Expert: Glen Demers - 3/24/2010

Question
my imac is a month old now. i installed my CS2 on it.

when i print anything from indesign the colors on my printer are muted and screened back. blacks are printing out about 85% and every other color is screened as well.

i've changed my black ink cartridge. I've printed from other programs. (no problem; blacks and colors are fine.) I've printed old files.

any weird settings that may have been checked? any ideas? its NOT good for proofing things. any ideas are appreciated.

Answer
Hi Jennifer,

Since other programs are printing fine then I'll assume the printer is okay and the problems is with InDesign. It could be printing with a bad profile. go to Edit>Color Settings and make sure you're on North America Prepress or North America General Purpose. These will output CMYK with the U.S. Web Coated SWOP profile.

In InDesign go to InDesign>Preferences>Appearance of Black... and make sure it is set to output all Blacks as rich black for on screen and Exporting/Printing. This will make sure you get a nice dark black if your printer Rip is processing RGB.

When you print, make sure your output is set to Composite CMYK and under Color Management you are using the same SWOP profiles.

Hope this helps,
Glen Demers
Prepress Technician, Best Printing Online
www.bestprintingonline.com

For more InDesign tips please visit our help pages here: http://www.bestprintingonline.com/indesign.htm