B&W on Canon Printers

[pharmacist]

A good compromise would be turning a 6-colour variable droplet technology Epson printer into the following configuration:

-yellow
-matte black
-photo black
-grey
-cyan
-magenta

Since Epson can produce 5 distinct droplet size per channel, the resolution would be even better than Canon printers which can only produce 3 distinct droplet size per colour and it even needs 3 different sizes of nozzle rows to get the job finished. So technically the Epson can produce finer prints than Canon without the need of using the photo colours. Did someone never asked why the Epson R1800 and the R1900 do NOT have photo colours and still produce very fine tones in light skin and ligh sky area's ??? Because for most eyes the Epson technology is good enough to omit the lighter photo colours.

So it must be technically possible to rewrite the Epson driver for these Claria based variable droplet technology Epson printers to omit the lighter photo colours and have them replaced with matte and grey inks and when using pigment inks, it would make a machine that will rival the higher end R2400/R2880 printers. Especially the Epson 1400 would be very interesting, but smaller printers like the R285 too.

Is someone technically enough to write a different driver to achieve this goal ?

 

[ghwellsjr]

I don't think a driver in the computer can make this happen. It would require the software in the printer to be changed. Good luck. It's probably not even stored in a memory that can be changed.

 

[martin0reg]

Martin, look at post #70 and #71 by Leo8080. He used his BCI-3ebk using a dye based black photo ink to print black and white. This makes a lot of sense to me. Photo black ink has a much wider tonal range than pigment black ink. If the ink OP is selling is produced by a photo black ink by diluting it into 4 concentration levels based on the CMYK density perceived as black and white that actual tonal range is not increased. There is no benefit in increasing tonal range....

I didn't try leo's method, but printing with only the text/pigment black channel on canon has one main drawback: it is the nozzle row with less resolution than the 4 dye channels, because it is not made for the finest detail and gradation, but for laser sharp black text. Everybody can try for his own to print a photo with "black only": set driver on plain paper and grey...

So the photoblack in the 3-ebk cartridge could make it slightly smoother than the sharp pigment droplets - but it remains less and bigger droplets, shades of gray will be more "grainy" than printing with all channels and all nozzles, because all nozzles are needed to print the finest pattern. And regarding the tonal value: black is black, the tonal range stays the same. You need more than only one black. (on the other hand you need no more than three, like the epson photo printers with enhanced b&w)

 

[martin0reg]

Here are some scans of test prints, printed with IS color ink and mikling's grey ink (printed with two ip4000)
Prints are slightly larger than 5x7inch (A5) on aldi/sihl glossy paper.
(enlargement of crops from small A5 prints, so it is no "high definition")

- cut1 color file color ink
- cut1 converted to b&w, color ink
- cut1 converted to b&w, grey ink

Scanners are not the best method to show paper prints. In the scans on my monitor the prints with color ink have magenta/violet color shift, the prints with grey ink are slightly greenish in comparison.

In reality to my eyes it is almost vice versa: the color ink makes a greenish/cyan tint, the grey ink a very slightly warm/sepia tone.

This conversion of real impression and scan is bizzare, therefore I took a photo with a compact; on my monitor this seems to look more similar, neutral or warm grey ink on the left and cold cyan/greenish color ink on the right.

- four prints photographed with a compact camera (sony wx1).
top left: grey ink, directly from color photo / bottom left: grey ink, b&w converted photo file
top right: color ink, color photo / bottom right: color ink, b&w converted photo file

...the longer you look at different b&w prints, the more you believe to recognize all sorts of color cast/ shift / tint / hue (what is the right word in english?)


edit:
Here is a camera shot with wx1 from 2 prints (A5) of a b&w photo
(no keira knightly wasn't here..)

It shows the same bizzare conversion of my real eye's impression:

left: grey ink - almost neutral
(slightly brighter than the other, you can set the printer color menu of on "photo-dark" with this grey ink)
right: color ink - violet shift

In reality the right (color ink) is rather greenish in comparison to the left (grey ink)!
So the camera CCD seems to change green/cyan to violet/magenta, similar to the scanner results above...



In addition here are two crops (from scans) to show the resolution of the grey ink which is on par with the color ink:
(crops are from small a5 / 5x7 inches prints)

 

[arcascomp]

Ah, I think this was the thread I meant to post in! I've just posted on the Photo Printing forum on an old thread about dedicating a printer for B&W work when I think I had been reading this thread as well, oops, getting easily confused in my old age!

I'll not repeat the whole story, but I'm interested if I can dedicate a Epson Stylus 1270 to B&W using HP dye based grey inks as that is much cheaper than the MIS inksets. I realise there is all sorts of potential issues with inks from the 'wrong' manufacturer and I'll probably have to burn a lot of ink/paper to get the driver settings right (if I even manage!), but is it worth a shot?

Are these grey inks the ones used in HP cartridge #100 for the 6520 etc?

 

[inkadinkado]

Mikling:

To make a BW dedicated printer out of a MP990 (using the 220/221 carts), do I understand correctly that I would take out the 5 dye based carts, (of course, flush and dry them) and simply replace the ink with dye based photo black ink? Even the gray cart?
Thanks for you advice.

 

[mikling]

With the 980/990 and similar, Canon has already taken these printers down the B&W path already. I am not sure if it would be worth the effort or even required if you already have the printers with the gray carts. There could be complications in gray ramps when the additional grey needs to be integrated smoothly. This aspect is important in B&W.

I can't recommend trying it yet and in fact might dissuade you from doing so and expecting good results. I could be wrong though and I would have to try it sometime and perhaps give it more thought.

 

[inkadinkado]

Thanks, Mikling. I'll be waiting to get your OK before doing this. Since I write black and white "how to draw" books with a lot of pictures, this concept was very appealing to me and I would really like to know if you come up with a formula for the MP990's, or if the formula you already have can work for these 6 cart machines.

This is why this forum is so very important to all of us. People like you, and many others here, really know what they are doing. I have learned so-o-o-o-o much and I'm grateful to find you.

 

[jtoolman]

I just converted my 1400 to a 5 black ( is you include Photo and Matte black ) + plus gloss optimizer using inks from MIS ( inksupply )
You can get specially designed photoshop curves or ICCs for different papers to be able to print both gloss/luster as well as matte papers. Seems to really produce some gorgeous prints.
Presumably it is carbon based so longevity should be really good. You can buy different inksets for Neutral or warm/cool tones. No rip is needed to use this quad tone set

Dissadvantage? You loose your printer to any color color.

 

[luisrj]

Hi I'm new to printing. I just bought a ix6510 (6520 in NA/6550 in Europe). In the opening post of this thread Mikling explained that is better to have a dedicated printer just for B&W printing. Is this because of the print head?

A nice thing of this printer is that it has an easy to replace and not so expensive print head.

Can I just get an extra print head and dedicated B&W cartridges and swap them with the color dedicated head and cartridges?

I'm on a low budget so I can't really get another printer right now.

Thank you!.