I’m having some trouble with a photo collage I designed for a folder. Each photo was given a duplicate top layer where I isolated the figure and desaturated them. The background was given a gold tint. I imported these CMYK-mode PSD files into InDesign, made the folder layout, and exported a print PDF from there.
However, the print shop says there’s little black ink in most of the desaturated layer and that this might result in a mild tint from another ink running heavy. I have considered making greyscale-mode versions of each figure as a PSD and placing them on top of the gold-tint PSD backgrounds in InDesign, but I’m concerned the lack of rich black might make the figures dull.
I wish I could make the desaturated figures mostly black ink, but with a touch of addition inks for richness.
Yes, doing that would make the grayscale images look dull and lifeless.
I don’t know the CMYK mix that creates the desaturated foreground images, so I can’t say for sure what the printer sees when they look at each channel individually.
I’m away from my desktop computer, so I can’t give you exact instructions, but there are ways to boost the black while giving the CMY minor roles. It might take heading back to the originals that you desaturated and doing the desaturating one channel at a time, rather than all at once. Again, I don’t have Photoshop available at the moment, so I’m going on a fuzzy memory.
Unless I can figure out a way via to get a proper rich black using the Channels panel, I’ll probably just let it print as is and hope for the best. The preflight staffer just cautioned me that the B&W figures might lean yellow, magenta, or some other color if one or more inks run a little heavy but that it’s not a major concern. I played a bit with Channels, but I don’t understand that panel inside and out.
