Color cast in BW print

[Laminarman]

I have built a profile for Epson Hot Press Natural with Spyder.  The color photos are just fine.  When using this custom profile in LR and printing to my Epson SCP800 there is a cyan cast to the mid tones that isn't immediately obvious but it's clearly there.  I am converting RAW files in Silver Effex latest edition.  If I use ABW mode they are perfectly neutral but I don't like being able to soft proof.  My monitor is calibrated as well.  Am I maybe missing something obvious.

[langier]

The last thing I've done to my b&w images processed as B&W or through Nik is to add one last layer, B&W, to neutralize any color bias that may have come up during processing.

I try to keep my workflow in 16-bit and color so I can keep my options intact but more and more of my work is processed on my iPhone resulting in a jpeg file so to keep things as consistent as I can, the last layer I add will be the B&W layer effects to the top of the editing.

When I've printed a series of images, this fast and easy step has saved the day in making things perfectly color graded when I print on any of my Epson printers.

Hope this helps!

[Laminarman]

Never even thought of that, thank you

[digitaldog]

The Spyer is kind of a POS but even with better software and hardware, it is very difficult to get dead nuts neutrals with ICC profiles. Make your life easier, just use the Epson Advanced B&W driver. Yes, it is a black box and you can't use profiles. But you can get totally neutral B&W prints and use less ink in the process.

[Laminarman]

The Spyer is kind of a POS but even with better software and hardware, it is very difficult to get dead nuts neutrals with ICC profiles. Make your life easier, just use the Epson Advanced B&W driver. Yes, it is a black box and you can't use profiles. But you can get totally neutral B&W prints and use less ink in the process.

I discovered this on my own and find I need the right effect in silver effex. For ex I use “contrasty landscape” and ABW warm with hot press natural and get gorgeous prints. Not sure why I want or need to make it more complicated?

[digitaldog]

I discovered this on my own and find I need the right effect in silver effex. For ex I use “contrasty landscape” and ABW warm with hot press natural and get gorgeous prints. Not sure why I want or need to make it more complicated?

OK; live with a color cast. 🙈

[Laminarman]

OK; live with a color cast. 🙈

You know how this works: you do something simple and someone tells you there's a better way so you spend time and money and effort and pull hair and wonder if what you're doing is good enough and the whole time you can just be making photos so I think I'm just going to be making photos in ABW and stick to my guns. So, no color cast for me... Thank you for your perspective.