canon printer

**GEORDIE** · 3rd April 2013, 02:22 AM

I have a canon printer which has five separate inks two of which are black, different codes for the two.
Why two blacks? I am bamboozled as to the reason for this someone please explain.
Cheers Colin.

**Manfred M** · 3rd April 2013, 02:56 AM

It is hard to know for sure without knowing which printer it is. Your manual should tell you why.

My Epson printer has nine cartridges; four of which are labelled black; although frankly most people would refer to two of them as gray (one is labelled "light black" and the other is labelled "light light black"). The other two really are black cartridges; one is for use on photo paper and the other is for use on regular paper. I suspect that Canon may have done something similar to Epson, but can't guess which one it is...

**Adrian** · 3rd April 2013, 07:18 AM

I suspect you have one large (wide) black and one narrow black that is the same size as the other colours. I believe the former is used by the printer for text documents and the latter where colour blends are needed. This is typical of the Pixma 5200 series for example.

**davidedric** · 3rd April 2013, 08:28 AM

Yes, if it is a Pixma, for example, the inks in the two tanks are quite different. The smaller one works with the other colours to give the best photo quality and longevity, anti-fade for example. Of course, you get more pages per £ or $ from the big one.

**DanK** · 3rd April 2013, 12:26 PM

If it is a pixma multifunction, or something in that range, I think the narrow one is a dye-based ink and the wide one is a pigment-based ink. AFAIK, their primary uses are as Adrian and Dave suggested. If you look at the dedicated dye-based printer of the last generation, the Pixma Pro 9000II, you will see that it does not have the wide one.