# Better Black Color



## tomnutter (Aug 10, 2010)

I have an Epson 4880 sub printer and use bot Corel X5 and CS5 for designing. What is the best forluma for getting really rich BLACK color on my white 100% polyester garments? Everything has a gree/brown appearance. HELP!


----------



## Riderz Ready (Sep 18, 2008)

There are many possibilities to troubleshoot including your profile, how you have your color management set up in Corel, etc, etc. The very first thing to check is to make sure you are using RGB black not CMYK. If you are using CMYK you will get a muted black. If you are using RGB you need to contact your ink vendor and make sure your profile is set up correctly and all your color management options in Corel are set correctly.


----------



## mn shutterbug (Mar 19, 2009)

Time and temp can also be a factor, as I've discovered. If in the press too long, blacks can start desublimating.


----------



## Tony_Sunshine (Dec 10, 2009)

I would suggest creating a abbreviated color atlas. Sacrifice a shirt and create a color grid with different formulas of black. We're working in CMYK so let's play Bob Ross and start mixing those colors. When creating blacks we understand that if we only use 0.0.0.100 (CMYK values) it's going to come out a little mousy. And by adding color beneath the black we can get a much deeper black.

Dye sublimation is different than offset printing. I spent years making crazy beautiful blacks with 70.0.0.100. But when I tried this combination using dye sublimation all I got was a dark blue.

This has taken some time to wrap my head around but the biggest shift for me was the difference in a black offset ink which is fairly opaque and the dye sub version which is greatly affected by undercolor. Once that black ink is turned into a gas it loses some of it's punch.

My favorite black right now is 45.45.45.100, keep the undercolors less than 50%.

You can push a black a certain way if desired by increasing the c, m or y.

Back to the color atlas. Create a grid with 9 squares and give each one a different cmyk value and make sure you label each color with it's formula on the artwork. Make the squares at least 2" x 2". Sacrifice a shirt, press your atlas and then use the shirt to pick the best black for any given job. If you can't beat the green/brown black with a range of black formulas then you need to check your profile (which I don't know too much about.)

I would also recommend that you check how the printed shirt compares to your monitor. Easy way to get closer to WYSIWYG.

Hope this helps.


----------

