Just got my very first testprint from a company. And im not happy at all. Besides a 1 inch crack in the paper and some small white spots on the print it also is weird on the black. On my original theres black fading into another color real smooth and nice. On the print the black is way to dominant and not fading very much-like huge lumps of black. ( yes ive done an gammatest) Now ive tried to print on our homeprinter to but the print is way of-black is weird and the colors doesnt match. Bf think its my settings which are wrong-but his comp shows the image in question same way as my comp does. The printer isnt a photoprinter but a small cheap textprinter. Now i got all the technical info to use from the company and ive checked, checked and tripplechecked to make sure the settings is what they said it should. So what is wrong? y are the print so bad? is it them or me? im very desperate here. Tech info= made in adobe photoshop. image A3 size. CMYK, 300 dpi, euroscale uncoated v2,photoshop pdf file (its what they told me to do and thats what it is).

When you say "weird on the black" are you referring to what it looks like when you black ink runs low... a weak black with poor transitions? If so, that sounds like their printer. Otherwise it could be the color profile. I know they ask for CMYK, but just for fun, try an RGB image. After your change the color mode - then change the ICC to Adobe RGB for the widest color gamut. Save as a new copy and send them that bad boy. See how the results compare. Can you be more specific about the image, and perhaps it's printed use? Also what printer or method (dye sub, inkjet, etc.)are they using?

I emailed the company-but i havent recieved any answer...and im sure its the printer at home which is just to bad for the job to do...i have decided to dump using a company and will use my own new printer once i get it...thanks though:)

It might be an overfill problem with the black. Perhaps the black is only 100% black without the usual 40-50% of the other 3 process colors added in. Or perhaps it is a full 4-color black, but somehow during that fade you mentioned, it turns into just a 1-color black. I know alot of times pre-press artists at print shops will change the black from 1-color to 4-color themselves, but may be careless and not select everything to change, especially if it fades into another color. Hope this helps for future reference.

Check the total ink % in the info box. If the black is lower than 260% (if your going sheet fed) then use curves to boost it up. If it's between 260% and 280% then your print will be fine. And Check the yellow level in the black mix. if it's too high then the black will look dull. if they are all fine then the dullness is a limitation of the proof printer Extra note: make sure you don't embed a profile. it's better to leave it untagged (saved w/o a profile) since you have no clue what the printer might convert the colour to.

oops just re-read your problem... is the back 'stepping' into the other color on the print? What I mean is it braking up into sections of shades? This is called banding