Digital BW, The Print

On Feb 23, 2009, at 10:13 AM, d.burges wrote:

> Hi, Does anyone have an answer to obtaining neutral tone B+W images
> when printing as a CMYK file. I'm a photographer in the UK putting
> together a 62 page photobook for a client who wants the book in B+W,
> the company which produce the books for me need  pdf files created in
> photoshop coverted to CMYK as they print on a commercial printing  
> press,
> I've just had the books back and many of the pages have printed with
> slightly differing hues, mainly yellow, some blue. Having read many
> posts it would seem it is very hard to obtain neutral tones due to the
> difficulty of mixing the CMY inks to produce neutral B+W, however I'm
> hoping there is an answer out there somewhere! David

Color management will typically improve results, but if similarly  
prepared files are coming out warm in some pages and cool on others,  
than it would appear that the presses are not being run in a color  
managed manner, or to tight enough standards to get consistent  
results. The simple way to assure that files don't get color casts is  
to create black-channel-only separations, where the entire image is  
printed with only black ink, no colored inks blended in. This does not  
allow control of the tone (whatever gray the black ink produces is  
what you get) and may result in less smooth images, as there is only  
one ink being used, but if your current results are unacceptable, it  
might be an improvement.

C. David Tobie
Global Product Technology Manager
Digital Imaging & Home Theater
CDTobie@...


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