Expert: Kevin Stohlmeyer - 7/20/2008

Question
In placing my AI vector illustrations into a Photoshop doc, I'm struggling to keep
the blacks black.  Photoshop seems to convert them into a smokey, dark grey
and it spoils the whole thing.  Any pointers?

Answer
Hi Tania,

The issue is in Illustrator, go to your preferences and select the following:

Appearance Of Black

On Screen:Display All Blacks Accurately Displays pure CMYK black as dark gray. This is the default setting. What you need to choose is Display All Blacks As Rich Black Displays pure CMYK black as jet black (RGB=000).

Then under Printing/Exporting:
Choose Output All Blacks As Rich Black. When exporting this outputs pure CMYK black as jet black (RGB=000).

That should take care of it.

If you are still experiencing your smart object showing up as dark gray in PS, you can always rasterize the object and run levels on it. (My suggestion is to use the black eyedropper in levels to balance it).

Thanks

Kevin