Black isn't Black help (1 Viewer)

Hi,
I have been trying to set-up a Canon all in one printer MP460 for my father-in-law and although colour printing is pretty good the black and white prints are almost sepia tinted:eek!::C It has genuine Canon cartridges in ie one Black and one Colour.
My wife's old printer a cheapo Lexmark prints excellent black and white shots with no tinting.
Does anyone know why this is happening, is there a way to adjust the colour? I have tried printing just using the black cartridge but still tinted.
Are all canon printers this bad?
Cheers
Brian

This is a very common problem printing in black and white. With Epson printers, you often get an awful purple cast to B&W images.

If your printer's driver gives you the option, one thing you can do is specify "black ink only" or some setting like that. For my Epson 1280, it has that exact wording. Other printers might have a button that says "black and white" or "greyscale". If it has it, it forces the printer to just use the black cartridge, which is what you need.

However, some printer drivers do not have such an option (I know of at least one higher-priced Epson wide-carriage printer that does not, causing much complaining). If that is the case with your printer, one option would be open your image in an image editor and use the "colorize" function (at least that's what it is called in PaintShop Pro). This is a tool that is used to make images sepia-toned, etc. So you need to force it to something that will counteract the tint of the printer. I found that a very dark blue with a low saturation looks black on a color printing, and gets rid of any printer tint (I used to have an Epson that did not allow "black ink only" and used this trick with it).

RAH said:

This is a very common problem printing in black and white. With Epson printers, you often get an awful purple cast to B&W images.

If your printer's driver gives you the option, one thing you can do is specify "black ink only" or some setting like that. For my Epson 1280, it has that exact wording. Other printers might have a button that says "black and white" or "greyscale". If it has it, it forces the printer to just use the black cartridge, which is what you need.

However, some printer drivers do not have such an option (I know of at least one higher-priced Epson wide-carriage printer that does not, causing much complaining). If that is the case with your printer, one option would be open your image in an image editor and use the "colorize" function (at least that's what it is called in PaintShop Pro). This is a tool that is used to make images sepia-toned, etc. So you need to force it to something that will counteract the tint of the printer. I found that a very dark blue with a low saturation looks black on a color printing, and gets rid of any printer tint (I used to have an Epson that did not allow "black ink only" and used this trick with it).

Click to expand...

Hi,
Thanks for the tips but no improvement:C luckily my own printer a HP R1900 is a cracker and very good quality in either B/W or colour but it did cost £300+ so maybe its due to much cheaper Canon? ah well at least i tried to sort it LoL
Cheers
Brian

Claymore said:

Hi,
Thanks for the tips but no improvement

Click to expand...

Do you mean that:

1) the print driver does not have the option to use black ink only?

Or that

2) you still get the odd color even when you set it to use black ink only?

If 1, then there's not much you can do, as long as you've searched thru the entire driver panel's options, including perhaps "advanced" settings.

If 2, I'd say it was a paper/printer incompatibility. I've never seen a case where only using the black ink cartridge dod not give a black and white print with black looking black.

RAH said:

Do you mean that:

1) the print driver does not have the option to use black ink only?

Or that

2) you still get the odd color even when you set it to use black ink only?

If 1, then there's not much you can do, as long as you've searched thru the entire driver panel's options, including perhaps "advanced" settings.

If 2, I'd say it was a paper/printer incompatibility. I've never seen a case where only using the black ink cartridge dod not give a black and white print with black looking black.

Click to expand...

Hi,
No2 I think you might have nailed it!:t: never thought of checking the paper as it was at my father-in-laws home doooooooooooooohhhhhhhhh i'll try some Canon paper in it instead of the Fuji I used.
Thanks for your help
Brian
ps yes i did switch to black only but still tinted so hopefully its the paper LoL

It is very good news that your printer does have the option to force it to only use the black ink. I hope switching paper works, and it certainly should.

Concerning paper, I have found that matte finish paper is MUCH more forgiving that glossy. With matte, at least with Epson printers, you seem to be able to use just about any high-quality paper and get good results. That's why they sell all this fancy canvas-type paper and all sorts of levels of white and different grains, etc.

With glossy, on the other hand, you can really get burned with paper mismatch. With some, the ink will just sit there on the surface and not even dry! So, for glossy you're well advised to stick with the manufacturer's paper, unless you want to experiment and go thru money trying other stuff (too bad you can't just buy one sheet!).

Also, the light you are viewing the print in can matter a lot. This seems to be true even with matte finish. If you still are getting a tint after switching paper, check the print in a different light (i.e. near a window) and see if that makes a difference. It can often be quite a difference. Of course, it's hard to know what to do in that situation, but it can be yet another factor.