Hokum

Hi,

I've been creating book covers in paint shop pro 8. I create the covers from images that I get from my customers, and then send them off to a printer to be printed. On a couple of occasions, the printer people have came back and told me my cover is created in "rich" black. I think they mean the CMYK value is 100% for all 4 colors. They won't accept that. My question is, in photoshop, is there a way once I receive an image to check and see what the CMYK value of that image is, and if so, fix potential problems as described above? It doesn't appear I can in paint shop pro. I have been looking for a good reason to purchase photoshop anyway since I'm sure its a much better graphics program. Any advice would be appreciated.

Mike

Bacardi

I never heard that term "rich black" before.

What can happen is that you have to take into account the fact that the tiny inkt blobs will splatter a bit and grow, which is why you will lose the open structure of the black. And ditto for yellow, magenta and cyan.
You may never go to 100% black or white.
Yet this depends largely on the paper that is used, the propreties of the specific press, the humidity in the air, the newness of the rubber blanket etc.

If you are US based, you may want to use the US setting for CMYK.

Without wanting to be impolite, I'd strongly urge you to read a good book or at least a chapter on the subject.

Or even better: ask guru Gary Bouton here in his own forum. He knows it all.

Most printers prefer to change to CMYK themselves as they know their presses and have pro apps at their disposal (preps,...) from which to create their films or plates. Deliver them a .psd with the AdobeRGB profile and they are happy.

You may also ask them what exactly they mean by that "rich" black.