Understanding Color Matching: What is a CMYK Black?
One of the most surprising issues in commercial print design revolves around the color black. To a novice designer, black is simply black. However, on a massive commercial printing press, setting up your black ink incorrectly can result in a washed-out, dark gray background or blurry, unreadable text. Understanding CMYK values is absolutely essential.
Standard Black vs Rich Black
The four inks used in commercial printing are Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (Black).
- Standard Black: If your design software sets a color to 100% K with zero other colors mixed in, it can often look like a faded dark gray when printed over a large surface area.
- Rich Black: To achieve a deep, absorbing, luxurious black, printers use a specific formula. ‘Rich Black’ uses a mix of all the CMYK colors (for example, 60C 40M 40Y 100K) to heavily saturate the paper.
The Raven32 Recommendation
Using the wrong black will ruin the crispness of your text. As printing and promotional experts, our absolute rule of thumb is this. You should always use a Rich Black formula for large, massive background blocks, but you must stick strictly to 100% K for fine lines and small text to prevent the letters from looking blurry. Contact our pre-press team today to ensure your colors print perfectly.