Gray text - tint vs opacity

[saltcod]

Hi,

I rarely use 100% black in my text - normally tint about 75% to get a nice gray. When I print this, the text is fuzzy. How to I keep the density without using full 100% black?

Thanks!

 

[eugenetyson]

It shouldn't go fuzzy? It should retain it's sharpness as it's all vectors.

Do you make a new swatch and make it 75%?

Do you change the opacity to 75%?

At what point does it go fuzzy? On screen? At print? In PDF?

Are you applying any other effects to the text?

You can make a lot of tints of Black doing this cool trick

http://www.carijansen.com/tips/022/

 

[saltcod]

Thanks

Printing straight from inDesign, I get very unsharp text at 75% and tack sharp text at 100% black. Should this be so?

If so, is there another way to print gray? this may be a fundamental transparency issue that I don't understand.

Thanks

Terry

 

[jmgalvin]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "tint". Are you using a tint swatch?

If you make a new process swatch that's C-0, M-0, Y-0, K-75 it should print fine.

Depending on your actual printer, you might have to play its settings - things like saturation, etc. These are not normally available in the INDD print window. In that window, see if you have a Printer button. Click that to get to your printer's settings.

Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4 & G5

 

[jimoblak]

If you print a tint of black, you get a line screen in offset printing (aka fuzziness).

If you want sharp text without screening, you would need to specify a spot ink of that gray to print at 100%.

 

[eugenetyson]

Good one jimoblak.

 

[saltcod]

Thanks for the replies.

I guess i don't know what a spot ink is. What I do now is type some text, select the black swatch from the colour palette and bring the TINT slider above down to 75%. I don't quite know what that does, but I'm guessing now that that's not the right thing to do.

Thanks again everyone.

 

[jimoblak]

I guess i don't know what a spot ink is.

Talk to your printer about what you want to do. They can best detail what printing options you have. Spot inks cost more.

Learn more about spot inks and halftones:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halftone

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spot_ink

 

[eugenetyson]

It's all about how the colour is presented and represented.

When black is tinted it is broken down into dots, that's probably why it's shaky looking.

A spot colour is a solid colour, it's just not technically a tint of black.

You can set up a new spot by,

Window>Swatches

on the black arrow at the top of the panel, press it,

New Swatch.

From the drop down menu choose SPOT

Then it's a solid colour of grey and not a tint of black.

 

[jmgalvin]

Saltcod: I think you're making things hard for yourself.

You said: "What I do now is type some text, select the black swatch from the colour palette and bring the TINT slider above down to 75%."

I run out maybe 6 to 8 grayscale newspaper ads a month, often with gray text for areas with large text. All I do is make a new process swatch (swatches window - flyout menu - new swatch) with C M & Y set to zero and K set to a percent of black, like 80. There's never a problem.



Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4 & G5