Do digital presses need rich black?

[Laurens]

I know it is not a bad idea to use rich black for offset.

While creating a page about this, I wondered if digital presses also need rich black or whether their black ink is so dense that it is either not needed or the percentage of undercolor can be much lower.

I am curious about presses such as an Indigo or Xeikon as well as wide format presses (Nur, Vuetek,...)

Any digital guys around?

[elmo3]

It depends on the digital press and its specific technologies.

Even Xerox can't make up its mind.  iGen3--rich black degrades the black, gives it a cyan hue.  Simple black ink by itself on coated stock is the richest black you've ever seen.  But their other digital presses--5000, 7000, 8000--suggest rich black, particularly on coated stocks.

It all depends on the machine in question.  A good digital press will have documentation for the designer and prepress audiences, spelling it out.

[Sparky]

Are you referring to "Digital Printers" or a "Digital Press" such as the Presstek 34DI I run.? I'm not familiar with the RIP the desktop dept uses for it but I see almost all the black text come trough as "rich black", and since the registration is almost spot on you'd never notice it, but as an old prepress tech myself, I wonder why they can't RIP these files as blk only since the RIP is supposedly at 2450 dpi producing 300lpi screens, something's not making sense to me.

[doubting_thomas]

I run a Xerox 2060 and for heavy coverage of any color, a build of CMYK works much better
than a one or 2 color build (0,0,0,100 for example). It's fine for light coverage and line art, but
large areas lay down much nicer with a build. For line art it tends to render a halo when rich black is used.
I generally use 20,20,20,100 for large areas of black.

Sorry I don't have info on the other printers you mentioned.

[born2print]

I have no first hand experience so take this w/ a grain of salt, but I just read last week that this answer is very device specific and you'll see answers from "no RB needed" to "Kick it w/ 60/60/60" and anywhere in-between. The article was about designing for digi-print and basically had the same old (and good) advise of check with your printer for specs before you submit your file.

[jimking]

As stated earlier my experience with the iGen has been "no rich black".

[WharfRat]

I have found a SuperBlack does work well with the iGEN.
If you use the "standard" iGEN color mode, build blacks are poor.
If you use the preferred "SWOP" setting a SuperBlack does its intended job.
The output is quite sensitive to builds and needs some testing to get the best "black" black.

MSD

[Joe]

Well, are we talking strictly digital "presses" or do copiers count too? On our Lanier LC031 "copier" I can make it black only but it still prints with all colors.

[KOB]

http://americanprinter.com/digital-presses/printing_designing_digital_print/

the above doesn't get into the same level of detail, but FWIW....

[Vee]

I got a Parsons School of Design kit with our igen, in it was a Super Black swatch book for the igen3.
The only ones that are "black" are the ones with no builds. Anything using a build tints the color to something other than black.

[Laurens]

From the above comments it is clear that we need to separate two things:

- Does the press/copier need rich black to print a denser black and mask any density differences between black only and black overprinted on top of other colors?

- Does the RIP/workflow think the press needs rich black?

I am only used to CtP systems, in which the RIP generally doesn't perform any tricks regarding rich black. Apparently things are different for some digital presses or copiers & the RIP freely changes the color mix of black.

[doubting_thomas]

- Does the press/copier need rich black to print a denser black and mask any density differences between black only and black overprinted on top of other colors?

Ours does for a dense smooth black when heavy coverage is used. It can overprint or not depending how you have the file set up.

- Does the RIP/workflow think the press needs rich black?

By default it will build most blacks. It's not a problem in some cases and causes trouble in others. You can
always change the color conversion, or (if I recall) turn it off as needed.

[delooch]

on my canon clc5100, 100%k looks good, but rich black looks much better. although registration sucks so your thin type will sometimes have a magenta or cyan shadow.