Canon Pro-100s colorcast & questions

[Ink stained Fingers]

For a start on the problem from a New Zealand perspective I checked whether the Canon G550 and GI-53 CMY inks are available in New Zealand and found that they weren't. My next move was to ask Canon NZ whether I could get the I-53 inks for a G550 printer (or equivalent) from them. Their answer was interesting :
"Inks are region-coded and will only work with printers from particular region or country. If the printer was bought from overseas, you wouldn’t be able to use inks and cartridges sold in New Zealand and Australia due to regional coding on them. The same applies if the printer was purchased in New Zealand and Australia, you cannot use inks sold in other countries or regions."

Oh well, that's marketing blabla at its finest - they don't want to sell you a G550 like printer at all. I'm not aware that the ink bottles are region coded mechanically, and even if they are you just take a syringe with a needle and pull the ink out of the bottles. You cannot pull off the coded head from the bottle - it's easier with the Epson inks and bottles - you can screw off the top caps.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Somehow the black and white print does still have a green tint, even when I select the black and white print option (I thought the printer then only uses the LGY, GY, BK

You cannot assume that dye blacks or grays deliver a neutral print besides the problem that the paper itself has an impact on the effective color tone. You may use a specific icm colorprofile which is optimized along the gray axis, or you use a dedicated B/W inkset, but pigment inks overall deliver better - more neutral B/W or monochrome prints with a color hue like warm or cool or sepia etc

 

[911]

You cannot assume that dye blacks or grays deliver a neutral print besides the problem that the paper itself has an impact on the effective color tone. You may use a specific icm colorprofile which is optimized along the gray axis, or you use a dedicated B/W inkset, but pigment inks overall deliver better - more neutral B/W or monochrome prints with a color hue like warm or cool or sepia etc

That's what I read so far online, however the OEM did deliver a B&W without a green tint and the tint is very noticeable with 3rd party ink. The paper I used is Ilford Studio Satin 250 gsm with all test prints, so either it uses another color with it when printing pure B&W or even the octopus office ink is bad in that regard, I can only tell once I replaced the other inks. I tried both methods with B&W checkbox ticked and normally without both produced a green tint. LGY GY BK octopus office. I will report back once I slowly fix this mess.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Dye black inks - incl. OEM - are not neutrally black when you measure the color value , the -b value - for cyan - of the Lab color is typically in the range of 4 - 8 , as well depending on the paper, and the -b value of a pigment black is typically between 0 to 3, and this is not getting better for gray colors. 3rd party inks can be much worse. You can create and use a icc profile which is optimized along the gray axis, this takes away stronger tints, but another problem remains with dye inks - the look of the B/W prints varies more with the color temperture of the viewing light than with pigment inks. Light gray dye inks reduce some of that but pigment inks perform better. Or you use a special B/W ink set.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

For a start on the problem from a New Zealand perspective I checked whether the Canon G550 and GI-53 CMY inks are available in New Zealand and found that they weren't. My next move was to ask Canon NZ whether I could get the I-53 inks for a G550 printer (or equivalent) from them.

The Canon G660 photo printer with the Chromalife 100 GI-63 inks is now available in your area since recently

https://www.canon.com.au/about-cano...high-quality-solution-for-home-photo-printing