B&W Prints

[ghwellsjr]

Mikling, could you please summarize your findings here. You probably say somewhere in this thread but I'm not sure if you tell the printer to print greyscale or color. And since I'm not familiar with HP printers, I'm not sure where you get your ink from.

Also, from the link I provided on the second post of this thread, it looks to me like if you are telling the printer to print in greyscale, it wouldn't matter whether you put the dark grey in the magenta cartridge and the medium grey in the cyan cartridge or the other way around.

Whichever way you print (telling the printer to print in greyscale or in color), it might be interesting to see how the prints come out if you tell the printer the other way. Have you tried that?

 

[Smile]

If he is printing is Greyscale mode then "color" cartridges are ignored. So without a RIP or at least good profile to correct colors there can't be any good prints AFAIK. Because OEM printer driver prints blue where blue is needed same for other colors. If you don't have a profile and your blue Lightness or should I say density does not match your gray ink you will have problems.

 

[pharmacist]

Mikling,

question: where do you purchase these grey inks ? And would you think it is possible to tweak a custom profile in such way that I could omit the red and green cartridges in my Canon i9950 printer to be replaced by grey and light grey inks ? I think the red and green cartridges gives only marginally better prints in red and green area's, but having grey and light grey inks would jump overall printing quality especially in neutral B/W printing.

 

[mikling]

I was just trying something in a haphazard way and using some tools at my disposal to "hack" away at getting B&W.
The inks I am using are grey IS inks meant for the HP gray cartridge. What I grew to suspect is that these are used by HP as a direct BW analogue to CMY.
HP CMY are close to the CMY of the BCI-6 cartridges and not too far off that of the CLI-8.

To get the results, I don't use any RIPS or special driver. All I did was substitute the CMY for various shades of ink. This ended up being as good as the profile that Datacolor had recommended. This would be true if the CMY analogs were correct and it looks like they were. Again I don't know how Datacolor does it with using a color profile routine to generate Black and White but the amount of processing carried out far far exceeded that of a color profile. They must have their subroutines somewhere doing something but it seems to work.

Now as I said, even after the profiles, it didn't seem to offer any improvement over that of using the standard driver. That just means, forget about the profille, just pop in the new carts and continue to print away. In this case SIMPLE works......by luck? Now am I professing that this is the best B&W? No, I am new to B&W but so far to my eyes, the shades look nice and there are no casts at all compared to that produced by a standard driver. The one thing about B&W that I am seeing is that once the shades are neutral, you can play around with all kinds of brightness and contrast to create an artisitic interpretation and your senses are IMO more adaptive and tolerant. What I go get is simplicity and the thought of getting an HP printer with gray cartridges to mess around with B&W is gone. My iP4200 will perform that duty now.

I currently have a limited supply of these gray inks.

 

[ghwellsjr]

If he is printing is Greyscale mode then "color" cartridges are ignored. So without a RIP or at least good profile to correct colors there can't be any good prints AFAIK. Because OEM printer driver prints blue where blue is needed same for other colors. If you don't have a profile and your blue Lightness or should I say density does not match your gray ink you will have problems.

As I pointed out in the second post on this thread, greyscale printing DOES use the color inks when printing on photo paper. Here's that link again:

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=8390#p8390

Mikling, I still don't know if you are telling your printer to print in color or greyscale. It might work well both ways and it might be different both ways or maybe it wouldn't matter. Have you tried both?

 

[mikling]

I'm telling it to print color.

 

[lin]

If he is printing is Greyscale mode then "color" cartridges are ignored. So without a RIP or at least good profile to correct colors there can't be any good prints AFAIK. Because OEM printer driver prints blue where blue is needed same for other colors. If you don't have a profile and your blue Lightness or should I say density does not match your gray ink you will have problems.

As I pointed out in the second post on this thread, greyscale printing DOES use the color inks when printing on photo paper. Here's that link again:

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=8390#p8390

Mikling, I still don't know if you are telling your printer to print in color or greyscale. It might work well both ways and it might be different both ways or maybe it wouldn't matter. Have you tried both?

ghwellsjr, I did a similar test like yours before. When one select photo related paper selecting (not plain paper setting that uses pigment black cart), irregardless grayscale was selected or not, the result were exactly like yours. That is to say, whether you are telling the printer to print in color or greyscale (with photo paper type media mode selected), the result look exactly like your test whereby the printer uses composite colors (magenta, cyan, yellow and black) to print black/grey with variant color density as depicted in your result.

 

[mikling]

This is off Datacolors' Help file

Start Here

Manufacturers Inks, Manufacturers Black and White Driver

This method uses the printer manufacturer's inks (or inks that are very similar), and the black and white printing method provided in the manufacturers printer driver. This method cannot use ICC profiles for black and white color control, though they can be used for black and white linearity control. Results can be quite good, though its possible to improve neutrality and linearity, especially on third party papers. Unfortunately there is a minimum of controls for adjusting results. This method does not provide a means to create cross-tints, offers no preview, and lacks other advanced options.



This is certainly a good place to start with the latest two-gray printers: Epson 2400/ 3800/ 4800/7 800/ 9800, any Canon iPF printer, or either width of HP Z3100. This list does not currently contain many smaller models; the new HP B9180 (and the larger Z2100 models) and the new Canon PRO9500, are not two-gray printer, so do not qualify for the category described above. Their color mode creates its light grays from Light Cyan, Light Magenta, and Yellow, as earlier Epson models did. This is why they have not been included in the list above.



Spyder3Print owners would typically use the color driver, not the black and white option, for more precise and controllable results, and described in the Color Driver sections below.



Manufacturers Inks, Manufacturers Color Driver **

This method uses the printer manufacturer's inks (or inks that are very similar), and the color printing method provided in the manufacturers printer driver. One reason this method is so popular is that it allows both color and black and white prints without changing inksets, and uses similar ICC-based processes for profiling, previewing, and controlling printing for both color and black and white. Results printing black and white through the color drivers can be very good, though for best results it requires special products such as Spyder3Print to improve neutrality and linearity. This method offers excellent controls for adjusting results; provides a means to create cross-tints, offers softproof preview, and many other advanced options.



This is an ideal method for black and white printing using the latest two-gray printers: Epson 2400/ 3800/ 4800/ 7800/ 9800, any Canon iPF printer, or either width of HP Z3100. This list does not currently contain many smaller models; the new HP B9180 (and the larger Z2100 models), are not two-gray printer, so do not qualify for the category described above; their B&W mode is fixed, single tone, neutrality defined by the paper involved. So these models offer no tintability, without using color mode. Their color mode creates its light grays from Light Cyan, Light Magenta, and Yellow, as earlier Epson models did. This is why have have not been included in the list above.



Spyder3Print will improve black and white output via the color driver to most all printers, but only offers gallery quality black and white for two gray printers, or printers fitted with special black and white inksets.



Manufacturers Inks, RIP Driver *

RIPs are third party drivers that offer direct control of each ink channel. This used to provide a great deal of necessary control for black and white printing. RIPs are becoming less necessary for black and white printing as the free printer drivers offer better dithering, improved linearity, and some of the special functions that only RIPs used to contain.



RIPs also offer convenient layout functions, but other applications now provide these capapabilities, so RIP usage is dropping at all printer sizes. Larger printers, where effective layout of multiple images or multiple copies is most important, are the area where RIPs are still most frequently used. Use of RIPs with manufacturers inks will become less and less common as driver development progress continues.



Spyder3Print can be used to measure and export files for use in linearizing and profiling RIPs for black and white printing; it even includes special export formats for creating QuadTone RIP (QTR) linearization and profiling data.



Non-ICC Black and White Inksets, RIP Driver *

RIPs still have advantages for controlling some black and white inksets, as they can access each ink channel. But this means complex settings, and is not a user friendly process. There are several types of black and white inksets. Some print only one tone of black and white, such as neutral, or sepia. Others offer tinting controls, so that they can be adjusted by special settings. The newest type of black and white inksets are designed in a manner that allows them to be controlled via the free drivers and ICC profiling controls, so the use of a RIP with these inks is no longer necessary.



Spyder3Print owners would choose an ICC Capable Black and White inkset, for the advantages noted in that section below.



ICC Capable Black and White Inksets, Manufacturers Color Driver **

This method offers richer grays than manufacturers inks by increasing the number of gray inks, but also limits the printer to only gray and tinted gray prints while these inks are installed. This method allows many of the ICC advantages of the category above. The available tints are limited to inkset's range. This method requires Spyder3Print 2.0, and ICC profilable inks

End Here

 

[Smile]

If he is printing is Greyscale mode then "color" cartridges are ignored. So without a RIP or at least good profile to correct colors there can't be any good prints AFAIK. Because OEM printer driver prints blue where blue is needed same for other colors. If you don't have a profile and your blue Lightness or should I say density does not match your gray ink you will have problems.

As I pointed out in the second post on this thread, greyscale printing DOES use the color inks when printing on photo paper. Here's that link again:

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewto … 8390#p8390

Mikling, I still don't know if you are telling your printer to print in color or greyscale. It might work well both ways and it might be different both ways or maybe it wouldn't matter. Have you tried both?

Sorry I somehow taught he was using plain paper mode while testing gray mode in the printer driver.

 

[Smile]

I was just trying something in a haphazard way and using some tools at my disposal to "hack" away at getting B&W.
The inks I am using are grey IS inks meant for the HP gray cartridge. What I grew to suspect is that these are used by HP as a direct BW analogue to CMY.

Could you share HP cartridge numbers, I've tried to look at their site but they have somany variantions and so many are claria pigment ink that I got lost.

HP CMY are close to the CMY of the BCI-6 cartridges and not too far off that of the CLI-8.

To get the results, I don't use any RIPS or special driver. All I did was substitute the CMY for various shades of ink. This ended up being as good as the profile that Datacolor had recommended. This would be true if the CMY analogs were correct and it looks like they were. Again I don't know how Datacolor does it with using a color profile routine to generate Black and White but the amount of processing carried out far far exceeded that of a color profile. They must have their subroutines somewhere doing something but it seems to work.

Did you turn off color management in printer driver? while printing test chart for profiling inks?

Now as I said, even after the profiles, it didn't seem to offer any improvement over that of using the standard driver. That just means, forget about the profille, just pop in the new carts and continue to print away. In this case SIMPLE works......by luck? Now am I professing that this is the best B&W? No, I am new to B&W but so far to my eyes, the shades look nice and there are no casts at all compared to that produced by a standard driver. The one thing about B&W that I am seeing is that once the shades are neutral, you can play around with all kinds of brightness and contrast to create an artisitic interpretation and your senses are IMO more adaptive and tolerant. What I go get is simplicity and the thought of getting an HP printer with gray cartridges to mess around with B&W is gone. My iP4200 will perform that duty now.

I currently have a limited supply of these gray inks.

It's hard to see with simple viewing test, software should be used to plot gamut sizes and rendering curves.
You should have done first profile with normal inks and second profile with gray inks. Then analyze the two. If you have made such profiles or are willing to you could upload them and post link here. I would like to look at them with gamut analysis software.