Black and White Printing Pixma Pro9000 MKII

[victor]

I am trying to print B/W images on my Pixma Pro9000 MKII.

*****My prints are mono when I print. I convert using plugins Topaz, Nik. Nik as the main plugin****

At present I am using Lightroom to print from and enabling grey scale on the print driver. Sometime I get a perfect print or one with a slight green colour cast when viewed on a black mount

Should I be using Photoshop to convert to Grey Scale thus removing all colour details saving back into LR5 and then printing ?

Your assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks


David

[DanK]

I have only printed a few B&W with my 9000II, but it seemed to work fine.

I'm not sure I entirely understand what you did, but if you relied on a print driver to make the conversion, I definitely would not do that. The first step is to convert it to gray scale in LR or PS. Then make whatever additional changes are needed, e.g., to tonal range and contrast, and perhaps adjusting individual color channels. LR makes this all very easy. Once that is done, I have printed using the regular ICC profile for the paper I used. While it seemed to work fine, I am not sure the last part is optimal and would be interested in what others suggest.

[Manfred M]

In your setup, rather than letting Photoshop manage the colours, let your printer manage the colours (for B&W prints only). I had the same issue with my Epson printer and this solved the problem.

[rpcrowe]

I convert to B&W using NIK Silver Efex Pro and then when I want to print on my Pixma Pro-9000 Mark-II, I select FILE in Photoshop CS6 >Automate >Canon Easy Print Pro. Then I do the final tweaking using the easy Print Pro Software. It works pretty darn well...

[royphot]

HI, I've just joined the Forum, and very recently started printing Mono with my Pro9000 Mk2. None of the prints showed any kind of colour cast (other than variations in warmth) while printing with the "greyscale" box in the printer driver ticked. The only time I got a green tint in the blacks was when printing a mostly mono image which contained a coloured section. It had to be printed as a colour image using my custom paper profile. The green tint was easily removed by adjusting the profile, adding some Magenta to it. That profile still gives very true colours on full colour prints.
I was using Canon inks onto Pinnacle Gloss paper, with the Printer Media set to Photo Paper Plus Glossy II.
You didn't mention which Inks and paper you were using.

Before making a print, I did a few test prints, on a variety of papers, and it didn't seem to matter whether the image mode was left as RGB or Greyscale in Photoshop, provided that the "Greyscale" box on the driver was ticked, the print came out as B & W. It also didn't seem to matter whether The Printer or Photoshop managed the printing. Except that the "Colour/Intensity" on the driver had to be set to minus 10 in order to get the correct density when the Printer was in charge.
I do hope this is some help, because as yet I am not all that experienced with Mono printing or using this Printer. Its not so long since my Epson 1290 died.

[Macmahon]

I am trying to print B/W images on my Pixma Pro9000 MKII.

*****My prints are mono when I print. I convert using plugins Topaz, Nik. Nik as the main plugin****

At present I am using Lightroom to print from and enabling grey scale on the print driver. Sometime I get a perfect print or one with a slight green colour cast when viewed on a black mount

Should I be using Photoshop to convert to Grey Scale thus removing all colour details saving back into LR5 and then printing ?

Your assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks


David

David
It's a while since I printed B&W on the Canon. I do know I got decent, cast-free prints. From memory, I think you are better to let Lightroom manage 'colour' by converting to the RGB profile appropriate for the file, than by using grayscale in the driver, just as Dan suggests. I seem to recall that the Canon gave better B&W by colour ink mixing than from the single black ink.
If you use Nik Silver Efex, and /or LR's B&W mode (arguably best done through the Color/HSL/B&W panel) you can use the soft proofing to see whether any cast is going to be evident.
Good luck
Tim

[victor]

Hi All,

Many thanks for all your responses. I now have a lot of sound advice to try over the next few days. Canon Easy Print has now been downloaded and installed and looks like a better tool than the Brightness and Contrast Controls in the LR5 Print Module, at least you see the result before you print. Will experiment with all suggestions and find a way forward. I use Nik to convert to B/W and take it from there in LR5 or Photoshop CS6.

I am using Canon Inks and Ilford Galleria Smooth Gloss Papers with the Ilford Profile. Looking at using my colour Monkie to get my own profile some time next week.

Here goes….

and thanks again

Regards

David

[DanK]

The latest issue of Tim Grey's free e-mail newsletter has an interesting discussion of this problem in B&W printing. He recommends not using the B&W profile. I was surprised that he recommends using the printer software rather than postprocessing software to control the printer when doing B&W because some printer software includes sophisticated options for B&W. News to me. In the past, I never even looked at my printer software. Now I will explore it for B&W.

BTW, the newsletter is Grey's answers to questions people send in. Therefore, the topics vary all over the map, and some are quite basic. However, many of them address issues I find helpful, like this one. You can check it out at www.timgrey.com.

[hedystafford]

Hi I'm a new member. I realise it's been a while since this post was last active, but I came across it while trying to find out if anyone else was experiencing a green cast on the Canon Pro9000 Mark 2 printer. Bright, colourful prints on this printer are wonderful. However whenever I print something very dark (in colour) or in black and white, while initially the print is perfect, within a few days it steadily gets greener and greener. This happens on all pearl and semi-gloss papers I've tried, including Canon and Harman. It makes no difference which settings I use, and whether prints are stored in the dark or not. I am using genuine Canon inks. Any ideas would be most welcome. Thanks.

I am trying to print B/W images on my Pixma Pro9000 MKII.

*****My prints are mono when I print. I convert using plugins Topaz, Nik. Nik as the main plugin****

At present I am using Lightroom to print from and enabling grey scale on the print driver. Sometime I get a perfect print or one with a slight green colour cast when viewed on a black mount

Should I be using Photoshop to convert to Grey Scale thus removing all colour details saving back into LR5 and then printing ?

Your assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks


David

[Manfred M]

Hi - and welcome to CiC.

I've had a similar problem with Epson printers and found that my settings were the issue. I normally print from Photoshop and when I let Photshop control the colours (ususually the right way to do things for colour prints), there is a slight green tinge. If I let the printer control the colours, then the problem goes away.

[Shadowman]

Hi - and welcome to CiC.

I've had a similar problem with Epson printers and found that my settings were the issue. I normally print from Photoshop and when I let Photshop control the colours (ususually the right way to do things for colour prints), there is a slight green tinge. If I let the printer control the colours, then the problem goes away.

Isn't there a different black ink for grayscale images than is used for color?

[royphot]

Hi John and Hedystafford (a real first name would help).

The Pro 9000 MkII only has 1 Black available.

I did also get green casts while experimenting with my Pro 9000 MkII. They only happened when printing Monos using my normal Printer Profile and not having the greyscale box ticked in the printer driver. Setting the Photoshop file mode to greyscale made no difference.

The problem with having to set the printer driver to Greyscale is that it is impossible to produce a neutral Mono tone within a print which has a Spot Colour. My only way round that was to put the paper through the printer twice. Once for the spot colour layer, printing as a colour image, and once for the mono layer with the printer set to Greyscale.

Since then I have gone to using Lyson Inks and have had to make new Profiles. I have made 2 Profiles for each paper, xxxColour & xxxMono. I made two so that, if needed, I could adjust them individually.

Using the mono profile (as it was made & without greyscale in the printer) I got a very slight magenta cast in a few tones. They can just be seen when printing a step wedge at the 70%,75% & 80% density steps. The printer profile could probably be tweaked to get rid of this, but so far I haven't bothered, because they don't really show up in real prints.

Setting the Printer to greyscale still gives beautiful neutral mono prints, but it does print much slower than when set for colour.
As I said earlier having the image set for RGB or Greyscale in Ps makes no difference whatsoever.

Roy

[Shadowman]

Hi John and Hedystafford (a real first name would help).

The Pro 9000 MkII only has 1 Black available.

I did also get green casts while experimenting with my Pro 9000 MkII. They only happened when printing Monos using my normal Printer Profile and not having the greyscale box ticked in the printer driver. Setting the Photoshop file mode to greyscale made no difference.

The problem with having to set the printer driver to Greyscale is that it is impossible to produce a neutral Mono tone within a print which has a Spot Colour. My only way round that was to put the paper through the printer twice. Once for the spot colour layer, printing as a colour image, and once for the mono layer with the printer set to Greyscale.

Since then I have gone to using Lyson Inks and have had to make new Profiles. I have made 2 Profiles for each paper, xxxColour & xxxMono. I made two so that, if needed, I could adjust them individually.

Using the mono profile (as it was made & without greyscale in the printer) I got a very slight magenta cast in a few tones. They can just be seen when printing a step wedge at the 70%,75% & 80% density steps. The printer profile could probably be tweaked to get rid of this, but so far I haven't bothered, because they don't really show up in real prints.

Setting the Printer to greyscale still gives beautiful neutral mono prints, but it does print much slower than when set for colour.
As I said earlier having the image set for RGB or Greyscale in Ps makes no difference whatsoever.

Roy

Roy,

Very interesting, I had an older model hp printer (tricolor and photo inks or tricolor and black) and I get the opposite effect when printing monochrome images. If I convert the image to B & W and print without selecting greyscale, then I get the green cast, if I select greyscale and I have a black cartridge alongside a tri-color cartridge then I get a deep black print with very little gray tones; of course it all depends on the variety of grays within the image.

I purchased a refurbished hp that uses three cartridges (tricolor, photo ink, and can switch between black and photogrey inks), I printed a free monochromes with the tricolor, photo ink, black cartridges inserted, output set to greyscale and no color cast at all. Only printed on Matte and glossy so far, I have some luster paper that I will have to try out.

[royphot]

within a few days it steadily gets greener and greener. This happens on all pearl and semi-gloss papers I've tried, including Canon and Harman.

Hi,

The colour changes over time are caused by the ink drying, not fading. Some papers can take up to a week for the ink to dry completely. I discovered this the hard way, some considerable time ago, when using a Spyder to make Printer Profiles. The first set I made were useless, and when I remade them a week later, after having to wait till I could borrow the Spyder again, they were perfect.

If you are getting incorrect colours in your prints, there is possibly something wrong in your Colour Management Workflow.

Roy

[royphot]

Hi John.

That is very interesting. I always assumed that because the R,G & B numbers were identical (in a grey RGB image) that the printer would produce neutral Grey, but maybe each inkset gives a different colour for those identical numbers.

The earlier suggestion that hedystafford should convert the image to Greyscale in the editing program might actually solve the problem.

Roy

[hedystafford]

Hi All, Thanks for the numerous excellent suggestions. I've enjoyed the Cambridge in Colour site for a while - wish I'd joined the Forum sooner! Re Manfred's message - I'm afraid this hasn't worked for me. I use Lightroom (Mac) rather than Photoshop for output (although I do have Photoshop) and have tried using paper profiles, and also letting the printer manage it (in Lightroom), but still the green cast when I use a lot of black whether in full colour or black and white.
Roy - this is really interesting and I will certainly try setting the printer to greyscale for the mono prints I am currently having difficulty with. In terms of colour profiles I use an X-rite calibrator. I'm sure you're right that there is a problem in my workflow. I will read the Cambridge tutorial again and see what I have missed...

[hedystafford]

Forgot - a question for Roy. You wrote earlier in respect of paper profiles:-
"The green tint was easily removed by adjusting the profile, adding some Magenta to it. That profile still gives very true colours on full colour prints."
Could you tell me where you made this alteration please? Thanks.

[royphot]

Hi Jennifer (its much nicer replying to a real person).

I use the Datacolor Spyder Print to make my paper Profiles.
Once the colour patches have been measured with the Spyder, the program saves those results, as a "measurement" file, and then makes the profile.
Before saving that profile there is an opportunity to apply adjustments (colour, contrast, intensity, etc) to it.
After the profile has been created and tested, it is possible to go back into the program and make a new profile from the "measurement" data, and then apply adjustments, and either save it as a different version or overwrite the original.

This is why I much prefer the Spyder system because the profiles can be tweaked to get rid of any slight colour casts.

I understand that with the Printer managing Colour, the Greyscale box in the Driver ticked, and all the colour adjustment sliders zeroed, the printer will only be using Black Ink to make the print, (which is why it prints so slowly). That should then give a neutral black.

I do hope this helps.

Roy

[Macmahon]

Hi Jennifer

That the green comes out after time is indeed due to the dye ink drying. It takes a long time!

That it then goes green is almost certainly a printer profile problem. (Although it would be odd if the problem is identical with both Canon and Harman papers unless the profiles were made by the same person using the same instrument.)

In the days when I ran a Canon Pro9000 I had the same problem (except my cast was magenta instead of green) and making new profiles using my Datacolor Spyder gear made it worse! - even though I left the target prints for days before measuring.

My problems were fixed only when I changed to a new instrument to make my profiles (an X-Rite Colormunki Photo, FWIW).
This is not to suggest that Datacolor gear is better or worse than X-Rite gear in general, only that individual instruments can be "out of whack", and when they are, the profiles they make do not work properly.

My suggestion would be that you identify a person/firm in the UK who can make good profiles for you (unless you want to get your own gear - it's not inexpensive) and see whether that would help. Contact Keith Cooper on www.northlight-images.co.uk He doesn't offer a profiling service as far as I know, but he is a guru in this area and may be able to direct you to a good operator.

Cheers

Tim

[hedystafford]

Thanks again for really useful replies. I will definitely get some custom profiles made, as at the moment it really doesn't matter which paper I use, or whether I use "Managed by Printer" or the supplier's paper profiles, I'm getting the same problem. Just about to do some mono prints using greyscale - will let you know in a few days if it worked.....