Re: Offset printing of black-and-white photographs in a page with abundant color
Re: Offset printing of black-and-white photographs in a page with abundant color
- Subject: Re: Offset printing of black-and-white photographs in a page with abundant color
- From: Ben Goren <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 09:21:54 -0700
On Jul 26, 2016, at 8:49 AM, Jorge . <email@hidden> wrote:
> When placing a black-and-white photograph in a page that will also have
> plenty of other photographs, illustrations and layout elements in color,
> part of a magazine that will be printed in offset, is there a rationale for
> preferring that gray values of that photograph are printed using only black
> ink or with a mix of all CMYK inks instead?
That will depend in no small amount on the particular press and its inkset -- and quite possibly the paper as well.
For what it's worth, many modern fine art inkjet printers use some mix of all their inks when printing grayscale images.
Big considerations..."black" inks are never actually spectrally flat, though quality ones are sometimes "good enough." That would drive you towards an ICC profile that balances out the color of the black ink -- especially if the paper stock is itself non-neutral (because you'd want to shift the black ink towards the tint of the paper).
But, on the flip side, if you've only got a CMYK printer, that might suggest a relatively low frequency screening pattern, in which case the individual halftone dots might be visible in an objectionable way.
And on the gripping hand, the multiple inks can have a similar effect as sub-pixel antialiasing on LCD displays and help give the perception of higher-than-you-really-have resolution.
Short answer?
Make some test prints and judge for yourself.
Cheers,
b&
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