Monitor

[armadillo]

100% black looks grey. But 95% black 45% everything else is real black on my screen. I've no idea how to understand that right now. I think it has to do with the RGB/CYMK  conversion.

Indeed it does look like a bug in RGB/CYMK  conversion.

Colour managed applications behave as follows (if they work).

Read document colour space (in this case, a CMYK space).
Convert document in memory from document colour space to profile connection space (usually XYZ or LAB).
Convert document in memory from profile connection space to monitor profile (which is always in RGB).
Output to graphics card.
Graphics card outputs to monitor.

For this to work properly, your monitor must have been accurately calibrated and profiled and its profile must be associated with the monitor in the place defined by the OS.

In Windows, this will be seen by right clicking the desktop and selecting
Properties>Settings>Advanced>Colour management

The name of the profile should be there and it should be shown as the default for the device.

Profiles are stored in C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\drivers\color

I do not know the MAC equivalent of those locations.

Assuming the profile is accurate and is there, then colour management must also be set up in the application (Corel Draw).

Again, I don't know Corel Draw, so I cannot say exactly where it is set up. But there will be a preferences or settings dialogue somewhere in it with a submenu or two for colour management, colour preferences or colour settings.

You will need to check that it identifies the monitor profile and that it has not been set to turn off colour management.

I just tried out various CMYK blacks in Photoshop and they behave as you would expect.
That is, 60%K is grey and 100%K is black.

There is a problem when a document colour is out of gamut for a display device. The application should make sensible decisions about how to represent such colours. They do not all do this sensibly, Photoshop does. It should use a suitable "rendering intent" to map out of gamut colours to colours within the display gamut.

Your particular problem may actually relate to values of CMY which lie outside the monitor gamut.

It may be worth trying out colours in a document by leaving K at 100 and varying CMY and seeing if you ever get a true black. If so, then the application is struggling with the CMY values.

In Photoshop, default black in CMYK is 63,52,51,100
Altering the CMY has no effect when K is 100. It still shows black.


Colour management can drive you mad.

[Rik]

Good point, Dill, I hadn't considered Ben might be working in CMYK. Unless it's a high-grade calibrated monitor, a 5% drop in black simply isn't going to show up with Corel's colour management, which is somewhat idiosyncratic. Personally, I'd use RGB or, preferably, work in Adobe Illustrator.

[Technical Ben]

Good point, Dill, I hadn't considered Ben might be working in CMYK. Unless it's a high-grade calibrated monitor, a 5% drop in black simply isn't going to show up with Corel's colour management, which is somewhat idiosyncratic. Personally, I'd use RGB or, preferably, work in Adobe Illustrator.

Probably that. My monitor settings are probably "cool" as well, so adding extra blue to the black, but a redder black looks blacker.
I'd use illustrator too. But my trial expired. So onto Corel Draw.
One thing I have noticed using so many trials/different programs. There is a reason why Adobe do so well. Not only is the software fast, but it "just works" and does not have the problematic settings other programs do. It may only be a difference in defualt settings. But it makes a massive difference. IE Corel Photo Paint seems to not have any stylus options other than "on/off".
Gimp has these settings, but has too many for layers (layer size and orientation separate from the image. So it can get very cluttered).
Photoshop just has it all. Even the "Elements" edition has enough to make up the comparison to full software suites.

/rant 

[Rik]

Adobe has its roots in the graphics industry, Ben, so it's always had to do colour as well as possible (hard in the early days of Windows). Could you do the job in RGB, then let the drivers take care of the conversion? If not, do you want to expand on what the job is, and I'll see if I can think laterally for a change.

[armadillo]

So did you check any of the things I suggested, Ben? It may simply be that there is no profile associated with your monitor and so Corel throws a wobbly. Even associating a default profile from the monitor manufacturer might enable Corel to behave more sensibly.

[Technical Ben]

Like I said. No worries. If it's bitmaps I'm using, it will be for hobbies only. The one design I am doing is vector, so no colours at all. Just noticed it. Thanks for the info though. I'd have ago at calibrating, or changing profiles if I did not think I would make it WORSE.  

[Rik]

Try changing to RGB, Ben, see if that helps. Your screen and printer are both RGB devices.