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Rob Barron · 26-02-2007, 17:55

I don't think this has anything to do with Photoshop at all and frankly I think you can play until the cows come home and that colour cast is not going to shift.

Your problem will almost certainly be in the printer and the paper. I know your printer is not calibrated but even with it, you are never going to get a perfectly black and white image to come out of a colour printer if it has one black cartridge and that is all it has to work with. I have a Canon i9950 printer that is worth over £400 but that won't produce perfect mono prints without a slight colour cast either. A colour cast is a hint of colour across the image rather than looking truly black and grey.

You need to be realistic about what you can achieve when it comes to printing out in mono and remember that to get as close to the best your printer will allow, you must be using its own inks and papers as that is what it is designed for. If you're anything like me, you might well be using some different inks, papers or both. I have found that despite using cheaper cartirdges, that doesn't tend to affect my prints very much at all (they are from a very good company I must say) but the paper I use makes a huge difference.

I most commonly use Ilford Galerie paper but without ever changing the image or the inks, if it is a fairly warm image I am looking for I print it on Classic Pearl paper. If however I want a cooler tone I go for the Classic Smooth paper. If I wanted an image that is dull and lifeless (I don't!) then I would use Kodak Premium Photo Paper! Note, I am NOT slamming Kodak papers, I am saying that the combination of the inks I personally use does not work well with that particular paper.

So, first of all be realistic about what you are expecting. True black and white is extremely difficult to print on a colour printer unless it is the type that has two or three tones of black ink to use. If absolute perfection is important to you, you will need to think about investing in a second printer that you can use something like Lyson Monochrome inks with. You'll need to keep it for just that purpose so don't try and use a colour set in the same printer as it just doesn't work.

I hope that has given you a bit more to think about as I have been reading the thread and I think you are spending a lot of time trying to solve this in Photoshop and I don't think you are going to get it sorted.

Cheers,
Rob

26-02-2007, 17:55	#13 (permalink)
Rob Barron Loves the place Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Poole, Dorset Posts: 5,386	Re: saying hello with a printing prob I don't think this has anything to do with Photoshop at all and frankly I think you can play until the cows come home and that colour cast is not going to shift. Your problem will almost certainly be in the printer and the paper. I know your printer is not calibrated but even with it, you are never going to get a perfectly black and white image to come out of a colour printer if it has one black cartridge and that is all it has to work with. I have a Canon i9950 printer that is worth over £400 but that won't produce perfect mono prints without a slight colour cast either. A colour cast is a hint of colour across the image rather than looking truly black and grey. You need to be realistic about what you can achieve when it comes to printing out in mono and remember that to get as close to the best your printer will allow, you must be using its own inks and papers as that is what it is designed for. If you're anything like me, you might well be using some different inks, papers or both. I have found that despite using cheaper cartirdges, that doesn't tend to affect my prints very much at all (they are from a very good company I must say) but the paper I use makes a huge difference. I most commonly use Ilford Galerie paper but without ever changing the image or the inks, if it is a fairly warm image I am looking for I print it on Classic Pearl paper. If however I want a cooler tone I go for the Classic Smooth paper. If I wanted an image that is dull and lifeless (I don't!) then I would use Kodak Premium Photo Paper! Note, I am NOT slamming Kodak papers, I am saying that the combination of the inks I personally use does not work well with that particular paper. So, first of all be realistic about what you are expecting. True black and white is extremely difficult to print on a colour printer unless it is the type that has two or three tones of black ink to use. If absolute perfection is important to you, you will need to think about investing in a second printer that you can use something like Lyson Monochrome inks with. You'll need to keep it for just that purpose so don't try and use a colour set in the same printer as it just doesn't work. I hope that has given you a bit more to think about as I have been reading the thread and I think you are spending a lot of time trying to solve this in Photoshop and I don't think you are going to get it sorted. Cheers, Rob __________________ Rob Barron robbarron@aol.com If you look down on other people, don't expect them to look up to you!