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"black" color (on screen) prints "muddy brown/purple"


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pelzauto

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Hi, and thanks for your help!

Note: I started out in RGB and changed the mode to be CMYK...does this explain my issue?

My Question: Is there a setting in Photoshop which I can adjust so that the text that I intend to be black to be printed black...? And, that all things which should be black also print black? Or, <sigh> must I recreate my file starting off with CMYK?


I have Photoshop CS4 Extended running on a Mac.

> File is in color CMYK.

> Text and 'blacks' of images print from Photoshop as a muddy brown/muddy purple color. Not so noticeable in photos, but easy to see in what should be 'black' text.

> Text color is set to the default black using the black/white toggle in the Tool Bar.

> Upon selecting the text and opening up the color attributes I find, under CMYK heading:
L: 0
a: 0
b: 0

C: 75%
M: 68%
Y: 67%
K: 90%

And, the little circle used to select the color via the rainbow gradient box is in the far right corner at the bottom.

My printer is a new Cannon MX850. When I print from MS Word, I do get the expected black in a text-only document. I imported my Photoshop file into Word and printed from Word, and get the same muddy brown/purple text.

Thanks for your Help!
 
It's the paper selection within the printer menus...!

After printing a bunch of copies with different settings for the Canon printer, the solution was found in the selection of paper type! I selected "Other Photo Paper", and my blacks were black.

What I experienced:
Colors would print fine on regular copy paper, but when I wanted to print the final on glossy paper, black became muddy brown/muddy purple.

I have no clear reason, maybe it's due to a 64-bit application or the High Dynamic Range stuff?? Is this related to CS4???? Do I just need to download the CUPS driver from the Canon website???? Who knows???!!!

My solution was to select various paper types from the Canon MX850 drop-down menu within the Print command, and just take a look at the results.

I write this as it might help someone out there; these didn't work for me:
- Photo Paper Pro
- Photo Paper Plus
- Matte Photo Paper
- Glossy Photo Paper
------------------------ got same muddy colors.

"Other Photo Paper" gave me the actual black I was expected...

Thanks to all who read and for the suggestion to calibrate. I haven't calibrated yet, as I'm betting results I like.
 
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