GETTING THE MOST FROM BLACK
Black is black! Isn’t it? It may surprise you to learn that there’s more to black than meets
the eye...
To get the best from our process, black can be produced in two ways. The first method is
single colour black, made from 100% black ink. This is ideal for small areas less than 25mm
2
such as text or logos, since too much ink coverage on small areas may result in sheets sticking
together.
On areas of over 25mm
2
in size, single colour black can
100% Black
appear washed out and uneven. This is because the rollers
on printing presses roll the ink off over a large area. The
alternative is rich black, which consists of 100% black and
40% cyan. A rich black should be used on larger areas to
ensure an even, dark coverage, as the second ink colour
disguises any inconsistencies. However, rich black should
never be used on small text as any tiny deviance in registration
100% Black
40% Cyan
will lead to a blurred effect.
Be aware that the higher the percentage ink coverage, the longer the drying time required.
This is particularly true of uncoated stocks such as letterheads (see page 07).
Black will inevitably appear duller on uncoated stock because of the absorbency of the paper.
This absorbency also means that any fine detail reversed out of black may disappear. We do
not recommend less than 8pt text, for example, on uncoated stock.
You may think that it would be okay to have ‘three or four colour’ black text as long as the
total ink coverage is less than 300%. You’d be wrong! Black text should never have more than
140% ink coverage. “Four colour black” text is virtually impossible to print, will look blurred
and may cause sheets to stick together.
Also be aware that black within a photograph as a background may have a different CMYK
make-up to other parts of your design. This will be
noticeable when printed, even if not on screen. Placing
a photograph with a black background over a black
area in Quark, for example, may reveal a difference
between the two shades of black when printed. To
overcome this, take a sample of the black that the
background is required to match in an application
such as Photoshop (use the colour picker tool). Then
simply mix the matched colour in, say, Quark – paying
careful attention to the overall ink coverage.
08
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