How bad are inkjet printers for black and white? How to get the best B&W prints
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- Опубліковано 23 тра 2024
- Most printers are much worse at black and white printing than colour. Why is this? What can be done to get the best B&W printing. Will profiling help, can you get good B&W inkjet prints?
Looking at software, drivers and inks - can we expect improvements in software and new printers.
An introduction to 'digital B&W'
www.northlight-images.co.uk/d...
The B&W test images and info on using them are at:
www.northlight-images.co.uk/t...
All of my B&W related content (video and articles/reviews) is listed at:
www.northlight-images.co.uk/d...
QuadToneRIP info
www.quadtonerip.com/html/QTRov...
Full B&W - specialist inks
shop.inkjetmall.com/Piezography
For a full categorised index of all my videos, see:
www.northlight-images.co.uk/k...
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I’m a boutique print studio running Piezography® Pro 11-inkset in Epson SP-9900 since March 2021 when I brought it over for my BA Photography (Hons) final major project. I decided to convert my 9900 to piezography because I couldn’t find anyone else offering it in the UK and I had already invested in the P9500, so was willing to take the risk after doing my research. Having made the conversion and exceptional prints for my project, I made Piezography® Pro available to other artists and photographers who wanted superior monochrome prints. The archivability, detail, neutrality and flexibility is outstanding. Jon Cone nailed it with Piezography. Appreciate your work Keith!
Thanks - really pleased to see you can make a go of it.
I toyed with this but cannot afford to do such stuff just for a few YT videos and some articles.
@lucidimaginguk What piezography inks brands would recommand?
Nearly a week back I went to a print shop to get a few black and white photographs printed and framed to hang it on the wall. All the black and white photographs had green tinge in varying amount, so I asked to print it in black and white mode and that print still came out with a green tinge but was slightly less in intensity when compared to the print that was done in colour mode. I felt bad as it was the first time I went to get a few black and white photographs printed. After I came back home and hung those framed photographs on the wall, the green tinge couldn't be seen at all unless I looked at the photograph in particular angle and it was seen to a very slight degree. I was happy to see the neutral black and white photographs that I wished for. Thank you for this video.
Glad it was of interest!
Need to go back to the old days.... Durst Modular 70 Multi-grade! Heaven!!!
No thank you - I do still have my developing trays though
I always enjoy the technical aspects of your videos, especially learning new technical terms found at 8:49!
Thanks - yes, the software could do with improvement ;-) :-)
Thanks again, Keith - also for former reply on my quiz on failing to calibrate my BenQ SW272U - everything now works. And also had time to refine my workflow on printing , setting up the correct "media settings" / associated with paper ICC Profiles . MY results are now more to my eyes taste - and a pleasing learning journey ( being postoperative after back surgery some weeks ago) As surgeon myself I find myself learning new aspects on both editing and printing almost "every day" . Thank you so much, Sir ! I live in Norway, and my setup ( shooting: Leica M10P / M9Monochrome ) ; MacMini (2023) / Lightroom CC / Photoshop / SileverEfex and subsequently printing ( either thru ICC og ABW mode ) with EPL on the P900. Cheers !
Thanks! - glad to have been of some help!
An excellent explanation. Thank you so much.
Glad it was of interest
You always an inspration Keith. Thanks for the tip of covering to grayscale before printing.
Thanks - glad it was of interest!
Very good information! Thank you.
Glad it was helpful!
Good information! Thank you.
Thanks!
Very interesting video. Thank you. I recently printed a black and white portrait photo and wondered why it had such a pink/purple look to it. I will experiment with different paper ps as per your suggestion.
Hope it helps...
Amazing how powerful our brains are, when you consider that we actually see in B&W and our brains change it to colour, I watched a programme on it and others where the mind takes over. So I suspect that like other things, we love black & white well I love it and again like everything, we sometimes look to close or in some cases not enough, we even accept a majority opinion and I personally feel that if you are happy, then it’s fine, when you see some of the manipulations of photography today, it’s down to the individual. Very interesting points though.
Thanks!
Thank you for a great video.
Glad you liked it!
Off topic but in the 1950s Superman TV series with George Reeves, Supermans cape is meant to be red but in the B&W movie, the cape was coloured brown which made it stand out better than a red cape.
Thanks - This is effectively why I still shoot in colour for B&W shots and then fine-tune the conversion to B&W
One of the reasons I export from PhotoLab to Silver Efex Pro for B&W conversion is the ability to apply any wavelength filter at any intensity in order to more precisely control tonality. Much easier to do digitally in post than it was with film where you had to commit to a specific filter when making the exposure.
I use an IOne Studio to not only calibrate my monitor, but to set brightness. Then I used it to create custom profiles, not only for color, but black and white profiles. It turned my printing from hours of cursing, swearing, frustration, wasted paper and ink to one step... hit print.
That's good if the B&W profiles work for you - there is an element of luck in that though. Good approach though
@@KeithCooper I have custom profiles for 2 printers with 3 different printer plus profiles for b&w for 2 papers . My prints MATCH my monitor for every custom profile. Too many working to be luck. I now print with confidence. Might do an 8.5x11 test print with 2 5x8 test prints on really large prints, primarily to check sharpening on a cropped portion of the image. Just fill the page with another to double check color/brightness.
@@mrca2004 Good that it works - I however have been involved in testing the devices and software all the way back to the original ColorMunki,, on a wide range of printers and papers. I firmly stand by my recommendation for using B&W print modes _for printers which support it_
Yes, I have found some printers where it the 'BW 'profiles helped, but that's dependent on the specific printer and media.
As I always say, if something works to your satisfaction, then go for it. It just isn''t an approach I'd initially suggest to anyone without a lot more background info and testing.
Good 1 Keith
Thanks
On my old Epson photo printer, I needed to use B&W mode to get good B&W prints.
But on my SC900, my custom color .icc profiles work even better for B&W printing. I don’t know why, but it’s a really simple solution.
Yes - custom profiles can sometimes work better if the B&W mode is not a good match for the exact paper used
Great videos Keith. I've got a Canon Pro 1000 I've used for 5 years, recently some cartridges can't be removed & replaced and other cartridges won't engage and stay in. I researched and found SLD Office Systems who allegedly work nationally and claimed to know my Canon machine and claimed to be able to service and fix 95% of the issues on their first visit. Despite describing my printer and the issues I was experiencing to them over the phone before the y came out, very quickly I realised that the chap that arrived didn't know the machine, had no spare parts and had no intention of repairing and servicing my Pro 1000. He simply poked his finger in the cartridge slots, tugged a few bits (all of which I had tried before his arrival), only for him to then tell me its cheaper to simply replace the printer. He then wanted to charge me £120+VAT for the 20 mins he was in my office. I just wondered about your experiences and thoughts about such cowboys, getting printers serviced and repaired and by whom. After watching all your reviews I'm going to get rid of the Pro 1000 and replace it with a Canon Pro 300. Another question, how do I dispose of the old Pro 1000 responsibly? The cowboy that turned top told me to put the Pro 1000 in the green recycle bin covered with lots of news papers etc so the bin men didn't know it was in there!
That sounds awful - it's a fault I've heard of, and I believe it requires major disassembly.
I don't know that company - but I do note your experience if anyone asks...
I'd take the printer to our local tip, which accepts electronics. It might be worthwhile for spares, but I'm not allowed to keep such junk around the house ;-)
@@KeithCooper Many Thanks keith. Great advice as usual.
I use a Canon 200. I print o (usually) Canon Semigloss. The printer is CMYK, photo magenta photo cyan, grey and light grey as well as black ink. I occasionally use Canson baryta. Everything comes with a paper manufacturers profile for my specific ink and printer. The best prints I ever made were on an Epson with Epson paper. I had a savy co worker and a recent grad ofPratt in sist that i was lying about them being injet prints.
Thanks
Thanks, as always. As you say, different people perceive color differently, but what it really comes down to is how the image looks subjectively. The actual "accuracy" of color (including shades of grey and subtle, or not so subtle, tinting of "B&W" images isn't as important as how the image "works" (from the perspective of the photographer and/or viewer). Of course, B&W film prints aren't '"pure" greyscale either, dependent on many variables. As you also point out, studio/gallery lighting affects things as well. Bottom line: there's no such thing as a "perfect" print but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to make the best prints we can (and you help a lot of people in that regard).
BtW, in many cases where an image "should obviously be B&W," I often find myself NOT converting it, as subtle colors can be more interesting. This often occurs with images recorded near dawn or twilight when there are both warm and cool areas in the scene or when there's some prismatic/refractive effect. That can make the image. I'll continue to rely on Silver Efex Pro, just not all the time.
That said, great idea regarding B&W-optimized profiles. Maybe you should start a campaign to lobby the printer/ink/paper suppliers to address that. I'd support your efforts!
Thanks
For profiles, it's about the software used, for the B&W printing, it's the printer makers and driver function.
It's something I've regularly asked about, and will continue to do so ;-)
Keith . Id love to see a whole video on QTR please
I don't use it, not have a printer set up for it with such inks
This is what you'd get
www.northlight-images.co.uk/monochromepro-pigment-inks-for-black-and-white-printing/
Still completely relevant, but note the date...
No way would I cover this in a video, other than as a trailer for the written article ;-)
I had an epson 1400 with costum black and white inkset that printed beautiful prints b4 its eventual death. I now have an 8550 that does well with some tweaking. I found that if you change the paper finish type to gloss, satin or semi -gloss etc. it will change the cast of the print. So I have found that some papers this is the only tweak I need. So the best bw might be on a satin setting for a gloss paper.
Yes - I 'd also like to see the B&W modes a little more customisable
Just popped into my head, almost immediately, when you mentioned "your favourite paper for colour", that those darned UV brighteners can likely produce anomalous colours in even one of the dies or pigments, so that UV content in a particular illumination environment will vary the tint, vs. any different UV, or near-UV, illuminant.
So, giving up on any UV-enhanced white...
And, good old metamerism, might rear its ugly head, too, as soon as illumintant is changed, proving that a CMY "black" could be tinted differently under different illumination.
Yes - I include some spectral response data in my written reviews
Wasn't piezo printing supposed to solve the b&w printing by offering various shades of gray? However, it seems piezo has been killed off by the printer manufacturers chipping the cartridges.
Yes, it's been 'the way to go' for 20+ years and never quite getting beyond 'niche'.
Not a complaint about it, just the way the economics have worked out. I've discussed it with several suppliers in the UK and it [or variants] were not viable to stock from a business POV - a big chunk of that being the amount of 'support' it would require.
The chip issues are more a US centric one IIRC - we still have stronger anti-consumer practice regulation.
Personally I'd be happy to experiment with something like an ET-8550 set up for monochrome inks, but I can't afford to dedicate an entire printer to B&W
Piezography® Pro is going strong at my boutique print studio in south london and it really does not disappoint!
Indeed - but it's not a solution resellers here can support.
It is ultra-niche - good that you can make a business of it, but it definitely isn't a solution I could recommend to the majority of people who ask me about B&W printing ;-)
It's the sort of system I'd likely choose if we offered a bespoke printing service, but that's an area of work we decided was simply not one for our business about 15 years ago.
As always excellent video. I just bough a canon pro 1000, so I intent to dedicate ma Epson R3000 for BW by “converting” it to piezography inks. Do you have experience on this process or do you know people with it ? Based on your comments in this video, I’m more specifically concerned about calibration (if needed). Thx
Thanks - see the second half of this article for background [using QTR]
www.northlight-images.co.uk/monochromepro-pigment-inks-for-black-and-white-printing/
The most important aspect for me was linearisation and mixing curves to get a good tonal balance.
If you know the inks are in wider use then people will have curves - the QTR mailing list is an absolute essential for this.
It's something I'd happily look at again, but I don't have a printer or inks...
Would you like to visit the studio Keith?
@@lucidimaginguk Yes, but you're in London I believe? ;-)
Maybe good for a business like yours, but a place I'll rarely ever visit by choice :-)
@@KeithCooperif you’re ever in london - by choice or not - drop me a line, it’d be great to share a coffee and play with Piezography® Pro!
@@lucidimaginguk whereabouts are you? - It doesn't say on your web site, that I noticed...
On a B&W photo, or in B&W mode does the Epson ET-8550 use pigmented black only? Is there a way to get it to use black pigments only?
Yes, the VFA media setting - see here
www.northlight-images.co.uk/epson-et-8550-printer-review/
When it comes to using Canon Pro series printers, lightroom and/or photoshop are terrible for bnw accuracy (i was always getting green or other tinges). The only way to print reliably is to export then us canons proprietary app. Painful, but it works.
I found that the B&W mode included adjustments for tint in the driver which were fine from PS - I also used it for checking linearity.
I've covered this in my written articles and will be returning to it when I next have new 'PRO' printers to test and review ;-)
This might seem something of an odd solution but instead of printers relying on the base colour of the paper to represent white ( ie areas where zero or very little ink is deposited) why don't they introduce a pigment white ink? A white ink could then be applied in areas which are required to be pure white but also mixed to produce lighter tones in the way greys are utilised. The white ink would need to be pigment based of course to remain opaque, I doubt dye based white ink could achieve that. The entire surface of the paper would be printed to with none of the papers underlying surface colour affecting the final reproduction. Surely this would have benefits to both Black and White and Colour prints. Just a thought 🤔
White ink is common in some commercial printing setups.
However it's often used as an initial coating, and for what you suggest, quite a hefty coat.
Not practical in normal ink jet, where paper white is good enough and gives an extra ink channel back
Hi Keith, i bought a Canon G510 (6 inks) with black and light grey. Do you have any tips to improve my B&W impressions?
Yes, see my detailed G550 review [the proper written one, not the videos]
www.northlight-images.co.uk/canon-g550-printer-review/
@@KeithCooper thank you my friend!
IMHO If you want the ultimate B/W inkjet prints, the only way to go is the Piezography Pro inkset. Yes the inks are expensive & can only be used in an Epson printer, but the prints are stunning.
Yes, I've not tested such inks for quite a few years.
Far more than I can afford to experiment with [printer and inks]
I’m a boutique print studio running Piezography® Pro 11-inkset in Epson SP-9900 since March 2021 when I brought it over for my BA Photography (Hons) final major project. I decided to convert my 9900 to piezography because I couldn’t find anyone else offering it in the UK and I had already invested in the P9500, so was willing to take the risk after doing my research. Having made the conversion and exceptional prints for my project, I made Piezography® Pro available to other artists and photographers who wanted superior monochrome prints. The archivability, detail, neutrality and flexibility is outstanding. Jon Cone nailed it with Piezography. Appreciate your work Keith!
How about printing a B&W image, photograph with the colorchecker passport, white balance on the colorchecker so it's accurate, then white balance on the photo (for added accuracy, you could make a camera profile with the colorchecker passport first) then save that a white balance preset in Lightroom.
Great for photos not so much so for prints.
See here for similar [not with LR - I never use it]
www.northlight-images.co.uk/printing-greyscale-images-and-removing-unwanted-colour-tints/
Give it a go with LR - I'd be curious as to what happens in practice.
Of course this does assume you are printing colour images with an icc profile, so losing the benefits of B&W print modes
Are there any turn key solutions for this problem that don't cost thousands?
Depends on just how picky you want to be and what size you want to print?
Anything beyond using a B&W print mode, needs specialist inks and a dedicated printer - BUT the knowledge to get good results on an arbitrary paper is shall we say 'non-trivial'.
As to 'turn-key' ... that begs an awful lot of questions too ;-)
The ability to support such systems is one reason they are not found very often.
I could help someone set one up and get great results, but it's going to cost at least a day of my time...
Hi Keith, Is Black and White printing easier with photos shot with a B & W camera eg: Leica monochrom ?
No - makes no real difference whatsoever. A B&W image is a B&W image...
Personally I'd find that using a monochrome camera potentially limits thing, in that it's like making a commitment to a single film brand and type when buying a camera - but that's a photography issue, not a printing one though ;-)
@@KeithCooper Thanks, I figured that since there is no colour recorded it would make it easier.
Yes, a reasonable thought, but any B&W printing 'colour' issues are from the printer/driver/ink/paper end of things, not the input.
How did we exist with silver print before? There were only silver halogens. ))
...and other unpleasant chemicals ;-)
@@KeithCooper Nights in the kitchen with the red light, the smell of developer and fixer. It's just magic. I love this time. ;)
Excellent! 👍🏾🙏🏾 🏴🇸🇪🇹🇹
Thanks
You have no comments on printing from a digital b and white cameras
That's because it's essentially no different than printing from a normal digital camera...
As with any camera system, the precise editing of files, sharpening etc may be adjusted for the lens or camera settings, but these cameras are nothing special in respect of printing
I fail to understand why this remains an issue. Both epson and canon have dedicated bw modes and you can experiment with them to get the tone you want on your paper of choice. I tend to NOT like printing neutral; i prefer to look at the image and decide if i want to print it cool or warm.
It is an issue for many - I'm just going by the number of questions I get in this area. People want no tone at all...
Personally I tend to dislike toned/tinted images for B&W - using the ability to tone/tint to get over a lack of neutrality and linearity is not a fix.
@@KeithCooperFor many years i was similar to you. Straight b&w (in the darkroom back then). Then i read Tim Rudman’s incredible book ‘the photographers toning book’ which opened my eyes to other ways of seeing bw prints. The book showed how to tone prints various ways in the darkroom but of course the same tones can be achieved digitally.
@@hansformat Yes - seen quite a bit, but I'm afraid it still leaves me unmoved. Lots of great shots but the 'colour' just doesn't work for me
Oh, the good old days. Choosing your paper type and even developer/toner to get a desired look was all part of the fun. I think I used something called Agfa Brovira as a warm paper, but it is so long ago it could be a case of "all the right letters but not necessarily in the right order".
So difficult and time consuming but it makes me appreciate the ease of digital/inkjet printing. 😀
I feel like this is one area where machine learning and AI could come into play. At this stage its sadly a nothing more than a hypothetical possibility, as most implementations of ai ™️ is garbage and gimmicky at best. Sadly, as you pointed out, the demand for black and white is low, therefore as will the efforts. Considering the anachronistic nature of printing and color management software I think new players could revolutionise this industry. Sadly I think IP will also hamper this domain. It’s intriguing. Ultimately, if AI fails, i think we may see people returning to darkroom printing , possibly utilising hybrid workflows ( eg digital negatives)
Yes, I'm curious to see if ML techniques can produce better profiles.
Clogging is inkjet's main enemy
No - lack of use is the main enemy ;-)