tinted B&W

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Paul Heslop

I am using jet tec carts on a canon IP4000. I don't do a lot of B&W
prints and it may be the paper, KODAK thick heavy glossy stuff but I
did a couple of B&W prints which turned out to have a slightly beige
tint, making them look closer to sepia than B&W. Is there a way to
combat this without Meecekite bleating on about OEM inks?
 
Paul said:
I am using jet tec carts on a canon IP4000. I don't do a lot of B&W
prints and it may be the paper, KODAK thick heavy glossy stuff but I
did a couple of B&W prints which turned out to have a slightly beige
tint, making them look closer to sepia than B&W. Is there a way to
combat this without Meecekite bleating on about OEM inks?
Click to expand...
Far from being an expert, MY OPINION, inkjet printers do not do b&w
well. I get the same results you are talking about (Pixma 6000D) Very
happy with color from this printer. I have never owned a laser jet, but
I think those do b&w better???? I take my b&w shots to Walmart.
 
Wolfgang said:
Far from being an expert, MY OPINION, inkjet printers do not do b&w
well. I get the same results you are talking about (Pixma 6000D) Very
happy with color from this printer. I have never owned a laser jet, but
I think those do b&w better???? I take my b&w shots to Walmart.
Click to expand...

I'd say i've had mixed results, even with this printer, but depending
on many things. previously have printed B&W with varying degrees of
success on other canon and epson printers and different inks. It would
be nice if i could afford OEM then I could blame the printer or paper
:O)
 
Paul said:
I'd say i've had mixed results, even with this printer, but depending
on many things. previously have printed B&W with varying degrees of
success on other canon and epson printers and different inks. It would
be nice if i could afford OEM then I could blame the printer or paper
:O)
Click to expand...
Found this page:
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/digitalblack.html#Printer_profile_test
Talks about scanning your print fro your printer, and then adjusting,
making custom curve from the scan and reprinting.. I am going to try it
myself.....
 
How you go about correcting this depends somewhat on the result you are
currently getting.

If the whole print is showing fairly even tint (meaning the same basic
hue is appearing in all ink densities) then it is easier to fix. If the
toning changes depending upon how dense the color is, that is a problem
that can't be corrected universally, and will require some pretty
complex corrections in curves.

To create (as close to) a perfect greyscale image from colored inks,
assuming the inks are properly balanced for color to begin with, equal
amount of the "primary" printing colors are needed. In other words,
equal quantities of Cyan, Magenta and yellow should produce something
approaching grey/blacks. With most inkjet printers trying to accomplish
this isn't easy, because they complexity of the drivers, especially when
mixed dye load inks are used (such as light magenta and cyan inks) are
used in different concentrations depending upon the density of the color
area in the image. As you probably noticed, inkjet printers which use
light dye load Cyan and Magenta don't have a light dye load yellow. The
logic behind this is that the yellow is such a light color that diluting
it further is unnecessary, but none the less, excess yellow can lead to
yellow or golden tinting.

The best way to produce a greyscale image is by using an inkjet printer
which is equipped with black ink and several levels of grey inks, and
special drivers that understand how to translate greyscale.

The second best is black plus at least one grey ink. With some
printers, even using just the black ink, especially if the dots are
quite small, can provide a reasonable greyscale image, without tinting.
Some printer drivers allow for that option (something like "use black
ink only"). I know most Epson printers allow for this, and although the
tonality isn't perfect, even just using black ink can produce an
acceptable greyscale image.

Getting back to your sepia/brown tones; they are usually missing cyan
and some magenta. Without seeing the exact sepia tone, however, it
could need fine adjusting.

Below I am supplying a simplified chart of print color and corrective
color required.

If print is "biased" toward ------ add this to correct toward neutral

red Cyan
yellow blue (cyan and magenta)
green magenta
blue yellow
magenta green (cyan and yellow)
cyan red (magenta and yellow)

Sepia usually has extra yellow and red, meaning you need more blue (made
up of cyan and magenta) and cyan, so by adding nearly twice as much cyan
as magenta in the driver should help to correct it, but it is often no
"walk in the park" to match.


Art
 
Wolfgang said:
Found this page:
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/digitalblack.html#Printer_profile_test
Talks about scanning your print fro your printer, and then adjusting,
making custom curve from the scan and reprinting.. I am going to try it
myself.....
Click to expand...

hm, with me it's mainly digital stuff but the pic I am msot concerned
about was a scan of a print out of a digital image (argh!) which
someone had taken at a wedding, printed out , not very well, then
deleted the image. request was made for me to tidy the image up but
there's only so far I can go with obvious print lines etc in the
image. I decided to pull the colour out and see if it looked okay in
B&W which is when it printed yucky.
 
Arthur said:
How you go about correcting this depends somewhat on the result you are
currently getting.

If the whole print is showing fairly even tint (meaning the same basic
hue is appearing in all ink densities) then it is easier to fix. If the
toning changes depending upon how dense the color is, that is a problem
that can't be corrected universally, and will require some pretty
complex corrections in curves.

To create (as close to) a perfect greyscale image from colored inks,
assuming the inks are properly balanced for color to begin with, equal
amount of the "primary" printing colors are needed. In other words,
equal quantities of Cyan, Magenta and yellow should produce something
approaching grey/blacks. With most inkjet printers trying to accomplish
this isn't easy, because they complexity of the drivers, especially when
mixed dye load inks are used (such as light magenta and cyan inks) are
used in different concentrations depending upon the density of the color
area in the image. As you probably noticed, inkjet printers which use
light dye load Cyan and Magenta don't have a light dye load yellow. The
logic behind this is that the yellow is such a light color that diluting
it further is unnecessary, but none the less, excess yellow can lead to
yellow or golden tinting.

The best way to produce a greyscale image is by using an inkjet printer
which is equipped with black ink and several levels of grey inks, and
special drivers that understand how to translate greyscale.

The second best is black plus at least one grey ink. With some
printers, even using just the black ink, especially if the dots are
quite small, can provide a reasonable greyscale image, without tinting.
Some printer drivers allow for that option (something like "use black
ink only"). I know most Epson printers allow for this, and although the
tonality isn't perfect, even just using black ink can produce an
acceptable greyscale image.

Getting back to your sepia/brown tones; they are usually missing cyan
and some magenta. Without seeing the exact sepia tone, however, it
could need fine adjusting.

Below I am supplying a simplified chart of print color and corrective
color required.

If print is "biased" toward ------ add this to correct toward neutral

red Cyan
yellow blue (cyan and magenta)
green magenta
blue yellow
magenta green (cyan and yellow)
cyan red (magenta and yellow)

Sepia usually has extra yellow and red, meaning you need more blue (made
up of cyan and magenta) and cyan, so by adding nearly twice as much cyan
as magenta in the driver should help to correct it, but it is often no
"walk in the park" to match.

Art
Click to expand...

Thanks for a very detailed reply Art. It's possibly and probably a
little intense for me. This printer has two black carts and three
colour. It has printed out good B&W before but they could have been
Inkrite or so cartridges. My concern with attempting lots of
adjustments is obviously cost effectiveness. I'll be using the paper
during the process. I know it sounds penny-pinching but I am always
just managing when it comes to costs. I would probably need to print
quite a large area too as it seems more obvious when over at least a
half A4. I will probably have a go though, and thank you for your
help.
 
I have learned special techniques to create stunning BW prints when
using Photoshop and my Canon IP4000. And of course I use Canon ink.
 
All this may be true but I have used a simple technique using Photoshop
and Canon IP4000 to produce stunnung BW prints. And of course I use
Canon ink.
 
Paul Heslop said:
I am using jet tec carts on a canon IP4000. I don't do a lot of B&W
prints and it may be the paper, KODAK thick heavy glossy stuff but I
did a couple of B&W prints which turned out to have a slightly beige
tint, making them look closer to sepia than B&W. Is there a way to
combat this without Meecekite bleating on about OEM inks?
Click to expand...
I'm using MIS inks in a canon i960. I get better B&W prints when using the
color setting than with the grayscale setting. I don't have a clue as to
why this happens. Art Entlich's post gives you lots of information on how
to try to combat the tint. I would agree with him that neutral B&W prints
are difficult to obtain on most inkjet printers. You might try to get some
Kirkland glossy photo paper at Costco. 125 sheets for $19 - cheap enough to
experiment with. You can also try different papers as the color response
can differ markedly with different paper/ink combinations. Another thing to
check would be the printer settings. I use the manual setting for color as
some of the settings that let the printer take over the color response give
you results you may not want. You can also do test prints like people have
done in the darkroom by printing strips of the picture with different
printer settings for comparison.
 
Burt said:
I'm using MIS inks in a canon i960. I get better B&W prints when using the
color setting than with the grayscale setting. I don't have a clue as to
why this happens. Art Entlich's post gives you lots of information on how
to try to combat the tint. I would agree with him that neutral B&W prints
are difficult to obtain on most inkjet printers. You might try to get some
Kirkland glossy photo paper at Costco. 125 sheets for $19 - cheap enough to
experiment with. You can also try different papers as the color response
can differ markedly with different paper/ink combinations. Another thing to
check would be the printer settings. I use the manual setting for color as
some of the settings that let the printer take over the color response give
you results you may not want. You can also do test prints like people have
done in the darkroom by printing strips of the picture with different
printer settings for comparison.
Click to expand...

Thanks Burt, though as I'm in the UK Costco may be a bit out of my way
:O)

I used to have a few different papers around but seem to be down to my
last batch atm, barring normal paper. Experimenting on that I got the
same result no matter what I did... oh, and I found a bit of matte
epson photo paper, onto which I printed a section from a little B&W
artwork I did on my drawing tablet. I just scanned that in and it
shows the exact tone, so I've stuck both the original section and the
scan section into my msn site so anyone interested can have a look.
Original B&W/grey first and scanned print on matte second

http://groups.msn.com/OtherSides/statuary.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=786
http://groups.msn.com/OtherSides/statuary.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=787

It's quite an obvious difference.
 
measekite said:
All this may be true but I have used a simple technique using Photoshop
and Canon IP4000 to produce stunnung BW prints. And of course I use
Canon ink.
Click to expand...

How much do Canon pay you to troll this NG, measekite?
 
My area of Canada has been smacked with some very unusual weather which
has basically shut everything down over the last several days. We've
had about 18" of snow in my area, and the temperature is about 12
degrees below freezing F. Now, I know for many that seems like a "mild
case of winter" (Yeah, I've live in the North Eastern US also, so I
know), but this type of weather is rare here, and more so in the last 10
years since global climate change, so no one is prepared.

Until a few hours ago, we were without electricity, heat, water, phone
or internet services for the last several days. We still have no phone
service and internet is erratic. It has not been fun, as the indoor
house temperature dropped to 40 degrees F. Gee, winter camping indoors,
what fun... The wild animals are even less happy. The deer are
knocking down the bird feeder and eating the seed. No one seems
particularly happy about this ;-) .

Anyway, as I am still unable to download my mail from my
e-printerhelp(at)mvps(dot)org address, I will ask that people please
bear with me as things slowly get back on line. I will try to address
your queries as soon as I can.

Art
 
Arthur Entlich said:
My area of Canada has been smacked with some very unusual weather which
has basically shut everything down over the last several days. We've
had about 18" of snow in my area, and the temperature is about 12
degrees below freezing F. Now, I know for many that seems like a "mild
case of winter" (Yeah, I've live in the North Eastern US also, so I
know), but this type of weather is rare here, and more so in the last 10
years since global climate change, so no one is prepared.

Until a few hours ago, we were without electricity, heat, water, phone
or internet services for the last several days. We still have no phone
service and internet is erratic. It has not been fun, as the indoor
house temperature dropped to 40 degrees F. Gee, winter camping indoors,
what fun... The wild animals are even less happy. The deer are
knocking down the bird feeder and eating the seed. No one seems
particularly happy about this ;-) .
Click to expand...

Are you in BC Art? In the East (south -central Ontario (Toronto) we have
had nice weather. Yesterday (was 65F, sunny and nice) . Today is colder
but around 40F and Thursday is supposed to be 68F. Friday forecast is
42F. Those temps are not unusual here and can be very up and down at
this time or year. No signs of snow yet though many winters we don't get
snow in this part of the country till mid December or sometimes Jan.,
then its off and on till end of March, but BC doesn't usually get the
cold weather you are having and definitely not all that snow. I guess
you had to get your shovel out. Hope things improve soon out there so
you can all get back to normal. My cousin lives in Victoria.

Mary
 
Arthur said:
My area of Canada has been smacked with some very unusual weather which
has basically shut everything down over the last several days. We've
had about 18" of snow in my area, and the temperature is about 12
degrees below freezing F. Now, I know for many that seems like a "mild
case of winter" (Yeah, I've live in the North Eastern US also, so I
know), but this type of weather is rare here, and more so in the last 10
years since global climate change, so no one is prepared.

Until a few hours ago, we were without electricity, heat, water, phone
or internet services for the last several days. We still have no phone
service and internet is erratic. It has not been fun, as the indoor
house temperature dropped to 40 degrees F. Gee, winter camping indoors,
what fun... The wild animals are even less happy. The deer are
knocking down the bird feeder and eating the seed. No one seems
particularly happy about this ;-) .

Anyway, as I am still unable to download my mail from my
e-printerhelp(at)mvps(dot)org address, I will ask that people please
bear with me as things slowly get back on line. I will try to address
your queries as soon as I can.

Art
Click to expand...

Jees, i hope you're all feeling a lot happier now it's all back and
running. I think we forget how bad things like this can be. I won't
say it doesn't happen here, but it is not as frequent as it once was.
 
I expect Canon would consider this person a liability to their cause,
regardless of what he wrote.

Art
 
Yeap, I live outside of Victoria. We finally have all our services
working, although the electricity is still not fully reliable.

Art

Mary wrote:
 
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