Canon MG5250 printing black as blue when using photo paper

[palombian]

When you choose to print a B&W photo on Glossy Paper then your printer will always use as many colours as possible in the mix, and if you choose to print the same photo this time setting your printer to Greyscale the results will be exactly the same. (Try it)

On the other hand if you print the B&W photo on Plain Paper, now this is there you’ll see a significant difference between the two prints, one will have the colour mixed into the print as before.

But when you choose the greyscale setting this time the printer will disable all of the cartridges in favour of just one, the single Matte black cartridge !

Here’s the big BUT, this all goes out the window if the printer that’s used does not have a dedicated Matte black cartridge, it’s exactly the same on both dye and pigment printers !

Indeed, my apologies

Printed this morning a 190p manual in fast settings (at blazing speed indeed) - and grayscale - on my 5 cartridge MX7600
no color to see, only the matte black cartridge was used

 

[The Hat]

Don’t forget the application used in the equation also, if you print text in any photo application then the printer will only use CYM for reproducing black, just like it does in duplex mode..

 

[Łukasz]

Don’t forget the application used in the equation also, if you print text in any photo application then the printer will only use CYM for reproducing black, just like it does in duplex mode.

I think this is related to operating system - default behavior in Win 7 and up, but entering driver settings before printing can override that.
Unfortunately, sometimes things go wrong and printer driver is badly installed. No PGBK print at all - at least one such situation was reported last 2 years on my domestic forum.

To the contrast, I have no problem with getting pure PGBK print via driver tab triggered from any printing-capable program... under Windows XP.

Ł.

P.S.

View attachment 1816

Fine example of ordered dither
Side effect of fast printing.
Reminds me old Windows Office cliparts.

 

[PeterBJ]

I found out that printing perfect B/W with a colour printer is very difficult. The grey areas get a colour cast. I even tried the method by Łukasz. I used an iP3600 with the magenta cartridge replaced by dye black and used the Irfan View magenta change and set the colour management to "none".

The print had a dark green tint, and what is more strange a scan produced by the scanner in a Canon MP970 showed a dark brown tint. An Epson V33 CCD scanner produced the same result.

This is the scan:

I was able to tweak the colour balance in Irfan view to make the scan look similar to what I see:

I wonder if also replacing the cyan and yellow cartridges with dye black will remove the colour cast? So @Łukasz : Could you please upload the file used to create the greyscales in post #18, so I can print and scan them for comparison?

 

[The Hat]

I think this is related to operating system - default behavior in Win 7 and up, but entering driver settings before printing can override that.
Unfortunately, sometimes things go wrong and printer driver is badly installed. No PGBK print at all - at least one such situation was reported last 2 years on my domestic forum.

To the contrast, I have no problem with getting pure PGBK print via driver tab triggered from any printing-capable program... under Windows XP.

Ł.

One of the problems while printing web pages is that they tend to only use CMY regardless of O/S and trying to print a PDF with just the PG black is an impossible task, because it really depends on what’s imbedded in that particular PDF file.

 

[Łukasz]

Hello,

I had to take care of the cement mixer for a while.

One of the problems while printing web pages is that they tend to only use CMY regardless of O/S and trying to print a PDF with just the PG black is an impossible task, because it really depends on what’s imbedded in that particular PDF file.

I found similar behavior printing PDF file from web browser (Win XP).
Letters was jagged. I found, that any PDF content printed from web browser is bitmap.
After downloading certain PDF file everything was printed fine.

I try examine Win 7.


Things posted by @PeterBJ are much more complex.

Test posted above is quite old - it was designed 2 years ago.
The test was intended to check some resolution/screening (dither) related things.
Last usable version is .08, 1,5 year old.

% fields are by far only part that can be resized without loosing it purpose. Everything else is prone to resize - thin lines especially; test is intended to be printed with 600 dpi (or rather ppi) native resolution, but for evaluation % fields it can be resized (or printed in any resolution).

Test is intended to be printed with disabled color management in printer driver.


To evaluate grayscale prints it is better to use gray scale targets posted below:
1. RGB grayscale (srgb gamma)

2. 8-bit grayscale (linear 2.2 gamma)

In order to use with sole colorant method, target have to be converted to magenta or cyan (see attachment).

These test can reveal very small color shifts - for example very common bluish shadows in Canon Pixma CMYK photo inks composition.
They can be resized with no penalties.

The last but not least, my color vision is imperfect.
I can only see top-left hand, bottom-right hand, bottom-left hand and very little top-right hand. Middle column is unreadable to me.

I have troubles with seeing some specific colors, and possibly have troubles finding color cast in sole colorant method.
But I know, that sole colorant is prone to color shifts depending on light source. It is probably why PeterBJ catch color cast as green, and his scanner as brown

Ł.

 

[PeterBJ]

Thank you very much for the uploaded files. I will now continue studying, testing and evaluating printers, scanners and inks. It might take me several days to get to a conclusion, if at all.

Ambient light certainly plays a role when trying to adjust printer colours to get a good greyscale. Incandescent lamps have a continuous spectrum, but the colour temperature is low compared to daylight. Compact fluorescent tube energy saving bulbs are hopeless. They produce a line spectrum with great gaps between the lines, making colour judgement impossible. I am using Livarno LED bulbs from Lidl. They are the best energy saving bulbs I have used. They produce a continuous spectrum and the colour temperature is slightly higher than that of an incandescent bulb. I have also used a 42 W halogen bulb in a Luxo lamp equipped with a daylight conversion polyester film filter. This gives a light close to daylight.

But when I tweak the colour balance in the printer driver and get a good result viewed in real or simulated daylight, colours are different viewed in tungsten or LED light. And vice versa.

Maybe metamerism is part of the problem? I don't know much about printer profiling, but have a basic understanding of CIE Lab and metamerism from working at a paint manufacturing plant.

Maybe replacing magenta with photo black is not single colourant printing? Photo black is a mixture of several dyes. Here is a simple chromatography experiment I made using a drop of photo black on a strip of kitchen paper / paper towel and Ajax window cleaner as the running liquid. This window cleaner is colourless. This clearly shows the composition of the IS 1109 dye black. The small black and yellow dots should be ignored. They are caused by ink spills.

I have perfect colour vision, I have no problems with your colour vision test and also score zero errors in the FM 100 online colour vision test. I wonder about my scanners though. Maybe the difference is caused by metamerism caused by the scanner light being different from my ambient light?

 

[The Hat]

It’s not really a scanner problem because it can be calibrated to whatever degree to want it to be, it’s more so how good you software is, most scanners can do a reasonable job but is then let down by the lousy software package.

When you purchase a good scanner 75% of the cost is usually attributed to the software alone and if it’s not then you have not purchased wisely, when you get into a four figure price sum then you need to take advice as to how good the software bundle is, not the hardware.

When I tried @PeterBJ FM 100 test I score terrible so now you know why I don’t bother my ass profiling to get good photos, but I am ok with @ Łukasz test.

 

[martin0reg]

I found out that printing perfect B/W with a colour printer is very difficult. The grey areas get a colour cast. ..

As you certainly know this happens because all colors c-m-y-k are used even on grayscale images. If the printer has only one black ink (beside the text black) color shift is more likely..

...I even tried the method by Łukasz. I used an iP3600 with the magenta cartridge replaced by dye black and used the Irfan View magenta change and set the colour management to "none".
The print had a dark green tint, ....

Printing the converted "magenta image" with black ink in the magenta cart should result in NO color shift, except the color shift of the black ink which is used. Anyway this color shift should be "even" as only one ink is used, different from the changeable color shift of mixed (c-m-y-k) gray under changeable lighting.
My first tests with this method indeed shows almost NO color shift...but the prints are generally too dark and at the same time are lacking deep blacks, poor conrast all over.

...and what is more strange a scan produced by the scanner in a Canon MP970 showed a dark brown tint.
I wonder if also replacing the cyan and yellow cartridges with dye black will remove the colour cast? ...

I know the problem of scanning prints to show visible color cast:
http://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/b-w-on-canon-printers.4962/page-11

..what is more important IMO is the color cast of the actual print seen through your eyes...and regarding lukasz method I am disappointed by contrast and brightness (darkness) of the print results, not by color shift..
But this issue we should discuss in the other thread where lukasz had posted his instructions for canon (postings #13-20)
http://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/making-a-b-w-ink-set-for-6-color-epson-printers.9198/page-3
(that thread originally was about epson but extended to canon...several threads here with mixed problems..

 

[The Hat]

If your still not happy with your prints you could always try altering the colour shift yourself here.

You’d be amazed at just how versatile it can be but it does take many trails and errors, use A6 size instead of wasting a sheet of A4 for every print !