Choose the right black for the job

Black vs. Black

In print applications, the color black can be a tricky animal. It seems straightforward enough; black is black, right? Well, not necessarily. While the final result, black on the page, looks consistent, the combination of inks used to produce the color black may vary depending on the printed piece. <

Anything that is printed using ink on paper is printed in the CMYK color space. Black, in CMYK, is the presence of all colors. We tend to think of black as the absence of color since, in terms of the visible spectrum of light, black is exactly that. But not so in print. Therefore, to achieve a rich black, designers will often mix inks so that the black is actually a combination of black, cyan, magenta and yellow.

Mixing inks to achieve a rich black works very well for advertisements or other items that have larger areas of black such as a background, call-out area or large, bold font. In fact, using 100% black ink in pieces that contain larger areas of black can result in a washed-out, gray-black. Still a black, but not the deep, rich black that the design calls for.

However, nice a rich multi-ink black does not always work. When dealing with smaller areas, particularly text, using multiple inks in a black can result in muddled, blurry, hard to ready copy. Thin lines, and especially serifs on small text are require too much detail for multiple inks. It is too hard to register different colors exactly. It is always a good idea to use a single-ink 100% black in detail situations.