|
|
| MakeMusic Forum > Public Forums > Finale - Macintosh - FORUM HAS MOVED! > RGB vs. CMYK black printed to pdf | Forum Quick Jump
|
| 
bgoldes@alfred.com
Registered Member
      
Date Joined Jan 2001
Total Posts : 16
| Posted 4/16/2007 11:39 AM (GMT -6) |   | | We have known for some time that pdf files created directly from Finale use about a 90% black with lesser percentages of CMY (this is after switching the color mode in a given file within Adobe Illustrator from RGB to CMYK). Is there a way to have Finale print to pdf with a 100% CMYK black (or the RGB equivalent)? We are aware that 100k can be arrived at when creating eps files, but we want to avoid the extra step if at all possible. | | Back to Top | |
|
Philip.
Registered Member
Date Joined Aug 2006
Total Posts : 1466
| Posted 4/17/2007 8:38 AM (GMT -6) | | | You learn something every day here. Is this necessary even when printing on a black & white laser printer such as the 5100? And forgive me, what exactly is needed to produce the optimum result? | | Back to Top | |
|
Dr. Wiggy
Early music: modern methods
Date Joined Jun 2006
Total Posts : 12628
| Posted 4/17/2007 9:32 AM (GMT -6) | | A black and white laser should convert colour back to Black, so 90% K with 20% CMY, will come out as... 100% Black!
Postscript can define colour in RGB, CMYK and Greyscale, (as well as a few others) so normal output from a program that makes just Black text and graphics will probably be defined in Greyscale. PDF describes it slightly differently, but the result is the same.
It's only if you change the colour space to CMYK that you may get some of the Black going to the other plates.
Text is usually exempt from this and tends to stay on the Black plate. You don't want text on two plates because of problems with register.
The reason for sharing the black is toget a greater tonal range than Black alone, as with duotones. It also avoids dot gain, causing the Black to fill in at higher percentages, obliterating the detail in images. By splitting it, you can achieve an accurate shade but retain the clarity. Conversely, there is also a prepress technique for transferring equal amounts of CM&Y onto the Black plate....!
If you want a rich black background on press, set the shape to 100%K and 60% Cyan.
I do recommend tinkering with Quartz filters in OS X. They are utterly useful.
Finale 2007c, 2Ghz iMac, M-Audio Audiophile USB
Ancient Groove Music
http://www.cappella.demon.co.uk/musicPost Edited (Wiggy) : 4/17/2007 9:35:45 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | |
|
Philip.
Registered Member
Date Joined Aug 2006
Total Posts : 1466
| Posted 4/17/2007 10:54 AM (GMT -6) | | | Very interesting! How much music is actually printed in 4-color though? Is this something the vast majority of us should be concerned about? | | Back to Top | |
|
Dr. Wiggy
Early music: modern methods
Date Joined Jun 2006
Total Posts : 12628
| Posted 4/17/2007 11:30 AM (GMT -6) | | N. Grossingink said...
I'm no prepress expert, but the ones I've worked with recommend and prefer production PDFs to be made with Acrobat.
That said, if you're having success with the Mac PDFs, that's great.
N.
There's certainly greater control and flexibility with Acrobat. Lots of printers like to give you an Distiller joboptions file with their prefs.
But with Tiger, you can create PDF-X1a (print-industry standard) PDFs, which should be fine for press -- and most prepress houses can edit and adjust PDFs, should they need to.
If I were doing a catalogue for an art gallery exhibition, I'd use Acrobat. But for the solid black vectors coming out of Finale, Apple's implementation of PDF is the least of your worries!
Finale 2007c, 2Ghz iMac, M-Audio Audiophile USB
Ancient Groove Music
http://www.cappella.demon.co.uk/music | | Back to Top | |
|
Philip.
Registered Member
Date Joined Aug 2006
Total Posts : 1466
| Posted 4/17/2007 2:23 PM (GMT -6) | | | |
|
Dr. Wiggy
Early music: modern methods
Date Joined Jun 2006
Total Posts : 12628
| Posted 4/17/2007 3:43 PM (GMT -6) | | Philip. said...
One last question, Wiggy, would you recommend always creating PDF-X as a general rule?
PDF-X is, essentially, a particular sequence of Distiller preferences that the printing industry has found to work well, i.e. fonts embedded and subset, hi-resolution images, CMYK, etc...
I would only use it if I were creating a complex colour document that I was sending to a commercial printer.
You don't really need it for Finale output, or for day-to-day stuff. PDF-X also limits some of the bells and whistles that Adobe have put into recent versions of Acrobat.
Definitely have a play with the ColorSync Utility in ///Applications/Utilities
Finale 2007c, 2Ghz iMac, M-Audio Audiophile USB
Ancient Groove Music
http://www.cappella.demon.co.uk/music | | Back to Top | |
|
Orb Box
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2005
Total Posts : 27
| Posted 4/17/2007 11:42 PM (GMT -6) | | I work as a graphic designer at a newspaper, and I run into the issue of "process black"— CMY+K black— all the time.
Generally speaking:
There's no need to worry about this if you're printing in Black only.
(Why are you printing in color unless there is some sort of graphic in your music??)
RGB is an light-additive process for RGB monitors. (Red + Green + Blue = White)
CMYK is a light-subtractive process for reflected light documents (i.e. a print page) (C + M + Y = "black" [no light reflected]) (K = Key = "black pigment")
Generally speaking one should really NEVER use process black — it creates questionable results, as the plates are murderously difficult to align properly -- particularly with fine deatils like music.
Process black on a printed page nowadays is usually a legacy of going from RGB (Adding wavelenths) on the screen, to CMYK on the page (removing wavelengths). It nearly always results in process black in the conversion. The best way to deal with this, I've found, is to begin with CMYK colors and let the monitor convert it to RGB, instead of vice-versa. And most default blacks in any given program are process.
I've never explored this in Finale because I've never had occasion to print in color.
That said, I would begin by trying to reformulate the blacks in the document settings to (C=0 M=0 Y=0 K=100)
When advertisers try to send us their ads built in MSWord, that is my advice to them. (We patently refuse to accept process black; and if one slips by us, it's my responsibility to correct it, which is usually a major PITA)
Those are my musings.
Best,
RobertPost Edited (Orb Box) : 4/17/2007 11:48:47 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | |
|
Dr. Wiggy
Early music: modern methods
Date Joined Jun 2006
Total Posts : 12628
| Posted 4/21/2011 5:22 AM (GMT -6) | | Vaughan
You should have several profiles in the folder I mentioned, including the Black & White one. Make sure that the print menu is set to "ColorSync", not "In Printer".
PDF-X is a set of specifications for various types of PDFs, mostly relating to printing. There is nothing "Generic" about them. PDF-X1a just specifies that the PDF won't contain things that cause trouble for printers, such as transparency data, fonts not being embedded, RGB data, etc.
(Though increasingly modern RIPs can handle anything that is thrown at them, and the PDF gets standardised in the "Normalizer". But I digress.)
Terminology point of order: The options in the PDF button are not ColorSync Profiles. They are PDF Services (found in /Library/PDF Services, or the user folder of the same name.)
They are Automator actions that apply Quartz Filters. You can't have a PDF-X ColorSync Profile.
But they are X-3, as they support calibrated RGB.
Finale 2011c, 2009c, 2Ghz iMac; 2Ghz MacBook, 10.6.6
Edirol FA-66; M-Audio Oxygen 61; Yamaha PSR-410
Ancient Groove Music
www.ancientgroove.co.uk | | Back to Top | |
| Forum Information | Currently it is Tuesday, December 19, 2023 8:22 PM (GMT -6)
There are a total of 403,820 posts in 58,165 threads.
In the last 3 days there were 0 new threads and 0 reply posts. View Active Threads
|
Forum powered by dotNetBB v2.42EC SP3
dotNetBB © 2000-2023 |
|
|