Printing good B&W prints from L1800

[Sazabi]

I bought an L1800 several months ago mainly to print color photo. Quite happy with the results. But for B&W prints, which I am now interested at, the results are not satisfying. I tried print with PS, LR, Easy Photo Print, and Mac's Photos. None of them deliver good results according to my taste. I aware there is abundant setting with PS, but I'm not sure to deal with it.

Any experience how to achieve good B&W photo from my L1800? I believe L1800 is similar with L800.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

You are touching quite a complex subject here, you are not happy with your B/W prints - what is it you are not happy with - do you see some color cast in your prints ? Or are you lacking contrast ? Are you using any icc-profiles ? Which type of paper are you using - matte or glossy ? Are you using the original Epson inks ? What type of images are you printing - graphics - photos - which style are you aiming for - low key like/dark or more naturalistic ? Which format are you using ? What are the viewing conditions - average living room ambient light - spot light or ? So it could be an issue with the printer, the inks, the driver settings - the L1800 is a color printer and has limited capability for B/W prints, it could be a software issue how you prepare your image for printing, it could be an issue with the paper which does not give you a decent black level , all aspects we would need to sort out, eliminate or work on

 

[Sazabi]

Yes, mainly because of color cast. Not really pure black IMHO. And I use original Epson ink. Paper I have used are Canon's, and Spectra. Never find Epson's here.
What my reason to post here is, perhaps someone have any experience with any particular software and any particular setting which produce satisfying result. I know satisfaction is personal taste, that's why I just want to collect some settings that just worked for someone.
Thank you for the response anyway. Appreciate it

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

color cast - yes, a dye black ink does not print a neutral black, you most likely see a kind of violet shade, that's something you cannot prevent, this applies to pure black areas, not necessarily to dark gray or lighter gray range for which the gray tone is mixed with the color inks. You may make a test on a matte paper, this color cast should be less visible in a black area. Gray tones are mixed from colors, and that mix can be influenced either by the color adjustments in the driver or with an icc-profile measured for your ink/paper/driver setting combination, this reduces the color cast significantly - but only for one viewing condition - for one color temperature - e.g. daylight or artificial/bulb light. and again - try matte paper which does not give you additional mirroring effects from reflecting light. The driver has a grayscale option, but that does not really help you very much, it is just converting the colors of an image to their gray level, but you are more flexible with adjustments in the driver if you do the B/W conversion in your photo editor. Only some higher end larger format printers offer you a specific and enhanced B/W printing mode like the 3880, the L1800 does not.
You may look through this thread with a similar subject
https://www.printerknowledge.com/th...enish-under-daylight.12276/page-4#post-109586

 

[stratman]

an icc-profile measured for your ink/paper/driver setting combination

I quote ISF to reinforce that you are using an Epson printer with Epson inks but a non-Epson paper. This may give less than satisfactory results unless you create a custom ICC printer profile. If you want to use non-Epson papers with your current set up then look for paper manufacturers/sellers that may provide an ICC printer profile for their paper and your Epson printer and ink set, or, get a ColorMunki and make your own ICC printer profiles. The other "fix" is to play with the color/contrast settings of your printer. Forum member @PeterBJ has a good post on resolving color cast.

 

[Sazabi]

Thank you for the replies.. After some trials and errors using Canon PR-101 A3+ paper which I cut it in several pieces and did some prints on them, I found some settings that quite good imho..

For B&W prints, I used Epson Print Layout with "printer managed color" and "Auto select Mode".

For color prints, I used Epson Easy Photo Print with "Auto Correct = None" and set to "Vivid + Brightness Plus 2-3 steps"

Still, if anyone have settings that consider best setting, please note me so

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

There is not the one 'best setting', you are the judge whether you are happy with the prints , but if you feel there is still something which could look better you might go and try manual settings in the driver - via the color adjustment option which allows you to influence the color saturation by color, contrast , brightness. You are currently using 'Auto' settings which gives you good results in lots of cases, but as soon as you start using other, non-Canon papers , start with 3rd party cartridges or refill inks you should keep those options in mind.

 

[slackercruster]

OP, these things are hard to correct. You can do better with color adjustments when it comes to color cast. But I found the best results come from a printer that can do great BW from the start.

I have a printer that does great color, but it does only fair BW, (color casts) so I use my dedicated BW printer for monochrome. Why fight things?

Inkjets can produce prints that = wet darkroom silver gelatin prints. So don't settle for less.

Left: Vintage Agfa silver gelatin print

Right: Inkjet print