The practice of laying down a percentage of cyan, magenta, or yellow ink before printing solid black over the top. This technique creates a rich black that appears significantly darker and more opaque than black ink alone. It also helps manage total ink coverage limits on the press, preventing the paper from becoming oversaturated and causing drying issues or set-off.
Heard on the job
Make sure you underprint those large background areas with 40 percent cyan so the black doesn't look washed out.
Also heard as
- rich black