Narrow or wide black?

[Lukas Engqvist]

Just interested to hear in your views on narrow or wide black in your GCR. Correct me if I'm wrong but I understand it as narrow means GCR in near neutrals only and wide means that even the high chroma colours will have black in as soon as it is possible.

[Stephen Marsh]

Narrow and wide black, as opposed to short and long black? (damn, I need a coffee)...

I personally like more K in neutrals and less in skin tone and pastels, however I believe that the current trend is "wide" as you put it. I believe that the press operator needs to be more careful of the density of the K ink in a "wide" separation (with less care needed for CMY gray balance) and prepress needs to have a better understanding of the dot gain (example if black density is pushed for K type, what happens to the image content).


Stephen Marsh

[gordo]

Narrow and wide black, as opposed to short and long black? (damn, I need a coffee)...

My understanding is that narrow and wide black refer to how far away from neutral the color must be before black replaces the chromatic colors. UCR would be an example of narrow and GCR would be an example of wide. The is different from long and short which refer to the tone value range from 100% to 1% at which point the black is cut off.

best gordo

[Stephen Marsh]

My understanding is that narrow and wide black refer to how far away from neutral the color must be before black replaces the chromatic colors. UCR would be an example of narrow and GCR would be an example of wide. The is different from long and short which refer to the tone value range from 100% to 1% at which point the black is cut off.

best gordo

Understood Gordo, that was my 9am coffee craving kicking in with a poor attempt at humour. Agreed, yes, short or long is for the neutral CMY grayscale (cyan value?) start point of black.


Stephen Marsh

[gordo]

Understood Gordo, that was my 9am coffee craving kicking in with a poor attempt at humour. Agreed, yes, short or long is for the neutral CMY grayscale (cyan value?) start point of black.

One cannot stress enough the importance of a cuppa java in doing quality separations.

best, gordo

[Stephen Marsh]

@Gordo, I am not even sure how common short black or long black coffee is in the USA, I know that jugs of brewed coffee is common (shudder), however I would have thought that there would be a bigger espresso and cafe culture.

@Lukas, I don't want to derail your topic thread...

I don't have experience with all of the different profile generation packages on the market, however it would seem that a popular approach is to use a "simple" slider/black % generation selector... which sets the amount of GCR. There are also separate K start + K max (for setting short or long black plates) and of course total ink values. It would appear that neutrals and colour areas are treated the same without separate UCR controls that perform "GCR" in only neutrals.

Stephen Marsh

[mglouis]

Somehow, someway I committed to memory that UCR is black replacement in achromatic colors whereas GCR is black replacement everywhere, regardless of saturation. Width refers to the extent graying component is replaced with black.

Page 10 of this old brochure, http://goo.gl/fV4T9, explains the extent part of it.

Here's a page that agrees with how I think about the differences in UCR and GCR.
UCR - Under Color Replacement and another ColorWiki - The Color Key

Short and long refer to black start correlating to the cyan value along a tone scale.

Matt Louis

[Stephen Marsh]

Somehow, someway I committed to memory that UCR is black replacement in achromatic colors whereas GCR is black replacement everywhere, regardless of saturation. Width refers to the extent graying component is replaced with black.

Thanks Matt,

That was my basic understanding, however it would appear that some "modern" profile software does not offer UCR, it appears that it is all about GCR (not to mention "ink saving") these days.

P.S. The depreciated, legacy non-ICC classic CMYK engine of Photoshop does have an option for UCR or GCR separations, however the UCR is one size fits all with no choice of the width. The GCR option has none, light, medium, heavy and maximum widths/amounts.


Regards,

Stephen Marsh

[rich apollo]

Just interested to hear in your views on narrow or wide black in your GCR. Correct me if I'm wrong but I understand it as narrow means GCR in near neutrals only and wide means that even the high chroma colours will have black in as soon as it is possible.

Depends on the output conditions. On press a "wider" black can yield improved color stability, savings in ink consumption, and greater chroma in saturated colors.

An inkjet device withOUT variable droplet or light black inks will do better with UCR, or a "narrow" black. Helps you avoid bearded ladies, and such.

One size does not fit all.