Why are colored inks used when printing grayscale?

[Bird333]

Just curious as to why the color ink seems to get depleted when I'm only printing grayscale? Is there some kind of 'mini cleaning cycle' going on whenever I print something? I would think only the black ink would be used.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Which printer are you using ?

 

[The Hat]

I'm only printing grayscale?

No that’s not the case, you have a multi coloured printer so it uses all of the colours to make up a printed documents, but most think when you print a colour photo that the black ink is used quite a lot to make up the image, but in fact there is very little black ink used at all.

The printer uses tiny amounts of each colour in a pattern for each of your documents and when seen with our eyes we only see a black or greyscale image, but when you print text it only uses the pigment black and no colour ink at all. (In some cases) see this **

Now there are exceptions and it all depends on which App your using to print your greyscale document out with, the printer lets your App determine whether or not you use colour or just black ink, and 96% of the time it will use all your inks, this also keeps the print head in good condition..

** I once printed 2000 black only A5 fliers with just text on them and I managed to use just as much colour ink as I did black ink, this also allows for a higher print volume without having to changing the black cart all the time. (70% Black coverage)

P.S. the alternative is a mono laser..

 

[PeterBJ]

I don't know why greyscale tones are made from CMY dots instead of photo black, which is only used in the darkest tones. But here is proof of this way of printing greyscales. This post shows the use of photo black in dark areas only, and here is a magnification of a light grey made from CMY dots only.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

The same subject of gray printing appears to run in parallel in 2 threads - as well here

https://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/what-is-a-photo-black-cartridge-for.13821/post-127867

 

[Bird333]

Which printer are you using ?

I'm currently using a MB5120 but this has happened with all the Canon printers I have used.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

this has happened with all the Canon printers I have used.

What's wrong with this approach - what are you looking for - borderless B/W printing with the pigment ink?

 

[The Hat]

I'm currently using a MB5120 but this has happened with all the Canon printers I have used.

They all do that.. That’s the nature of the beast..
The other alternative is to put black in all the carts..

 

[Bird333]

What's wrong with this approach - what are you looking for - borderless B/W printing with the pigment ink?

I was just curious. I didn't understand why I was using up colored ink when I'm just printing grayscale.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

gvie it a try - print a B/W image on copy paper with the 'normal' driver settings and another time with a B/W mode on and compare the blacks - they might look different - e.g. darker or with a different color tint - a little bit more brownish or more like steel blue, it depends on the types of ink in the printer and what the driver is doing with it.