spiritlevel
New member
Hello everyone - my first post here.
Im currently doing the artwork for a CD digipack and CD onbody that is made up of black and white images.
Looking into the best way of doing the separations... The job will be printed on uncoated stock and there is no opportunity for proofs - and it needs to be sent off tomorrow...
Have been reading around this and other forums and various methods have been suggested which I have been trying out and looking at the resulting separations - but I'm still unsure which method to go with. The aim is to get strong punchy images but maintain neutrality as far as possible.
Options are:
1. Greyscale
Pros: certainly neutral.
Cons: images may look a bit flat, lack in contrast and blacks may not be very black, particularly on the uncoated stock as total ink coverage limited to 100%
2. Regular CMYK
Pros: stronger ink coverage, more contrast
Cons: images could easily take on an unwanted hue if press has any bias - did this before once and resulting images had a sludgy green hue which was not good - this is not really an option
3. Custom CMYK - high GCR
Certainly better than option 2 - but when I tested this last night there were till some areas of the image that made me worry about colour shift in the lighter areas - I got a reading of 12C 5M 5Y 2K at one point on the image which is unlikely to be neutral... also the cyan reading always seemed to be 8-10% stronger than M & Y consistently throughout the image which again made me worry about things taking on a cold tone.
4. CMYK - but remove CMY altogether from lighter areas of the image
Colour shift is not such a problem in dark areas of the image where there is lots of black coverage - it is the lighter areas that cause the problem. I found forum member Rich Apollo's PS action from this thread http://printplanet.com/forums/adobe/27462-cmyk-variation-software - which does a good job of this of removing CMY from lighter areas - CMY does not start to kick in at all until K hits about 25%. After that the CMK values are basically equal to each other (cyan maybe 1 or 2% stronger than M & Y) and the CMY values are consistently about half the K value throughout the image (after the initial 25% threshold has been passed). I like this option as the lighter areas just use black so no colour shift but in the darker areas the black gets underpinned by CMY so it has some punch and contrast - probably my preferred solution right now.
5. Greyscale images, but apply rich black swatch to them in InDesign
This is another interesting approach that I came across last night (forget exactly where) that I had not thought of. Use a greyscale image but apply a rich black swatch to it (example used 20C 15Y 15M 100K) in inDesign. I've used this method to colourise greyscale images before but never to turn a greyscale to a rich black. I like the fact that this method controls the CMYK balance consistently throughout the image - for any point the CMY value is always going to be 20% (C) or 15% (Y & M) of the K value. If I had the opportunity to do a scatter proof using different rich blacks then it would allow me to precisely control and test to get the exact look I wanted... But that's not an option here and I still have some concerns about neutrality in the lighter areas with this method...
So - I'm currently tossing up between option 4 and option 5 - what do you think would be best given this specific scenario? anything I've not thought of? All and any advice appreciated...
Who would have thought printing and black and white image would be so much more complicated than colour!
By the way, duotone/tritone is not an option here as the same image is repeated on both the cover and the CD body. While I could duotone the cover, I don't think the manufacturers can duotone the CD - It's either 4C or solid screen print.
thanks
Im currently doing the artwork for a CD digipack and CD onbody that is made up of black and white images.
Looking into the best way of doing the separations... The job will be printed on uncoated stock and there is no opportunity for proofs - and it needs to be sent off tomorrow...
Have been reading around this and other forums and various methods have been suggested which I have been trying out and looking at the resulting separations - but I'm still unsure which method to go with. The aim is to get strong punchy images but maintain neutrality as far as possible.
Options are:
1. Greyscale
Pros: certainly neutral.
Cons: images may look a bit flat, lack in contrast and blacks may not be very black, particularly on the uncoated stock as total ink coverage limited to 100%
2. Regular CMYK
Pros: stronger ink coverage, more contrast
Cons: images could easily take on an unwanted hue if press has any bias - did this before once and resulting images had a sludgy green hue which was not good - this is not really an option
3. Custom CMYK - high GCR
Certainly better than option 2 - but when I tested this last night there were till some areas of the image that made me worry about colour shift in the lighter areas - I got a reading of 12C 5M 5Y 2K at one point on the image which is unlikely to be neutral... also the cyan reading always seemed to be 8-10% stronger than M & Y consistently throughout the image which again made me worry about things taking on a cold tone.
4. CMYK - but remove CMY altogether from lighter areas of the image
Colour shift is not such a problem in dark areas of the image where there is lots of black coverage - it is the lighter areas that cause the problem. I found forum member Rich Apollo's PS action from this thread http://printplanet.com/forums/adobe/27462-cmyk-variation-software - which does a good job of this of removing CMY from lighter areas - CMY does not start to kick in at all until K hits about 25%. After that the CMK values are basically equal to each other (cyan maybe 1 or 2% stronger than M & Y) and the CMY values are consistently about half the K value throughout the image (after the initial 25% threshold has been passed). I like this option as the lighter areas just use black so no colour shift but in the darker areas the black gets underpinned by CMY so it has some punch and contrast - probably my preferred solution right now.
5. Greyscale images, but apply rich black swatch to them in InDesign
This is another interesting approach that I came across last night (forget exactly where) that I had not thought of. Use a greyscale image but apply a rich black swatch to it (example used 20C 15Y 15M 100K) in inDesign. I've used this method to colourise greyscale images before but never to turn a greyscale to a rich black. I like the fact that this method controls the CMYK balance consistently throughout the image - for any point the CMY value is always going to be 20% (C) or 15% (Y & M) of the K value. If I had the opportunity to do a scatter proof using different rich blacks then it would allow me to precisely control and test to get the exact look I wanted... But that's not an option here and I still have some concerns about neutrality in the lighter areas with this method...
So - I'm currently tossing up between option 4 and option 5 - what do you think would be best given this specific scenario? anything I've not thought of? All and any advice appreciated...
Who would have thought printing and black and white image would be so much more complicated than colour!
By the way, duotone/tritone is not an option here as the same image is repeated on both the cover and the CD body. While I could duotone the cover, I don't think the manufacturers can duotone the CD - It's either 4C or solid screen print.
thanks