Preserved Topic: can you make my blacks match?

Can anyone help me with this??? There have been a few instances now that I have had inconsistent results with my black backgrounds. Is there anyway to get a true black background?

For example: I have a logo that is set on a black background. I bring this logo into the work that I am creating and my black background does not match it (the black background that the logo is on). Even if I use eyedropper tool to select the color I want to use. The blacks still do not match. Is there anyway to remedy this problem? I am having issues with my print proofs ? you can visually see the difference.


natazha

A little clarity, please.

which medium are we in ? The colors don`t match in your photoshop doc, web page, brochure....?

OK, let's, for the sake of argument, assume that the medium is a webpage, hmm? I've seen this before, it can happen two ways. If your image is a GIF, and you drop it to 256 colors, there's a chance that black will *not* be one of the colors chosen, even if it is your background. Select the black and delete it first, then use a transparent background instead. If this is happening with a JPG, there can bo another cause. (This is most noticeable if your monitor is set to "thousands" of colors, or 16bit color, same thing.) Here your JPG would *seem* to be proper, but it would actually be saved at just a *hiar* away from black. The easiest trick is to save a small square of the same black, as a JPG, and then use that as your web background. If the colors get distorted in the display, at least this way they both should get distorted the same. Check this out, and let us know more details if this ain't it, cool?

Your pal, -doc-

It could also be beacuse one of your images has an imbedded color profile.

Oh sorry.... I am working in photoshop and creating material for print.

natazha

Doc, that post was not a total waste! I have the *worst* time getting jpgz to match my bg color... even websafe colors...

. . .

I remember having this problem too...

The way I solved it was to create a big graphic with both the background and picture in it.

Another solution could be to put a clipping path in the logo, to make that background invisible.

I think the root of the problem is the conversion between RGB and CMYK. If you make something black in RGB mode, and then covert to CMYK you will see that the CMYK values are not 0,0,0,100, as you might think, but there are some of the other colors in there too, especially cyan. This is to get a more dark black when it is printed. What values you get probably depend on what ICC profile you are using...

I think most printers that use ICC will have it set so it is applied to pictures, but not to solid color elements. This might be a reason for the difference you see.

Hopefully someone else knows more about this than I do...

edit... dumb me

[This message has been edited by Dracusis (edited 03-13-2002).]