Image turns out VERY dark on film / looks fine in Acrobat/Indesign

[ben froggatt]

Hi,

This is my first post here. It's unfortunate that it has to be a problem solving thread.

Right, I'll start from the beginning...

I'm designing my business cards in ID. They consist of type and an image. I'm printing 1c PMS....or at least I want to be able to.

After finishing the design, I preflighted it...seemed okay. Exported to PDF...looked fine on screen. When my printers exposed to film, the image was EXTREMELY dark, with only the very whitest highlights/edges of objects in the photo showing.

The image was prepared in PS...mode->grayscale. Saved as uncompressd TIFF. 300dpi. Imported into ID. All the type was set in ID black, from the swatches. All other swatch colours were deleted, apart from registration/paper/none. There were no weird empty frames under the pictures.

One odd thing that I did notice was that the seps preview showed a very slightly darker image when any one of CMY was selected at the same time as K. But without the black sep, all 3 showed nothing on screen. There was no colour there, but somehow it was affecting the preview if any of them were ticked. It was all then exported to PDF using high quality setting. The printers can't understand why it's happening.

Can anyone help with this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Pointyhat]

Just design in black. Don't design in PMS in Photoshop unless you know how. Don't design in PS if you have Indesign. And stop making it so hugely difficult for yourself. One color is ONE COLOR! Don't tell me it looks good on the screen (rgb 72dpi ALWAYS!). Stop being fancy and figure it out. It's ONE COLOR!

[Jezza]

Straight K is the way to go if it's going to print one colour. All colour is black and white - shades of grey once you get to film if you see what I mean. So Design it in Black and tell the printers what PMS you want.

Doesn't answer your question but will get you out the hole you're in. Hope that helps

[GinSu]

It sounds as if the design is in black. Are there tint swatches on the film output, there should be. If the swatches measure correctly with a densitometer then the printers calibrations are good. I've had a problem similar to this with PageMaker7 for Windows printing images too flat. Saving the images as EPS from PSD was the solution I ended up using.

[y2b]

in photoshop, convert it to a monotone and assign the color you want, then place it in indesign...there is something happening on output with the printer

designing it in b/w would be a workaround for this instance, but what if you wanted an image in one color and type in another color?

applying a color to an image in quark or indesign is just not something you want to be in the habit of doing...unless it's a bitmap, apply the color in photoshop

[ben froggatt]

Just design in black. Don't design in PMS in Photoshop unless you know how.

The image was prepared in PS...mode->grayscale. Did I mention using PMS in PS? I don't think I did.

Don't design in PS if you have Indesign.

As I said, I'm designing my business cards in ID. I edited the photo in Photoshop, before placing in ID, which I believe is general practice. The clue is in the name, if you look hard enough (hint, photoshop).

And stop making it so hugely difficult for yourself. One color is ONE COLOR!

Thanks for that profound advise.

Don't tell me it looks good on the screen (rgb 72dpi ALWAYS!).

I mean the image shows okay on the screen, as opposed to being very dark. I'm talking about an extreme change in tonal range -- nothing to do with resolution. And yes, I am aware that a monitor shows colour in RGB. Thank you for being so patronising. By the way, DPI is a printing term - dots, not pixels, per inch, and so is not related to screen resolution. Just a note for future use.

Stop being fancy and figure it out. It's ONE COLOR!

Again...amazing advice there. Where do you get all this knowledge from?

I suggest you think about what you write before posting it -- and actually reading my post beforehand would be pretty good too.

Like they say, if you have nothing useful to say, don't say anything.

[Joe]

If the final PDF is okay in Acrobat and it's nothing like color profiles or a color management issue I'd have the printer compare the density in the PDF to the output film.

Can you attach the PDF to your post here. Maybe someone will spot something?

[ben froggatt]

GinSu -- When I looked at the film the printers gave me to proof, I didn't see any tint swatches. I shall ask if they can be put on and will try the advise you suggest. I fear it may be the pdf itself though, as they output other clients' stuff on the same roll and theirs turned out fine. :s

y2b -- I originally did my first image as a monotone in PS with the correct PMS applied, but my printer said black would be best for a 1c job, as Jez said. I'll do a version as a monotone and see if it's any better.

joe -- I haven't got much knowledge on colour profiles. Could an incorrect colour profile be the reason why the image changes slightly when a C,M or Y sep is viewed over the K sep in the seps preview?

What would be the one I should be choosing for my image? Do I apply one before I start editing in PS, or after, for the final save?

Do I apply any in ID, or as I'm exporting to PDF? I assume I would need different profiles depending on whether I created the photo as a monotone PMS or as a grayscale? I may have to be led through this step by step I fear.

I will try and attach the PDF...may have to be zipped due to maximum file size on these forums...

Cheers for the help so far guys .

[Joe]

Originally Posted by ben froggatt

joe -- I haven't got much knowledge on colour profiles. Could an incorrect colour profile be the reason why the image changes slightly when a C,M or Y sep is viewed over the K sep in the seps preview?

What would be the one I should be choosing for my image? Do I apply one before I start editing in PS, or after, for the final save?

Do I apply any in ID, or as I'm exporting to PDF? I assume I would need different profiles depending on whether I created the photo as a monotone PMS or as a grayscale? I may have to be led through this step by step I fear.

I will try and attach the PDF...may have to be zipped due to maximum file size on these forums...

Cheers for the help so far guys .

You will have to check "Color Settings" within Photoshop to see what profile it is using. Then when you go to save you have the option to include the profile or not. I prefer not to. Then I don't use any color management in InDesign at export time and I have color management turned off in Acrobat. Others here might be using it, I just prefer not to.

As far as viewing the color seps...the difference you are seeing has nothing to do with color profiles. It's just the way it displays it on screen. It shouldn't alter the way it is output.

Also what kind of monitor are you viewing it on? I've found a lot of times if you are viewing a very dark image on an LCD monitor it will look okay on screen but then it is very dark when output. Could this be the case?

[ben froggatt]

Originally Posted by Joe

You will have to check "Color Settings" within Photoshop to see what profile it is using. Then when you go to save you have the option to include the profile or not. I prefer not to. Then I don't use any color management in InDesign at export time and I have color management turned off in Acrobat. Others here might be using it, I just prefer not to.

As far as viewing the color seps...the difference you are seeing has nothing to do with color profiles. It's just the way it displays it on screen. It shouldn't alter the way it is output.

Also what kind of monitor are you viewing it on? I've found a lot of times if you are viewing a very dark image on an LCD monitor it will look okay on screen but then it is very dark when output. Could this be the case?

I shall try redoing the image from the original, it's probably the best option. I've included an image of the colour settings in PS of the TIFF I used. Which profile should I start off with (I'm in Britain, btw)? Should I just try and turn profiles off as I move from program to program? Annoying thing about this is, because I'm jumping from PS to ID to Acrobat, there's 3 places I could be going wrong, instead of 1, makes it hard to pin down the problem.

I'm on a Macbook Pro, on Apple LCD display settings. The thing is, it's not just a dark image, it's a completely black image, with only the whitest bits showing (i.e. a few little specks). I will upload a photo of the film to show you what I mean.