Puzzle: B & W Printing Using Canon IPF Printer, Monochrome Mode & Paper Profiles

[raminolta]

I have a puzzle: My printer is an ipf6400 and I assume the software interface is similar for other Canon ipf printers. My understanding is that in order to print a purely neutral black and white print, in the printer dialogue window, one has to choose the 'monochrome photo' option in the output profile box so that the printer solely uses the black and grey inks. Otherwise,  choosing any other option ('color', 'no color correction' or any of the listed paper profiles), does not lead the printer into not using the color inks hence, possibly having a color tint in the print. Am I right about my understanding?

The problem I am facing is if using the 'monochrome photo' option in the 'output profile' dialogue box, one looses the ability to choose a paper profile according to the paper one uses. This might not be a problem with Canon papers because there is another location where one can specify the Canon paper and that is the 'media type' dialogue box. There, one has the option to specify what Canon paper one uses.  In the 'media type' dialogue box, there are also options such as Special 1, 2, 3, etc.. If the paper, one uses is not a Canon paper (such as Hahnemuhle), one is supposed to choose the 'Special 5' option which tells the printer this is a glossy paper or, the 'Special 9' option which tells the printer this is a matte paper. However, one cannot specify the exact non-Canon paper profile over there. Apparently, the 'output profile' dialogue box is the only place where one can choose the icc profile
 corresponding to the third party paper but that is not possible if one opts for the 'monochrome photo' option in that dialogue box.


Does it mean one does not have to worry about the specific paper profile when printing black and white? Or, am I missing something here?   


Thanks in advance for your replies.

[Simon J.A. Simpson]

I do not have a Canon ipf6400 but I do have a Canon A3+ printer.

If the printer driver is the similar to mine then it has a special black and white algorithm which it will use to produce an arguably more neutral and better looking greyscale image than can be produced using a colour managed workflow.  This means that the printer driver effectively abandons any kind of colour management and so any paper profiles become irrelevant.

I cannot remember for sure but I seem to recall that you can still select different paper types which presumably changes some parameters in the algorithm.  What I do remember is that I was unable to get an acceptable print on my favourite matt paper as the printer laid down too much ink.  However, on gloss paper it produces very nice greyscale prints.  Using Canon's Easy-PhotoPrint Pro to print from allows a small amount of adjustment of the ‘coolness’ or ‘warmth’ of the print (but note that you will have to flatten the image and save it as a TIFF first).

[aaronchan]

Canon iPF printer still uses very little color ink even u setup the printer in to B&W printing mode.
This is just like how Epson ABW does, to use color ink to increase the d-max.
And both printer's B&W mode are the same, they are a black box which means there's nothing much you can do with it.

If you really want to have pure control of canon printer, you can check out true black and white rip
http://bowhaus.com/trueblackandwhite/truebw.php4
but it only works on mac tho.

I personally create my own color icc profile with my own custom made color target which makes very good in both color and b&w prints

aaron

[raminolta]

My computer is a PC so that I cannot use that Mac software. While my monitor is calibrated with i1 Display Pro, I don't have a device (like ColorMunki Photo) to create costume paper profiles. I have to say aside from the infamous phenomena of prints being darker than the screen (I have learned to boost the brightness before printing), there are occasionally slight differences in the color prints between what is seen on the monitor and the prints (with some colors being slightly more saturated on the screen than in the print). However, these subtle color differences do not bother me at all.

[David Sutton]

I'm away from my desktop at the moment so can't check this out fully, but when printing in monochrome mode on the ipf 6300 through Lightroom, loading the profile in the LR dialogue box makes a difference.
Have you been to the Canon Wiki (http://canonipf.wikispaces.com/). If you search "monochrome" there is a lot of advice there, including procedures for soft proofing.
David

PS Usually the last half metre of a roll can't be used, so I cut it up into A4 pieces and do my test prints on these pieces to look at rendering intent, brightness, colour shifts etc.

[kurtisj123]

I've had this same question.  I have assumed that the B&W option was to print a color image in B&W, and that when printing a B&W image that the specific profile for the paper you're using should be used.

kurtisj123

[hugowolf]

The most common workflow is to turn off color management in the printer driver’s dialog, and set up your printing app (Photoshop, Lightroom, Qimage, Aperture, etc) to manage color using an ICC profile for your printer, its ink, and your chosen paper.

What monochrome modes, such as Epson’s ABW mode do, is try to neutralize the printers black inks. The black inks are rarely if ever truly neutral. So in these modes a small amount of colored ink is used, probably using an internal profile

What you would be doing in using a profile while in monochrome mode, would be double profiling: The driver using some sort of internal profile and getting your printing app to also apply a profile. In other words both the driver and the printing app managing color at the same time. Generally the results would rarely be good unless you made a custom profile using the monochrome mode.

At least with Epson printers and running under Windows, this is still possible. But under recent versions of the Mac OS the option has disappeared. Eric Chan used to make profiles for his Epson 3880 (and previously an 3800), for specific use with Epson’s ABW mode. But he is a Mac user and no longer does this. Although he still has ABW profiles available for Epson 38800 and 3880 on his site for Windows users.

http://people.csail.mit.edu/ericchan/dp/Epson3800/abwprofiles.html

The problem with monochrome modes, as someone else already mentioned, is you lose the ability to soft proof. You are down to hard proof, reprint, make corrections, repeat.

Brian A

[raminolta]

The most common workflow is to turn off color management in the printer driver’s dialog, and set up your printing app (Photoshop, Lightroom, Qimage, Aperture, etc) to manage color using an ICC profile for your printer, its ink, and your chosen paper.

What monochrome modes, such as Epson’s ABW mode do, is try to neutralize the printers black inks. The black inks are rarely if ever truly neutral. So in these modes a small amount of colored ink is used, probably using an internal profile

What you would be doing in using a profile while in monochrome mode, would be double profiling: The driver using some sort of internal profile and getting your printing app to also apply a profile. In other words both the driver and the printing app managing color at the same time. Generally the results would rarely be good unless you made a custom profile using the monochrome mode.

At least with Epson printers and running under Windows, this is still possible. But under recent versions of the Mac OS the option has disappeared. Eric Chan used to make profiles for his Epson 3880 (and previously an 3800), for specific use with Epson’s ABW mode. But he is a Mac user and no longer does this. Although he still has ABW profiles available for Epson 38800 and 3880 on his site for Windows users.

http://people.csail.mit.edu/ericchan/dp/Epson3800/abwprofiles.html

The problem with monochrome modes, as someone else already mentioned, is you lose the ability to soft proof. You are down to hard proof, reprint, make corrections, repeat.

Brian A

Hello Brian,
  OK, I understand now that it's not that easy to make a neutral b&w print and you suggest that using the printing application instead of the printer driver's dialog generally yields better results. My question: if using the printing application to manage color (in my case Photoshop), how would it know I want a b&w print as neutral as possible? I don't see any option the dialogue Window for this while I can always choose the paper profile corresponding to my paper. Also, even if it knew, does Photoshop have a way to directly control the inks used to make the print in order to make it a neutral b&w print? Kind of hard to believe Photoshop knows every printer model in the market and knows how to come up with a neutral b&w print for each and that it can directly command the printer to do what expected.

[hugowolf]

OK, I understand now that it's not that easy to make a neutral b&w print and you suggest that using the printing application instead of the printer driver's dialog generally yields better results.

No not better, I have had excellent results with Epson's ABW mode. The only problem is it rules out soft proofing, and hard proofing (creating test prints) is an iterative process which costs paper and ink.

My question: if using the printing application to manage color (in my case Photoshop), how would it know I want a b&w print as neutral as possible? I don't see any option the dialogue Window for this while I can always choose the paper profile corresponding to my paper. Also, even if it knew, does Photoshop have a way to directly control the inks used to make the print in order to make it a neutral b&w print? Kind of hard to believe Photoshop knows every printer model in the market and knows how to come up with a neutral b&w print for each and that it can directly command the printer to do what expected.

When using your printing app to manage color, you are relying on a good ICC profile to give you neutral blacks and grays, just as you do with color images for accurate color reproduction. You create a black and white copy using the Black and White adjustment dialog, or whatever you prefer to do your black and white conversion, then you can soft proof it with the correct paper/ink/paper profile and make adjustments based on the soft proof before printing.

Using the printing app doesn’t necessarily give you better results, it gives you a consistent color management workflow.

Brian A

[Doug Gray]

The most common workflow is to turn off color management in the printer driver’s dialog, and set up your printing app (Photoshop, Lightroom, Qimage, Aperture, etc) to manage color using an ICC profile for your printer, its ink, and your chosen paper.

What monochrome modes, such as Epson’s ABW mode do, is try to neutralize the printers black inks. The black inks are rarely if ever truly neutral. So in these modes a small amount of colored ink is used, probably using an internal profile

What you would be doing in using a profile while in monochrome mode, would be double profiling: The driver using some sort of internal profile and getting your printing app to also apply a profile. In other words both the driver and the printing app managing color at the same time. Generally the results would rarely be good unless you made a custom profile using the monochrome mode.

At least with Epson printers and running under Windows, this is still possible. But under recent versions of the Mac OS the option has disappeared. Eric Chan used to make profiles for his Epson 3880 (and previously an 3800), for specific use with Epson’s ABW mode. But he is a Mac user and no longer does this. Although he still has ABW profiles available for Epson 38800 and 3880 on his site for Windows users.

http://people.csail.mit.edu/ericchan/dp/Epson3800/abwprofiles.html

The problem with monochrome modes, as someone else already mentioned, is you lose the ability to soft proof. You are down to hard proof, reprint, make corrections, repeat.

Brian A

This is an old thread but I found a solution for Windows to using B&W profiles for both soft proofing and printing. See my post in color management for a link to the program ABWProfileMaker.

I discovered a way to get B&W profiles installed and usable in Photoshop for printers other than Epson's. The problem is that when you select black and white on, say, a Canon printer and select Photoshop manages colors, only Canon OEM profiles show up. So if you make B&W ICC profiles how do you then use them without a messy workaround?

Turns out it's easy. And actually it makes accessing regular color profiles easier. Open the "Color Management" control panel. Select your printer and add the profile previously installed in the Windows directory "C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\color"  Now it will show up in the list of profiles near the top. Works well to keep regular, color, custom profiles near the top too. Since Photoshop bypasses Windows color management this doesn't affect Photoshop or Lightroom printing. It just makes profiles visible so you can select them

[raminolta]

Thanks. I will check that out later. Right now, I am waiting to receive new cartridges and I probably need to replace the print head on my printer.