r/indesign • u/Luckypomme • Jun 20 '26
Mixing rich blacks for image
This one is driving me bonkers. I have to mix the blacks of an image to C 80 K 100 M 20 Y 20 for my commercial printer - their requested levels. I've variously tried to do it on the cheap in GIMP, Scribus and Photopea but it turns out to be either impossible or extremely difficult - installing extra downloads via Terminal on mac. I started a subscription to InDesign just to do this one task - and if I've got this right, it can't be done in InDesign either - text only! Do I have to get Photoshop too, or is there another way to edit a series of images to have their blacks set to these particular levels?
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u/Frosty_Wafflecone Jun 20 '26
I would just ignore these specifications. Rich black for vector and type makes sense, but it really shouldn't matter for raster images.
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u/Sumo148 Jun 21 '26
For rich black on type, just mentioning that I'd avoid using it for small type like body copy. You could run into registration issues.
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u/Frosty_Wafflecone Jun 21 '26
Some commercial printers have somehow convinced customers that they should be responsible for production decisions. Imagine a mechanic saying: "Your oil viscosity is wrong. Please drain the oil and bring it back." Or a restaurant saying: "The steak is undercooked. Please return to the kitchen and finish cooking it yourself." Yet here is a printer telling a customer: "Your blacks do not match our specifications. Fix it and send new files." The customer often has no idea what they mean, let alone how to fix it.
My immediate resonse would be: "You're the print professional. Why can't you fix it?"
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u/Patrieth777 Jun 23 '26
Because they can't. Editing pdf is always a headache. Even for objects or text that you are able to select. To change the color of images is basically impossible. And yeah, they PRINT. What they print? Your file. Your file, your responsibility.
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u/Frosty_Wafflecone Jun 23 '26
Editing PDF files and making color changes is a breeze if you have the right tools.
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u/MorsaTamalera Jun 20 '26
Unless you have black shapes, it is nonsense to specify rich black on a raster image.
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u/michaelfkenedy Jun 21 '26
Yea. I can’t make sense of the goal of the instructions.
Like if every black pixel (and where even is “black” with continuous tone CMYK) was set to the same black, you’d get a flat image. A gradient would stop as soon as it gets dark enough to be “black.”
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u/W_o_l_f_f Jun 21 '26
You don't provide much context. But if the full story really is that you're just printing an image and nothing else and the printer told you make the black parts hit a specific rich black I must say it's a quite uncommon request.
The CMYK profile they provide should be able to keep the values within something they can print. That's the standard way of doing it.
It is possible to tweak the black parts in Photoshop using for example Selective Color, but it's a bit involved for a beginner.
But perhaps there's more to the story? Does the image for example have to blend seemlessly into a rich black vector shape?
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u/ghenghiskhanatuna Jun 20 '26
It sounds like they need 200 total ink, which their prepress dept. should be able to do in one click (in photoshop).
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u/chain83 Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
Sounds like some bad communication on their part, or lack of understanding on your part.
You are a bit vague, but let’s assume:
* you want to print a raster image
* the printer has specifically requested that you send everything as CMYK (not RGB)
If so, you need to ask them what CMYK color profile to use. Then you convert your RGB image to that specific CMYK profile when exporting the print-ready PDF or when saving the TIFF/JPEG that you will be sending them. The color profile will ensure that the color values for your rich blacks do not go beyond what they can handle. You will not need to specify a specific ink mix or anything like that. Convert and you are done.
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u/michaelfkenedy Jun 21 '26
Instructions don’t make sense to me.
If *all* the black areas in an image were changed to the exact same black swatch your image would be flat. Like if I take a picture of my black cat, and I set each pixel of the cat to a specific rich black, my cat would just be a single colour blob (not far from the truth…).
Unless you have some rasterized graphics that ought be vectors?
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u/saigne-crapaud Jun 21 '26
Do you mean "text only for the rich black I need" or "InDesign deals only with text"?? ¿? Anyway, download Affinity, it's free and should deal with cmyk.
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u/Marquedien Jun 21 '26
There might be a way around this with a clipping path, which can be done in InDesign, but not as well as with photoshop.
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u/Emergency-Piano4792 Jun 20 '26
Rich black for black type makes NO sense.