Grayscale Printing in AI 9 2

[bsquared18]

I'm preparing monochrome cartoons that eventually will be professionally printed in book form. The cartoons are being created using Version 9 of AI.

My primary question is this: Many of the cartoons will use up to four or five different shades of gray, in addition to black and white. Are there particular shades of gray (as designated by the code references in AI) that professional printers prefer a developer to use? Or is one shade as good as another?

In addition, can you recommend any good resources, either on-line or in published book form, that provide the basics one would need for preparing illustrations in AI for a professional printer? Or a good resource on how to prepare for a publisher the manuscript for a book that is primarily composed of illustrations (rather than text)?

 

[Greg25]

When you mention gray. shades of gray contain no
Black c=40, m=30, y=30, k=0 this is a neutral gray
I bleive you are looking for tints of black 10, 20, % of
Black witch is not gray and would be printed in one color
Grays have to be printed in a CMYK format
Greg

K & G Design
kgdesign@warwick.net

 

[bsquared18]

Greg,

Thanks for the advice! I had started doing my finished art using the gray scale feature in AI. It sounds like you're saying that I should switch to using shades of black. Is that correct? Would a professional printer prefer my using shades of black to gray scale if they are printing in monochrome?

Is there a way in AI to automatically convert a gray scale to the corresponding shade of black?

 

[askIllustrator]

The answer is easy, greyscale is black. If you were to print a series of black dots in the shape of a square so close together that the dots touched each other, the square would appear to be solid black at arms length. Print those same black dots only spread them out some and this time the square will appear to be a dark grey at arms length. The truth is, a printed grey is actually and illusion caused by spreading out black dots, which means you can acheive every shade of grey, including solid white and solid black with only one color of ink - black. So when you want to print something that is perfectly grey, color it in illustrator with 50% black (the dots are 1 dots width apart). Increase the percentage for darker greys, decrease it for lighter greys.

NOTE: Paper and Ink are like Sponges and Water. When you lay wet ink on paper the ink will spread out a tiny bit as the paper soaks it in. This is known as 'gain'. The reason considering gain is important is sometimes dots will run together or touch each other and create an area of solid black where a grey was intended. For example, a 95% black stands a real good chance of turning into a solid black on the press because of how close the dots were printed to each other. The percentage of dot that a printer can 'hold' (print without distorting) is going to vary from printer to printer. The way to avoid unexpected gain is to stay away from using percentages under 10 and over 90. Good luck.

 

[Greg25]

Jaquan is correct and that it was very well put

Bsquared18
Yes Illustrator can convert cmyk, rgb, and
anything else to Grayscale its under the
filter / colors/ convert to Grayscale
Greg

K & G Design
kgdesign@warwick.net

 

[bsquared18]

jAQUAN, your response, as always, was very helpful. In AI 9, is there a way to determine the percentage of black for a particular grayscale shading that I am using? So far I've been using two shades, one on the light side and the other somewhat darker. My hunch is that they are within the 10 percent and 95 percent boundaries that you mentioned, but I'd like to make sure.

 

[askIllustrator]

Greg25 was right, you can convert any object to grayscale via the Filter->Colors->Convert to Grayscale filter as long as the object doesnt contain any special effects (art brushes, pattern fills, gradients). You can view the level of grey through your Color Palette in illustrator. It is capable of letting you mix colors using a variety of standards such as RGB, CMYK, Index, Web Safe, and of course greyscale. Just shift-click on the color mixer (that rectangle that looks like an oil-slick at the bottom of the Color Palette) to switch standards. The greyscale mixer is the only one with just one slider. It will display the percentage of grey used in the selected shape as well as allow you to modify it.