100% K blacks

[PaulC 2]

Hi! a wesite that I want to use to get some black and white prints done says

" It is important to check your files feature a full range of tones and that blacks really are 100% K despite how they appear on the screen. If your blacks are only 90% K your prints will look flat. "

So I'm using CS3 how do I know if my blacks are 100% K.

Many thanks

Paul C

[matt wilson]

Paul......I think what it is referring to is the overall percentage .

In CS3's convert to black and white feature it's important to make sure after adjusting any individual colour channel slider the overall totall is 100%

That's the only thing I can think of and am only just getting to grips myself .

[cosmicma]

the 100% K i think they mean 100% black ( cmy K=black ) sorry of i'm pointing the obvious out you might allready know this

i think they mean make sure black is black and not a shade of grey ie on the scale of 0 to 255 black will be 0 and white is 255 and anything in between is a shade of grey

after you have converted your image to black n white hover over the darkest areas of the image with the ink dropper and you should get a reading of 0 or very close to it

this ia all i can think they mean

[PaulC 2]

I did a google of it a bit earlier and there seems to be 2 sorts of black -

plain black & rich black which uses a combination of other colours to achieve the black.

Thats all I've got so far. I may email the site to clarify what they mean.

Thanks for your replies

Paul C

[cosmicma]

the combination of other colours would be in print and not within the image

some printers use all colours including black to print the colour black rather than just using black on it's own
some printers have different shades of black to render shadows more accuratly

if you mix colours the final colour would be darker than the two original colours to a point where all colours mixed would make black
if you mix coloured light ( your monitor ) all colours make white

what you have been reading is refering to print as you are contemplating having your images printed by a 3rd party it doesn't really apply in your circumstance

i think what they mean by the statement make sure black is 100% black is different monitors may make parts of an image look black when in reality it's more of a grey because the monitor is not set up ( calibrated ) to accuratly show the true colours/shades of the image

[the3dge]

Don't forget that your monitor can display many more colours than any printer ever will, even if it's not calibrated properly. A good quality online printing service will let you download the ICC profiles for their printers and papers. You should then convert your sRGB or aRGB files to this profile as this will be the closest match for colour. Then adjust this file to the settings that you feel are best and send that file to them. If it comes back flat or to dark then it may be that your monitor that needs to be calibrated.