B&W with an Epson R1800 Printer

FA
Posted By
Frank Arthur
Mar 12, 2006
Views
437
Replies
6
Status
Closed
I’m using Photoshop CS printing some B&W images using an Epson R1800 printer.
Apparently mixed colors gives the black images a color cast. How do you set the printer to use only black ink/inks for photo quality prints?

MacBook Pro 16” Mockups 🔥

– in 4 materials (clay versions included)

– 12 scenes

– 48 MacBook Pro 16″ mockups

– 6000 x 4500 px

SG
Scott Glasgow
Mar 18, 2006
Frank Arthur wrote:
I’m using Photoshop CS printing some B&W images using an Epson R1800 printer.
Apparently mixed colors gives the black images a color cast. How do you set the printer to use only black ink/inks for photo quality prints?

I don’t have that printer, but in one of my Epsons, a six-cartridge Stylus Photo R220, the Advanced button on the main tab of the printer dialog takes me to a with a checkbox for "Use black ink only." Have a look at the innards of your printer setup and you’ll probably find something similar.
C
Clyde
Mar 18, 2006
Scott Glasgow wrote:
Frank Arthur wrote:
I’m using Photoshop CS printing some B&W images using an Epson R1800 printer.
Apparently mixed colors gives the black images a color cast. How do you set the printer to use only black ink/inks for photo quality prints?

I don’t have that printer, but in one of my Epsons, a six-cartridge Stylus Photo R220, the Advanced button on the main tab of the printer dialog takes me to a with a checkbox for "Use black ink only." Have a look at the innards of your printer setup and you’ll probably find something similar.

I don’t have that printer either. OK, I have the R800 which uses the same inks, papers, etc., but is only 8.5" wide.

I print B&W on it in RGB mode and get tone free prints all the time. There are a couple of keys to do it….

Start with a calibrated monitor. I use a ColorVision Spyder2. You won’t get the colors right during editing if the colors on your monitor aren’t right. Everything after that in the workflow will be off color. The following won’t work right either.

Get ICC/ICM profiles for the exact paper that you are using on your printer. If your monitor is calibrated and your paper it too, Photoshop can correctly convert from what is in the file to what works best with your printer/paper.

Epson has downloads of profiles for their papers on this printer. Actually a lot of paper makers have profiles for this printer. Moab and Ilford have very good ones in my experience.

If you absolutely have to use a paper that doesn’t have any available profiles, make your own. You would need to get a calibration device that does printer profiling as well as monitor. All the popular ones have that product too.

If you do these two things, I bet your B&W prints will print just great in RGB mode. Your color prints will also look just like what you created on the screen.

Clyde
U
Unspam
Mar 19, 2006
Scott Glasgow wrote:
Frank Arthur wrote:
I’m using Photoshop CS printing some B&W images using an Epson R1800 printer.
Apparently mixed colors gives the black images a color cast. How do you set the printer to use only black ink/inks for photo quality prints?

I don’t have that printer, but in one of my Epsons, a six-cartridge Stylus Photo R220, the Advanced button on the main tab of the printer dialog takes me to a with a checkbox for "Use black ink only." Have a look at the innards of your printer setup and you’ll probably find something similar.

I don’t have that printer either. OK, I have the R800 which uses the same inks, papers, etc., but is only 8.5" wide.

I print B&W on it in RGB mode and get tone free prints all the time. There are a couple of keys to do it….

Start with a calibrated monitor. I use a ColorVision Spyder2. You won’t get the colors right during editing if the colors on your monitor aren’t right. Everything after that in the workflow will be off color. The following won’t work right either.

Get ICC/ICM profiles for the exact paper that you are using on your printer. If your monitor is calibrated and your paper it too, Photoshop can correctly convert from what is in the file to what works best with your printer/paper.

Epson has downloads of profiles for their papers on this printer. Actually a lot of paper makers have profiles for this printer. Moab and Ilford have very good ones in my experience.

If you absolutely have to use a paper that doesn’t have any available profiles, make your own. You would need to get a calibration device that does printer profiling as well as monitor. All the popular ones have that product too.

If you do these two things, I bet your B&W prints will print just great in RGB mode. Your color prints will also look just like what you created on the screen.

Clyde

Why not just de-saturate in RGB mode, no colour information should = no colour cast
C
Clyde
Mar 19, 2006
Unspam wrote:
Scott Glasgow wrote:
Frank Arthur wrote:
I’m using Photoshop CS printing some B&W images using an Epson R1800 printer.
Apparently mixed colors gives the black images a color cast. How do you set the printer to use only black ink/inks for photo quality prints?
I don’t have that printer, but in one of my Epsons, a six-cartridge Stylus Photo R220, the Advanced button on the main tab of the printer dialog takes me to a with a checkbox for "Use black ink only." Have a look at the innards of your printer setup and you’ll probably find something similar.
I don’t have that printer either. OK, I have the R800 which uses the same inks, papers, etc., but is only 8.5" wide.

I print B&W on it in RGB mode and get tone free prints all the time. There are a couple of keys to do it….

Start with a calibrated monitor. I use a ColorVision Spyder2. You won’t get the colors right during editing if the colors on your monitor aren’t right. Everything after that in the workflow will be off color. The following won’t work right either.

Get ICC/ICM profiles for the exact paper that you are using on your printer. If your monitor is calibrated and your paper it too, Photoshop can correctly convert from what is in the file to what works best with your printer/paper.

Epson has downloads of profiles for their papers on this printer. Actually a lot of paper makers have profiles for this printer. Moab and Ilford have very good ones in my experience.

If you absolutely have to use a paper that doesn’t have any available profiles, make your own. You would need to get a calibration device that does printer profiling as well as monitor. All the popular ones have that product too.

If you do these two things, I bet your B&W prints will print just great in RGB mode. Your color prints will also look just like what you created on the screen.

Clyde

Why not just de-saturate in RGB mode, no colour information should = no colour cast

You could do that to get B&W on the monitor. However, most printing happens in RGB mode. The printer driver converts the RGB to whatever its inks are. In the case of the R800/R1800 that would be CMYKRBg – depending on which black it will use.

These printer drivers typically print using all the inks even with a monochrome B&W file sent to it. Actually that is a nice feature. It give that high resolution and smooth gradation of tones that we expect. If you just use black ink, you will get a whole lot fewer dots put down on the paper. The smoothness and grayness won’t look nearly as nice.

Some printer drivers don’t have a nice or any way of just printing with black ink. This driver seems to be one of those. I don’t see anywhere to print with just black ink. If you change the Color Management to "PhotoEnhance" and then the Tone to "Monochrome" the picture will look monochrome in the preview. However, I don’t know if this means that it is just printing with black ink or if it is using all the inks like it normally would with an RGB file. If it is using all of them, we still have a color correction issue.

I suppose you could print a grayscale file with this printer driver setting and see what you get. I’m not bothering to trying it because I calibrate my monitor and use good printer/paper profiles. I also like the smooth tone that printing an RGB file gives me.

Another reason is that I very rarely print a true B&W picture. With a few decades of B&W photography history in a wet darkroom, I got used to toning everything. This was done to preserve the negative and prints. It was also done to enhance the picture. Besides I liked and still like the look of toned B&W pictures.

So, I convert all my grayscale pictures to Duotone or Tritone. This allows me to put that tinting in the highlights or shadows as I want. It is much more flexible than the wet darkroom method of split toning. It also helps that I now have every shade of tone in the book, instead of just the few that certain chemicals gave me in the past.

So, I think straight grayscale B&W pictures are rather boring and look incomplete to me. I need to enhance the mood with just a touch of color. That is an old art in B&W photography.

Therefore, I need and get to use the full capabilities of my R800 printer for B&W pictures. I use all the inks and get all the resolution. Because my monitor is calibrated and I use good printer/paper profiles, I get exactly what I want and what I see.

Besides, you need to color correct things to get the best color prints that you can get. Well, assuming that you sometimes print in color. I don’t know anyone who ONLY prints B&W. If you do, you should be using this instead: http://www.piezography.com/site/piezography-neutral-k7.html

Clyde
PF
Paul Furman
Mar 20, 2006
Scott Glasgow wrote:

Frank Arthur wrote:

I’m using Photoshop CS printing some B&W images using an Epson R1800 printer.
Apparently mixed colors gives the black images a color cast. How do you set the printer to use only black ink/inks for photo quality prints?

I don’t have that printer, but in one of my Epsons, a six-cartridge Stylus Photo R220, the Advanced button on the main tab of the printer dialog takes me to a with a checkbox for "Use black ink only." Have a look at the innards of your printer setup and you’ll probably find something similar.

There is no such setting on this printer. I forget the model but epson makes another which is better suited to B&W.
C
Clyde
Mar 21, 2006
Paul Furman wrote:
Scott Glasgow wrote:

Frank Arthur wrote:

I’m using Photoshop CS printing some B&W images using an Epson R1800 printer.
Apparently mixed colors gives the black images a color cast. How do you set the printer to use only black ink/inks for photo quality prints?

I don’t have that printer, but in one of my Epsons, a six-cartridge Stylus Photo R220, the Advanced button on the main tab of the printer dialog takes me to a with a checkbox for "Use black ink only." Have a look at the innards of your printer setup and you’ll probably find something similar.

There is no such setting on this printer. I forget the model but epson makes another which is better suited to B&W.

The 2400 is better for B&W as it has gray ink. It is more expensive though.

Clyde

Must-have mockup pack for every graphic designer 🔥🔥🔥

Easy-to-use drag-n-drop Photoshop scene creator with more than 2800 items.

Related Discussion Topics

Nice and short text about related topics in discussion sections