Do I need to calibration my monitor differently for black & white images?

[KHR]

I’m a new owner of a Canon Pro 1000 and wanted to print a black and white image but it comes out very dark. Much darker than the monitors display. I have been using a calibrated monitor and my colour images match my display pretty close. To give some info of what I’m using. I’m printing on Red River Polar Matte paper and using their provided ICC profile. I have an Eizo monitor with built in calibrator. Edit with Capture One 21 and Photoshop and export a 16 bit Tiff file to and print from Qimage.
I haven’t really printer much black and white and I’m not sure if there are specific monitor calibration settings that is used for B&W?
As I said, I’m a new user of this printer and a little confused on do I select paper typed and size on the printers LCD or in the printer driver?

[Manfred M]

In general, if your prints come out too dark, then your computer screen is too bright. Recommended settings for the screen tend to be in the 80 - 120 cd/ sq m range. Mine is at 80 cd/ sq m. This is an option that you have to set when you calibrate and profile your screen. Your print should be evaluated either under the light you will be displaying it under or the default of 150 lux falling on the print.

I always print from Photoshop, so cannot comment on Qimage. Why are you using that software? When I print with Photoshop there are two settings that can be used; let Photoshop control the colour or let the printer mange colour. For colour work, the recommendation is to let the software control the colour and for B&W, the printer should manage colour.

I would suggest that you should never set the paper parameters on the printer screen for third party papers. I don't use Canon printers, so don't know the specifics on how to set them up, but I suspect there are two parts; managing the print software and managing the printer driver; confusing, yes, but that is how this works.

[DanK]

No, you don't need to calibrate it differently.

I use a Prograf 1000, and I've printed on that specific paper. I haven't used QImage. I print from Lightroom or Photoshop under Windows. If you use a Mac, what you do should be the same, but how you do it may be a little different.

Manfred prints with Epsons, but his advice holds for Canons as well: for color, the software should control color. For B&W, the printer should control color. In addition to setting that in the software, you need to set it in the printer's firmware, which is accessed via the Properties button on the Print dialog box. For B&W, set Black and White photo on the quick setup tab. For color printing, go to the Main tab, set Color/intensity to manual, hit Set, then go to the Matching tab and select "none".

Re lighting: I agree with Manfred that the problem is very likely that your monitor is too bright. However, it's a bit more complicated: for any given brightness, the image will appear brigher as the ambient light drops. For that reason, I generally do critical editing in the evening, when I can control both ambient light and the monitor. I generally edit at 100 or 110 cd/m^2.

I use a NEC, not an Eizo, but I don't know what you mean by a built in calibrator. All of the monitors I have used have been calibrated with an external sensor placed on the monitor. The software for the x-Rite sensors I have used includes an option for screen brightness. However, your monitor controls may be sufficient--the monitor may display brightness in cd/m^2 as you adjust it using the manual controls.

[DanK]

Sorry, I forgot one part of your question. I normally ignore the printer LCD. At least when printing from the rear feed, which I almost always do, that setting seems not to matter. You need to set the paper size both in the printing software and in the firmware. The latter is on the Quick Setup tab mentioned in my first post. You need to set the paper size, the print quality, which feeder you are using, and the media type on that tab.

I don't recall what media type is needed for that particular paper, but Red River posts this information for all of its printers. This can be important not only because of paper weight, but also because the amount of ink layed down sometimes depends on the media selected.

[KHR]

Thanks for your response. I have my monitor set to 90. I’m thinking it not calibration or too bright screen because my colour images come out correctly. I haven’t tried printing from photoshop yet. I’ll give that a try. I’ve been trying Qimage because I like the fact that one all parameters are set for the print and you like the results you can save it as a job and can go back a year from now and just select that job to get that exact print again. Just started using this program a couple weeks ago.

[KHR]

No, you don't need to calibrate it differently.

I use a Prograf 1000, and I've printed on that specific paper. I haven't used QImage. I print from Lightroom or Photoshop under Windows. If you use a Mac, what you do should be the same, but how you do it may be a little different.

Manfred prints with Epsons, but his advice holds for Canons as well: for color, the software should control color. For B&W, the printer should control color. In addition to setting that in the software, you need to set it in the printer's firmware, which is accessed via the Properties button on the Print dialog box. For B&W, set Black and White photo on the quick setup tab. For color printing, go to the Main tab, set Color/intensity to manual, hit Set, then go to the Matching tab and select "none".

Re lighting: I agree with Manfred that the problem is very likely that your monitor is too bright. However, it's a bit more complicated: for any given brightness, the image will appear brigher as the ambient light drops. For that reason, I generally do critical editing in the evening, when I can control both ambient light and the monitor. I generally edit at 100 or 110 cd/m^2.

I use a NEC, not an Eizo, but I don't know what you mean by a built in calibrator. All of the monitors I have used have been calibrated with an external sensor placed on the monitor. The software for the x-Rite sensors I have used includes an option for screen brightness. However, your monitor controls may be sufficient--the monitor may display brightness in cd/m^2 as you adjust it using the manual controls.

I appreciate the help. I will take and try your suggestions on the settings and the printer settings. As for the built in calibrated. Some Eizo monitors such as mine (CG model) there’s no need for an external calibrater. It’s built in and you can set it up to auto calibrate to your settings at any interval your want. I set mine to ever two weeks.

[KHR]

Sorry, I forgot one part of your question. I normally ignore the printer LCD. At least when printing from the rear feed, which I almost always do, that setting seems not to matter. You need to set the paper size both in the printing software and in the firmware. The latter is on the Quick Setup tab mentioned in my first post. You need to set the paper size, the print quality, which feeder you are using, and the media type on that tab.

I don't recall what media type is needed for that particular paper, but Red River posts this information for all of its printers. This can be important not only because of paper weight, but also because the amount of ink layed down sometimes depends on the media selected.

Thank you. I kinda put myself into a big learning curve by switching from LR to Capture One, Nikon to Sony and Epson to Canon all with a few months. But I absolutely love the coloured prints coming from the Pro 1000. I’m sure there will be more posts in the future when more confusion comes up.

[Manfred M]

Thanks for your response. I have my monitor set to 90. I’m thinking it not calibration or too bright screen because my colour images come out correctly.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you saying your prints are coming out fine on other papers, but the Red River paper you are using is where this is occurring?

[KHR]

I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you saying your prints are coming out fine on other papers, but the Red River paper you are using is where this is occurring?

I have used some Canon papers for about the first 10 to 15 images to see what I could expect from the printer than switching to my Red River paper (glossy and pro satin) and was getting great print from them too. But it’s when I switched to a Matte paper (B&W image) everything started coming out really dark.

[DanK]

Hmm. Are you sure you have the media type set correctly? Also, have you tried a color print with that paper? That might help narrow down the problem.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[DanK]

Also, with Canon printers, the media type tells the printer which of the two black inks to use.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[KHR]

Also, with Canon printers, the media type tells the printer which of the two black inks to use.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I didn’t know that! That’s interesting. On the Epson if I selected a matte paper it would automatically clear the line out of the photo black to fill it with Matte. I didn’t have a choice. Such a waste of ink which is on reason I did print much B&W images on matte paper.

An add on question to this which maybe should be on a different thread, what’s the difference between the two? Is one darker than the other?

[Manfred M]

I have used some Canon papers for about the first 10 to 15 images to see what I could expect from the printer than switching to my Red River paper (glossy and pro satin) and was getting great print from them too. But it’s when I switched to a Matte paper (B&W image) everything started coming out really dark.

That suggests a settings issue: The Red River paper will come with both an ICC profile and information as to which paper settings that have been installed in the printer to use with the paper. The ICC profile is necessary for colour printing and ensures the colours that are sent to the printer are appropriate for the paper. The paper instructions allow the printer driver to control proper ink deposit, drying rate, paper thickness, etc.

If these parameters (a two step operation) have not been set properly, the print won't come out right. As Dan has mentioned, there are two black inks used in many photo printers, one for glossy or luster papers and another for matte papers. These inks have been formulated for the different paper surfaces and the paper you select for the printer driver determines which ink is used.

[Manfred M]

I didn’t know that! That’s interesting. On the Epson if I selected a matte paper it would automatically clear the line out of the photo black to fill it with Matte. I didn’t have a choice. Such a waste of ink which is on reason I did print much B&W images on matte paper.

An add on question to this which maybe should be on a different thread, what’s the difference between the two? Is one darker than the other?

The Canon and newer Epson printers have separate lines and print heads for photo and matte black, so no ink switching occurs. My P800 is the last of the Epson desktop printers that need to switch blacks. The current models, P700 and P900, have the new print head design that does not require this.

[KHR]

That suggests a settings issue: The Red River paper will come with both an ICC profile and information as to which paper settings that have been installed in the printer to use with the paper. The ICC profile is necessary for colour printing and ensures the colours that are sent to the printer are appropriate for the paper. The paper instructions allow the printer driver to control proper ink deposit, drying rate, paper thickness, etc.

If these parameters (a two step operation) have not been set properly, the print won't come out right. As Dan has mentioned, there are two black inks used in many photo printers, one for glossy or luster papers and another for matte papers. These inks have been formulated for the different paper surfaces and the paper you select for the printer driver determines which ink is used.

I will take a look at all my settings again tomorrow night and try to determine using all of the suggestions here to see if I can figure it out. So I’ll be putting ink on paper tomorrow. Thanks again