightly off you will notice it. To create a decent black, you should use a booster of either cyan or magenta. Between 20-40% is more than enough to give you the richness and your print will come out far cleaner.
You’re forgetting to talk about trapping and overprinting.
Obviously, people can disagree, but for predictable color, achievable color, printable color, one must work in the color space of reproduction, and refer to appropriate reference materials (calibration tools, color guides, etc.). The biggest problem working in RGB and then converting to CMYK is that many colors will be “out of gamut.” So regardless of the color profile you use to export a PDF, you are going to get something unpredictable. Unpredictability is not wise or professional when you lead a client to expect one thing and then deliver another. And while some minor adjustments can be made on press, most designers these days simply do not go on press inspections. Bigger adjustments must be made in the file, to the plates, and are expensive.
While this post started out as a good refresher, I believe there are some comments that are blatantly not true — in my experience and opinion. The bottom line is that print design specifics cannot be reduced to a few pithy comments. If you are new to print, find yourself a mentor and some good books. And take some of these comments with a grain of salt.
@Martijn
mmmh… strange °__°
I made several tests, and depending of the source software, the color profile, etc, the rgb black is sometimes converted in 0-0-0-100, sometimes rounded but huge 92-80-85-95 ans sometimes 95.248 etc numbers…
I will investigate, but thanks for pointing me this detail.
Once again, this is definitely an opinion. These three things are only some most often committed mistakes in print design. Depending on the printer, they may or may not want to use rich black. As a general rule, printers accept rich black.
CMYK colors on a screen are emulated by Adobe’s products. It is a subtle difference, but a difference nonetheless.
There are hundreds of different variables for print design. Yes, there is plenty to be said about calibration, color spaces, ink density, and what the best rich black is to use; unfortunately, the answers to these questions are largely based on opinion rather than objectivity.
This post is meant to cover a large topic that easily eludes designers who design for mainly (or only) screen medium. By no means is it meant to be a full guide for printing, but rather just a few things to watch out for.
Great comments from everyone!
I have been in the book publishing field for 11 years. We design and develop books for major publishing companies. While I have heard of this rich black theory. I have never seen it practiced for the 1000 of pages that we have developed for major book publshers.
I’ve worked in the textbook design field for over 10 years and before that I ran a printing press. I understand the use of rich black, it’s not a new thing despite what people think. Sure, I understand it’s common practice these days to cut corners to save costs but you’re going to get a poor quality product if you do.
I’ve used rich black on several occasions. The actual CMYK breakdown often comes from the printer, but it is generally 20C, 40M, 60Y, 100K. Then again we’re usually designing for a coated stock. Simply boosting cyan or magenta is often not enough. A lot of printers these days are charging extra to fix common mistakes such has having over 300% ink density, so it is in your best interests to fix these problems before they even get to the printer.
Regarding working in RGB; No, when you’re working for print media you work in CMYK. If you want to repurpose for the web then you can convert from CMYK to RGB. If you start in RGB, you will get unintentional and unwanted colour shifts–You always work in CMYK for print. The only time I’d work in RGB is if I’m sending something to an inkjet printer because it’s built to work in RGB.
Sure, your monitor is displaying RGB but anyone in the design industry knows that. If your monitor is calibrated correctly then experience will allow you to anticipate what your colour is going to look like when it’s printed. If you need to be absolutely sure of a colour, then you print it to a properly calibrated printer. If you want to work in Photoshop in RGB great, but don’t supply me with an RGB hi res file because I will reject it. Do your filter work in RGB if you want to and then convert it to CMYK before you send it to me.
I’ve been dealing with a lot of jobs lately where clients don’t seem to care about the process, they just want the job done as cheaply as possible. I find it very sad that a lot of people are doing half-assed jobs for the sake of saving a buck or for the sake of making a quick buck from someone who doesn’t know any better. I dread the thought of having to reprint or repurpose these projects in the future…
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wouldn’t “Rich Black” be a great name for a kitteh?
oh… and i’d say some other offenses.
1. not understanding the difference of spot and process.
2. not press checking
3. specing pantones and not taking into account coated or non-coated.
The first sin is actually incorrect.
You should work in RBG right until the end, and then convert to CMYK.
The reason being that you are working on a monitor that can only output RGB. This means that what you will be looking at will only be an interpretation of CMKY coloring.
Photoshop knows how to take RGB values and turn them into fairly accurate CMYK values. Do not trust your monitor.
Ideally you should have your monitor color corrected, so when you are working in RGB you can have a fairly accurate representation.
It is not enough to say that you should just work in a CMYK gamut — I would say that is almost a bigger sin than being totally ignorant.
Also, rich black is only a good thing if you can count on your printer to output perfect registration. Newspapers, for instance, should stick with simpler colors.
First, this is great information for offset printing. But when dealing with digital printers for large format who use extended gamut inks( ie CMYK + Light Cyan + Light Magenta), you really should design and submit in AdobeRGB. AdobeRGB has a huge gamut as opposed to CMYK working spaces which will never take advantage of the extended gamut that your digital large format printer will use.
Just one more thing, NEVER EVER EVER design in RGB and convert to CMYK unless you are prepared to do some major adjustment to your images. Doing so usually washes out your images drastically since you are essentially cutting out all of the colors that your RGB gamut extends to. Think of it as a golf ball vs a tennis ball. The tennis ball is your RGB color gamut while the golf ball is your CMYK color gamut. Converting from RGB to CMYK is exactly like transforming the volume of colors contained the tennis ball to the volume of a golf ball.
#1 rule fore me, always check with the printer on what build will give the best black, since every printer is different.
#2 press check and/or always order a color assurance if available.
Say youre using stock photography in your print design, how do I ensure i’m using the correct resolution? Is there a setting within illustrator? How do I properly insert these images into a print design? PS: great article by the way, very useful.
Thanks for the tips.
Ah great tips. I didn’t know the one 2nd one about the blacks. Thanks!
to-binocle
Don’t agree at all. If you are designing for print try to stay in cmyk at least after you have used any filters before you place it into your layout. Lots of strange things can happen to shadows and halftones when converted from rgb to cmyk. I’ve seen shadows created in rgb convert to cmyk and it created a horrible banding effect in the final art. You can work in rgb but don’t wait until the pdf to see what it does.
pdfs these days seem to be used for final art which I cannot stand. There are two many things that can be done wrong when saving out to a pdf. I preflight art everyday from agencies around the world and have to fix 95% of it before going to print. When all I have is a pdf that was saved wrong I can’t fix it. I can’t believe the lack of knowledge out there when it comes to either prepress or screen printing. It seems everyone thinks if you design for the web you can do anything when in reality the web is the most forgiving.
i heard some wolves dig up natural cannabis plants and get thc in their paws, but i never thought it was true until a wolf was hit by a car in front of my house! i smoked the paws and was six different kinds of fucked up
remember margins and bleeds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The CMYK vs RGB thing is something everyone will always disagree about; but I thought I’d throw my two bits in as to WHY people disagree.
First, If you’re sending your work to an offset press, yes, it needs to be CMYK before it gets there.
Here’s the rub: Your average desktop printer today is designed to print your digital photos, which means its internal software, or RIP (raster image processor) is designed from the get-go to recieve and process RGB data, even thought the output is CMYK.
The same is true for the RIP software that drives all the printers in our shop, which include an HP5500, a Zund 215-C, and an HP DesignJet 9000.
There are lots of small single-print shops out there that do displays, art-reproduction, etc. that work in this same way. They prefer RGB data. So to state matter-of-factly that designing in RGB is a “common mistake” hasn’t been true for many years.
Like the author said, the post wasn’t meant to be an all-inclusive guide to printing, but you can’t talk about print design in photoshop, including specific settings for designing for print in photoshop without talking about the shortcomings of designing in CMYK space in the first place (mentioned above in other comments, including adjustment layers, blending modes, blending between layers, etc).
You also can’t really talk about RGB vs CMYK today anymore without talking about color spaces, ICC profiles, etc. CMYK inks are not all created equal. The gamut of our in shop printers is far greater than your standard web offset press.
All things being said, you can’t write a post like this without opening the can of worms labeled “RGB vs CMYK EPIC BATTLE”, and it mentions other mistakes I run into on a daily basis. I enjoyed the post very much, misleading statements about designing in photoshop not withstanding.
@douglas
I see the 3 deadly sins there! Was it a rich black wolf and did he bleed much? I guess there was no margin between him and the car … After you smoked the paws, did you see everything in CMYK or RGB, or was it a mix like CRMGYBK?
Ahhhh, all the “rich black” corrections, I’ll add mine LOL:
40/30/30/100
Nice post & nice site, thanks!
I learned from your article. I previously didn’t know about “rich black.” Thanks!
useful for me! good info to remember! thumbs up!!
1. Your CMYK representation is pretty inaccurate. It shows greens, blues and reds that would be impossible to recreate in CMYK. RGB is a larger color gamut. (RGB = additive color, like light sources. CMYK = subtractive color, can only be seen by reflecting light off of it.)
2. Rich black. You should mention that ink density is definitely a problem. If you’re sending to a commercial printer, talk to them first, and make sure your ink densities are no greater than 300% overall. every printer has a different formula for their own rich black.
People who set type in rich black should be shot. People who set type in Photoshop should be shot, cloned, and shot again.
If you are sending your work to a commercial printer, you should be doing everything in CMYK. If you don’t do it, the printer will usually charge you to compose your work correctly. That’s why sending printers layouts in Microsoft Word or Microsoft Powerpoint drives then NUTS – those programs operate in RGB mode.
Unlike what Eric said previously, it’s fine to work in RGB photographically in raster image editors like Photoshop, but when you finalize your work, you should flatten everything and save it as CMYK, unless you’re printing in a non-CMYK process, like a photographic-type device, or an expanded-gamut inkjet printer.
3. Resolution. You don’t need to design in 300 dpi because of the print resolution of the device. 300 dpi came about as an accepted standard because it’s twice the linescreen of a 150 linescreen halftone. You were guaranteed not to have any halftone banding artifacts in your image as long as, essentially, there was enough image data to generate a halftone dot while maintaining 256 levels of gray at your chosen linescreen.
Even though most commercial printers make images with halftones, most household inkjet printers generate images stochastically, without using halftones, so that formula goes out the window. There is definitely a level of diminishing quality returns, however, at half the resolution of your print device.
Also…
Liz Mentioned “3. specing pantones and not taking into account coated or non-coated.”
There is no difference in the ink formulation of, say, Pantone 300 C and Pantone 300 U. The actual Pantone 300 INK is the same, only the electronic color swatch is different because the program is attempting to simulate the way 300 Blue will look on a coated paper stock vs. uncoated paper stock.
Martijn has mentioned: “In illustrator and indesign you can make use of transparency. That can cause problems when making your pdf. A pdf can do weird things with transparency. If your pdf doesn’t look right, the print job won’t look right either.”
This is an issue with older PostScript RIPs trying to render newer PDF-based output from Adobe’s programs. Drop Shadows and Transparency in these two programs have been an evil curse upon most prepress operators. Sometimes, your PDF will look fine on-screen, but you will still get color shifts around drop shadow and transparency areas.
And, unlike what Joann said above, TrueType fonts are perfectly fine to work with. I print documents that use TrueType fonts every day, Windows & Mac platforms, they work just fine. It’s the old postscript type 3 fonts that you have to watch out for.
You are very correct on one thing however: A “contract” proof. For anything you are going to be printing large quantities of, it is important that all parties agree on what the final printed piece will look like. Even better if the proof is signed as “OK”, from the end client, the designer, and the printer. If you care enough to pay thousands of dollars for a long print run, it’s prudent to obtain a “contract” proof. (So called because signing them is actually a legal contract under standard printing trade customs, the printer will print to match that proof.)
The rich black the company I used to work for was 30/20/20/100. I was taught a different reasoning you would want to use rich black. The reason why you should use rich black is that if there happens to be a flaw in the application of the ink to a page that it won’t show as glaringly. Flaws in ink application happen all the time with offset printing, so minimizing is the key. You don’t usually have this problem with the other colours because you usually don’t just print Cyan, Magenta or Yellow on their own, usually there is something mixed in with those colours.
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Another I would add to this list is failing to account for crops. This is something that will definitely get you lots of guff from a printer.
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Regarding using 100% black for font, I didn’t know that and always used my rich black. What would you consider to be a large enough font to use rich black as you described in your post. Or what size font and below would your recommend to use 100% black
CONVERTING from RGB to CMYK is not as easy as flipping the switch in Photshop or Illustrator. You must check your color values after. Just take one second to move your mouse cursor over the Darkest and lightest color areas of the image and read the color values in the Info box, it will only take a second and you images will look much better.
Example:
IF you want it to be black, and you’ve converted an RGB black to a CMYK black the value will come out more as a gray because when it is converted Adobe software reads a 255R 255G 255B (black) as something like 45C 82.678M 12.34Y and 85K (not really black) Your white, while being all zeros in the RGB settings may come out a little dingy. Just make sure your images when being sent to the printer are the way you want them in the color check… you don’t want to end up with 100,000 ugly looking images.
@Meredith: I have a few years of pre-press experience and I’m now a designer. I have never found a justifiable time where (just black, not colored) text that is meant to be just small standard reading text to have more color in it than 100K. Don’t use rich black as a text color… ever. It’s over kill. At the point where a rich black is needed, to fill the thinness of the black ink, any press that’s worth it’s pre-press fee will add it in. The biggest headache on a press is trying to register the little serifs on Times New Roman.
@LeberMac: I like the cut of your jib. You know your stuff (*tips hat*)
Very nice post! I have a question that will maybe change the discusion a little.
I need to create a block notes, with a grid. I heard that the lines of the grid could print out blurred or shifted.
Anybody have experience with this??