Good Printer for Colour and Black & White

[Paul Lange]

I currently use a cheap and cherful HPc5280 that is actually capable of stunning colour prints. However Black & White is another story. First I thought it was the colour profiles as some older shots were taken with the camera set to sRGB and were then converted to AdobeRGB. I had similar colour issues and this turned out to be the root of the problem. However in this case I think the printer is just hopeless as Black & White. I get streaking across the page which usually indicates print head misalignment. Also I get redish colour bands even though I set the printer to Grey Scale Printing. If I look at the print closely I can make out tiny coloured dots which indicate to me that for some reason the printer is still using the colour cartridge.

My newly created workflow is:

Check the colour profile of the .NEF file.
Set PS to the same profile.
Open the photo in Camera Raw as a 16 bit image.
Make as many adjustments as I can in Camera Raw before opening in PS.
Use either a Gradient Map Adjustment Layer or Paste a copy of a Channel as a Layer.
Make other adjustments as needed for the effect required.
Save the image as a PS file.
Print the photo in Grey Scale using the Printers Colour Management set to the correct profile.

As far as I can see I'm doing everything correct but I have even tried other things like using PS Colour Management, printing with the Printers Colour Seting on but still no luck. I come to the conclusion the printer is just useless for Black & White.

Any ideas?

Failing that anyone got a recommendation for a decent printer capable of good Colour and Black & White prints?

 

[Hamish Gill]

Not a clue...
I have an Epson 2400, it has 3 black carts and different ones for gloss or matt ... It's very good... When I use it...
What's the budgie?

 

[Mark Grant]

..
What's the budgie?

I guess you are on an iphone with spell correct

 

[Paul Lange]

Ah Ha! I've discovered whats going on. Partially please, partially ****** about it. The printer has a CMY colour cartridge and a K cartridge as standard with the option of replacing the K cartridge with a light C, M & K cartridge for "High quality stunning photo printing". Well that is true, I put the optional photo cartridge in and printed a pic which came out perfect. Really, really good and printed only using the black ink.

The problem is the photo cartridge only holds 5ml of black ink and if you print a lot of BW prints you will exhaust the black ink but still have the other 2 colours nearly full. My cunning plan was to buy a high capaicty black cartridge and use that for BW printing. Not possible it seems! When you put a standard black cartridge in it will not print just using the black cartridge and instead mixes in other colours badly!!

So this leaves me with the option of seeing i fI can get a high quality non genuine cart to use for BW printing. Really ****** me off when manufacturers pull this crap. I have never liked HP but the high quality pics from the printer was turning me around but not anymore!

 

[Chris Dodkin]

Paul - I gave up on home printing a while back, due to the cost of the damn ink, and the issues with keeping the print quality up.

I now use a Noritsu machine at my local CostCo, which produces better prints than I could ever have done at home, and for only a few quid - way cheaper than running the old Epson I had.

All colour profiled and everything - and the prints are on proper Fuji Crystal paper, so no fading or colour shifting over time.

Might be worth investigating local print options close to you.

Here's a UK list:

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/icc/Profiles/UK_profiles.htm#UK

 

[Laurie Parker]

I use a Canon printer for some printing depending on what I want done, but instead of ink cartridges I changed to a CISS ink system last year and its fantastic no more expensive cartridges to buy just a continual ink supply through feeder tubes, also use DSColour labs for other prints as I find their prints very good quality especially on the fuji lustre paper