Expert: Amy - 11/5/2009

Question
Working in CS3 and CS4 for pc. In a classroom setting my students were getting washed out blacks (not rich blacks) whenever they create a PDF from AI.

So of course I created an exercise where we walked through the steps to correct this. I checked this exercise on my home computer and it worked fine. The blacks in the PDF are rich blacks. (I created 4 black squares all with different black fills... spot, 100% black, cmyk rich black, etc)

(1) In AI preferences change view and print/export as RICH BLACKS
(2) (edit menu) Check colour settings to: CMYK US Web (SWOP)

To my surprise their settings were already set to this!

Any idea why we're not seeing rich blacks in the PDF in the classroom setting? Where do I go from here to resolve this issue?

Answer
Hi Debbie.

Instead of checking color settings, do an Assign Profile and choose DO NOT MANAGE THIS DOCUMENT.

Of course, make sure the students are working in CMYK Document Color Mode.
Then create your squares.

Then save as a PDF and turn off your color management in the PDF options.

You should get perfect results!

-A