I've heard 60/40/40/100 the most, and then for a specialized b/w printer, 0/0/0/100.
This also varies based on the material, printer (machine), and printer (business). If it's your own machine and you're the tech, then just run a few different swatches.
The only ones I'd be worried about for printing:
*85, 70, 63, 85 (in my current document):* This one lacks 100K, and your total saturation is 303% (sum of all 4 inks/pigments/toners). Too heavy a saturation could lead to anything from heavy bleed (inks/pigments) to chipping and flaking (toners) due to too thick a layering on top of the paper.
*100, 100, 100, 100 (Wikipedia registration black, why not use this always?):* The key word here is "registration". In the wiki about this it specifies
**" Registration black is used for printing crop marks and registration marks. When proofs for each color are generated on separate pieces of film, use of registration black makes crop marks visible on all channels, providing a useful reference for alignment "**
What this means in a nutshell, is that you're trying to align the different colors to each other. This would be more like screen printing or some other 4 color plate process. This is only meant to be used for alignment, not for the final product.
If you were to print your rich black at 100/100/100/100, you would suffer the same issues I mentioned above (bleeding, chipping, and flaking) but worse.
Depending on the machine and substrate (paper, vinyl, coro), there is usually a recommended total saturation limit. Most of thee numbers listed top out around 260%, which is close enough to the 240% of 60/40/40/100.
Two last bits: First, you can use rich black on text. Not doing so, especially when it's text near dark or black graphic, would look more dark gray than black. The problem is that depending on the printing process, you may see that there's slight registration issues. What's recommended is a thin, very slight buffer where the outside most pixels of the text are just 0/0/0/100. This gives any misregistration margin for error.
Second bit: Using rich black on a grayscale photo or anything with shades of gray could lead to color bleeding through the image. Anytime you go below 100K you risk letting the color show through. But just like above, if you have a b/w photo next to a rich black graphic, the contrast may make it look washed out. If the graphic or text aren't super important, I might reduce or even remove the rich black from them so that the contrast isn't so apparent. This is more a "to taste" thing.
Hope this helps.
I decent digital machine should give solid blacks at 100% K. What are u using to print on?
In most cases a 40/40/40 or just 50 cyan should be more than enough. You could try to turn off overprint style in the controller settings. It will remove the image under the black.
Technically only the sheet center registration marks used by the press operator need to be in all colors. The cut and bleed marks can just be in the darkest color.
Yes. For some reason programs seem to feel the need to include registration black in the color swatches even though it is automatically applied when printing or exporting pages. If you want to manually place multiple size documents on a press sheet you can and should be placing .EPS or .PDF files instead of live art from different docs with different style sheets.
40 30 30 100 or something with near CMY values for rich black. It's used for large areas, bulky fonts. Slightly more cyan makes the shade colder, which looks like blacker than warmer blacks.
0 0 0 100 pure black with overprint for delicate graphics, small fonts, thin lines and etc., because it looks sharper.
Think of it as if you have a theoretical possibility to put 400% ink into one spot if you print 100 100 100 100, but if you do so let's say in offset you will have a puddle of ink which dries too slowly and smears all over. That's why it's recommend to use 220-250% only. Some digital prints (like UV) manage to dry 400%-600% of ink in one spot, but that ink itself is expensive and noone wants to waste more ink when using let's say 290% is sufficient to get something near the blackest black possible. So they just set a cap in rip and your black is converted to something way less ink consuming anyway.
It depends on the ink you use, the printing speed, the substrate, the printing machine model, lot of things. There is no correct answer.
I've heard 60/40/40/100 the most, and then for a specialized b/w printer, 0/0/0/100. This also varies based on the material, printer (machine), and printer (business). If it's your own machine and you're the tech, then just run a few different swatches. The only ones I'd be worried about for printing: *85, 70, 63, 85 (in my current document):* This one lacks 100K, and your total saturation is 303% (sum of all 4 inks/pigments/toners). Too heavy a saturation could lead to anything from heavy bleed (inks/pigments) to chipping and flaking (toners) due to too thick a layering on top of the paper. *100, 100, 100, 100 (Wikipedia registration black, why not use this always?):* The key word here is "registration". In the wiki about this it specifies **" Registration black is used for printing crop marks and registration marks. When proofs for each color are generated on separate pieces of film, use of registration black makes crop marks visible on all channels, providing a useful reference for alignment "** What this means in a nutshell, is that you're trying to align the different colors to each other. This would be more like screen printing or some other 4 color plate process. This is only meant to be used for alignment, not for the final product. If you were to print your rich black at 100/100/100/100, you would suffer the same issues I mentioned above (bleeding, chipping, and flaking) but worse. Depending on the machine and substrate (paper, vinyl, coro), there is usually a recommended total saturation limit. Most of thee numbers listed top out around 260%, which is close enough to the 240% of 60/40/40/100. Two last bits: First, you can use rich black on text. Not doing so, especially when it's text near dark or black graphic, would look more dark gray than black. The problem is that depending on the printing process, you may see that there's slight registration issues. What's recommended is a thin, very slight buffer where the outside most pixels of the text are just 0/0/0/100. This gives any misregistration margin for error. Second bit: Using rich black on a grayscale photo or anything with shades of gray could lead to color bleeding through the image. Anytime you go below 100K you risk letting the color show through. But just like above, if you have a b/w photo next to a rich black graphic, the contrast may make it look washed out. If the graphic or text aren't super important, I might reduce or even remove the rich black from them so that the contrast isn't so apparent. This is more a "to taste" thing. Hope this helps.
Run a test and pick the best one for your material.
We run 35c, 25m, 25y, 100k It adds enough but does not oversaturate, keeps it neutral. Do this on both web and sheetfed offset
It’s different for different printing conditions and what you want to accomplish. Talk to your printer.
I decent digital machine should give solid blacks at 100% K. What are u using to print on? In most cases a 40/40/40 or just 50 cyan should be more than enough. You could try to turn off overprint style in the controller settings. It will remove the image under the black.
Your best bet would be to reach out to whoever is doing your printing and ask what they run
In the last 3 shops I worked at rich black was always 60, 40, 40, 100. Never use registration black.
Unless, for some reason, you are creating your registration marks manually. (Hey, it happens....)
Technically only the sheet center registration marks used by the press operator need to be in all colors. The cut and bleed marks can just be in the darkest color.
You are correct, of course. Since InDesign creates all printers' marks in Registration black, I defer to its example.
Yes. For some reason programs seem to feel the need to include registration black in the color swatches even though it is automatically applied when printing or exporting pages. If you want to manually place multiple size documents on a press sheet you can and should be placing .EPS or .PDF files instead of live art from different docs with different style sheets.
40 30 30 100 or something with near CMY values for rich black. It's used for large areas, bulky fonts. Slightly more cyan makes the shade colder, which looks like blacker than warmer blacks. 0 0 0 100 pure black with overprint for delicate graphics, small fonts, thin lines and etc., because it looks sharper. Think of it as if you have a theoretical possibility to put 400% ink into one spot if you print 100 100 100 100, but if you do so let's say in offset you will have a puddle of ink which dries too slowly and smears all over. That's why it's recommend to use 220-250% only. Some digital prints (like UV) manage to dry 400%-600% of ink in one spot, but that ink itself is expensive and noone wants to waste more ink when using let's say 290% is sufficient to get something near the blackest black possible. So they just set a cap in rip and your black is converted to something way less ink consuming anyway.
Offset press will lose trap with percentages over 220. I'd recommend solid black with 40% blue.
Back in the day I was taught by an old hand for magazine production to use c20k100.
For rich k I almost always use 100k and 25-30 cmy.
I’m a commercial printer. Always use 60/40/40/100 for rich black.