Problem printing B&W with ipf8400

[Dward]

I'm in the midst of a time-sensitive project, printing 25 20x30 images, which I converted from color to B&W using Nik, On1, and Topaz, attempting to get truly neutral prints.  However, no matter which conversion technique I use, and no matter whether or not  I convert the RGB image to Grayscale, have Photoshop manage colors or printer manage colors, turn ColorMatch on or off--whatever settings I use, I get a VERY warm, almost sepia print.    Any suggestions are urgently welcome!  Thanks in advance.

David V. Ward

[deanwork]

I’ve been using this printer for many years and I have never been able to create a successful neutral print on any media using the canon driver and their photoshop plug-in. Unlike the HPz series you cant just use the gray and black inks and linearize that . There is also a lot of metameric color shift going on under various light sources.

However, Canon allowed Bowhaus to use their codes and create a really good precise easily adjustable solution. You can make presets and custom curves right in their software for any media and save them.

The deal is you can waste a huge amount of time and materials trying to make clean bw prints on this printer or layout a couple of hundred bucks for an excellent solution. Eliminating the color inks if you want also makes the prints more permanent, though you can easily tone them with the channel sliders and micro adjustments if you want.

The good news is you can download this software for free and choose one of their curves that comes the closest to your media and see for yourself. It will have a watermark though.

http://www.trueblackandwhite.com/

John

I'm in the midst of a time-sensitive project, printing 25 20x30 images, which I converted from color to B&W using Nik, On1, and Topaz, attempting to get truly neutral prints.  However, no matter which conversion technique I use, and no matter whether or not  I convert the RGB image to Grayscale, have Photoshop manage colors or printer manage colors, turn ColorMatch on or off--whatever settings I use, I get a VERY warm, almost sepia print.    Any suggestions are urgently welcome!  Thanks in advance.

David V. Ward

[David Sutton]

You've probably done this, but I take it you tried setting the colour mode to "monochrome" in the printer preferences?
Monochrome still uses some colour inks but not enough usually to affect the output on the papers I've used.
I usually change the paper type to alter the warmth or coolness of the print, but it has never been an extreme change.

[Dward]

Thank you, David.   I hadn't thought of that! 

[Dward]

Thanks John,

I've been aware of Bauhaus for some years but never tried it.  I think you have a good suggestion--I'll buy a copy and presumably that will make my B&W business easier.  Boy do I miss my HP z3100 for black and white!   

In the meantime, I'll try David's suggestion to change printer preferences to "monochrome".

Again, thanks to you both for your thoughtful suggestions.

David V. Ward, Ph. D.

[David Sutton]

Hello again David.
If I'm printing a greycale file in colour mode, it's not unusual on my 6300 to get a little colour contamination, particularly in the shadows. I would then need to apply a correcting curve to the file and reprint. It needs a trained eye to spot it though.
I've only seen the sort of issue you are having when there's been a failure in the print pipeline. The print software, the profile, or the printer itself. Any can fail or be corrupted.
If you want to check that out, I'd try printing out of Lightroom in colour mode, instead of Photoshop, with your profile selected, then with the profile turned off (printer manages colour). That may determine whether it's Photoshop and the print software you've been using. Then print with the printer set to monochrome to see if the printer is acting up.
I always set the printer to monochrome now for B&W images. Using the QTR colour space I get a near perfect screen to print match without the need to softproof. I print off  QTR's 21-step grey wedges and measure them with a Datacolour Spyder and drop the results into the QTR-Create-ICC droplet to linearise and to create a print profile. The prints are neutral (depending on the substrate of course) and I'm very happy with the result.
David

[aaronchan]

I'm in the midst of a time-sensitive project, printing 25 20x30 images, which I converted from color to B&W using Nik, On1, and Topaz, attempting to get truly neutral prints.  However, no matter which conversion technique I use, and no matter whether or not  I convert the RGB image to Grayscale, have Photoshop manage colors or printer manage colors, turn ColorMatch on or off--whatever settings I use, I get a VERY warm, almost sepia print.    Any suggestions are urgently welcome!  Thanks in advance.

David V. Ward

When you are using Photoshop Manages Color, I'm wondering did you use a proper ICC profile to print.

aaron