Ink limit problems
fidel (334 pencils) | Sat, 2008-09-13 09:00
Have you ever had a problem like the the picture above in InDesign?
All those red zones are above 300% inkt percentage.
So you need to change those percentages, there are a lot of ways of doing it, with profiles and so on...
I found an interesting way in Photoshop. Here it is...
Open the picture in Photoshop, see that you have your info panel visible.
When you hover over a problem area in your picture you can read the inkpercentages in the info panel.
Now we have to select the problem area's, you do it with the color range under the selectmenu. A window will pop up, select the first color picker and click in a problem area. In the little rectangle in the middle some are's will become white (they are selected), if not all your problem area's are selected click with the colorpicker with the plussign on an area to add to the selection. To expand or contract your selection you can play with the fuzziness glider. When you are happy, click OK, you will have a selection.
The problem area's being selected we now have to adjust the inkpercentages, and you can do it with an adjustment. Go to Shadow/Highlight adjustment under the Image menu.
Normally it will jump to a 50% in the shadows and 0% in the highlights.
50% in the shadows is way too much, it wil create a blemished color, but if you diminish that percentage to around 15% it will be much better. When you hover with your cursor over a problem area you will read in the info panel the new inkvalues without applying th adjustment, so that you can adjust the percentage if it is too much or too little.
It isn't a perfect, but it is very easy and a nice way to use the Shadow/Higlight adjustment
Hope you like it!
Commenting on this Blog entry is closed.
I would assume that if you are experiencing over 300% ink limits that the pictures are not yours? Only reason I say this is that Photoshop I believe is defaulted to a maximum ink limit of 300% for CMYK profiles. If that is the case, all you need to do is open the picture in PS, and either assign your current profile, or change to RGB then change back to CMYK.
You could also use the replace colour function as opposed to the shadow / highlight.
Richard Ramsay :: Graphic Designer
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Richard Ramsay // Graphic & Web Designer
www.richardramsay.com
in my blog there are a lot of possibliies to solve the problem, but thi a way to use the shadow/highlight adjustment to solve this problem. and it works real nice.
Photoshop isn't limited to a max 300% ink limit, by the way.
Maybe it is time consuming, but good work always is...
Not sure where you got this info from as you can most certainly create Rich Black (100 for C, M, Y, and K values) in PS for a grand total of 400%. Further, the percentage of colors in NO WAY determines the ownership of an image. A watermark or copyright notice on the image would, though.
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Natobasso
dirtandrust.com
"Powerpoint is not a design application"
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Dirt and Rust
yup you can create a 400% black but as stated before, photoshop's defaults will not allow this so you would have to make this happen yourself.
In terms of the ownership of the image, what i was getting at was if he himself was laying out the work in InDesign / Quark and he opened all the images in photoshop to use, none would be over the 300% ink limit. As that one was, I came to assume it had been 'supplied' and not opened through photoshop.
He could be right in what was written about using the shadow / highlight function to reduce the colour percentage, but what he missed was, because he used photoshop, ANYTHING he did to that image which was then saved, was automatically below 300% - unless he has a custom profile.
Richard Ramsay :: Graphic Designer
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Richard Ramsay // Graphic & Web Designer
www.richardramsay.com
Richard is correct and unfortunately my COMPLETE explanation was removed from the duplicate post. All of the provided CMYK Color Settings within Photoshop limit total ink coverage to a max of 300%.
If you switch to CMYK and have ANY of the default CMYK profiles selected the 'Total Ink Limit' is set to no great than 300%. No matter what you do, Photoshop won't allow any area of the image to exceed this value. Below I have it set to RGB mode and 000000 black. [Notice how the CMYK values add up to 300... 75C + 68M + 67Y + 90K = 300]
** The ONLY way around this if you're using a CMYK 'Proof Setup' would be to create a 'Custom CMYK' setup and change your 'Proof Setup' to something that would allow you to exceed the default 300% total ink coverage settings. **
Edit - Color Settings
CMYK Settings for [U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2]
It is also my understanding that all of the Adobe products allow you to apply a CMYK profile during output. That would automatically convert any RGB or CMYK image with areas that exceed the 300% total ink limit in any area of the image.
Why not just go to RGB colorspace and use Shadow/Highlight and up the Shadow percentage? Then there's no selecting involved. Of course for print you have to go back to CMYK space when you're done.
[Edit: Crap, someone already beat me to this fix!]
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Natobasso
dirtandrust.com
"Powerpoint is not a design application"
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Dirt and Rust
All this primitive stuff you people are using makes me laugh!
Try Paint '09!
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
http://stevefakeballmer.wordpress.com
I am not Steve Ballmer pretending not to be me!
And you're contributing WHAT exactly to this discussion? Or any discussion you've jumped in on like a pimp on Broadway looking for new clients...?
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Natobasso
dirtandrust.com
"Powerpoint is not a design application"
----
Dirt and Rust
Even 300% can be too much. Try prepping 4/C for newsprint. It's vital to understand your ink density limits and how to adjust them. The good thing about PS is that there is always more than one way and almost never one way that is the best. It's all about knowing how to achieve the desired results in the preferred output method. Still, those who work in print I strongly suggest doing some research into adjusting and correcting ink densities. The profiles can make things much easier for you, especially if you need to use the same image across a variety of media (newsprint, magazine, outdoor, etc.). Being able to start of with a maximum ink density in the profile really helps.
I do color correction at my job and our goal is to keep ink levels in the darkest areas to 340% and lower. Any more ink and it begins to mess up the printing. We use Shadow/Highlight while in RGB, then selective color and drop the black down about 5-10% and you wind up with the darkest areas around 340% when converted to CMYK.
Using a true RGB workflow this problem won't occur. Just place the RGB in InDesign and select the correct profile (Newspaper, Magazine, etc) and InDesign will do the work for you. ICC profiles are free you know ;-) This way you won't have to 'damge' the origional and keep it perfect. Just let INDD optimize for the output.
but some newspaper need to 220-240, what can i do?
Well use the ISOnewspaper icc. Max 240% ink. It's an ISO standard all newspapers can use. You won't go wrong... More info and (free) ICC profiles in this article http://www.digital-engineer.net/archive/entry/white-there-is-no-white/
Cool thing about indesign is it can also preview you what your design will look like at 240% ink!
Why would text created in InDesign CS4 have a over the ink limit. How do I correct it. (And no I am not talking about the registration Ink) Just plain text created in a ad. Let me know if you have any tips. Thanks.