Printing B&W images

pengwinn · April 5, 2004

Any suggestions on how to print black & white images? I have tried a few different times with my Epson R300, but I've had very disappointing results. The source image is a photo that I desaturated w/ Photoshop. When printing w/ the color cartridges enabled it gives it the look of a toned image. If I set the printer to use only the black ink cartridge, the results are significantly worse, having a blue cast to black. These prints don't look anything like a true b&w.

Is there some secret setup option I have to use, or is it just not possible to get a good b&w print from an inkjet printer?

I am currently contemplating selling my Nikon F100 and replacing it with a D70, but if I can't get a good b&w print, then I'll likely need to keep my film camera for the time being.

Here are some pertinent details:
Epson R300 Printer
Genuine Epson Ink
Kodak Ultima Picture Paper (5x7)

PerezDesignGroup · April 5, 2004

You may find some answers here. I found it thoroughly educating.

Good luck.

pathfinder · April 5, 2004

PerezDesignGroup wrote:

You may find some answers here. I found it thoroughly educating.

Good luck.

PDG _ That is a very good and pertinent link - It empahsizes that desaturate produces much inferior prints to converting to greyscale. It further discusses settings for the printer:

" You can convert your RGB image into the LAB color space and discard the other channels besides luminance. This method is actually pretty handy, but most people don't know you can use it. In Photoshop 7 and 8 you can bring up "Print with Preview" where you can select which color space you want to use for printing the image you are working on (it's in the print box on 5 and 6). Mostly this is used by people who want to use a custom ICC profile, but you can also select "Grey Gamma 1.8" or "Grey Gamma 2.2" (it's darker overall than 1.8) and your image will be converted to grayscale as it is printed. You might need to select "no Color Adjustment" in the printer setup, though, depending on your printer/ink/paper setup if you get color casts."
The statement in red is pertitnent about color casts. Also you are using Kodak paper - I am sure it is nice, but if you are not getting the results you expect I would try Epson paper as an altenative. Papers and printers form different vendors do not always play well together.

I have printed beautiful B&W prints with an Epson P2200 and Epson glossy or matte paper. When I have tried to substitute other brands the results have frequently had a magenta or cyan cast. ANd you must set the printer settings to "No Color Adjustment"

Try these suggestions and let us know how this comes out by showing us your pictures here.

wxwax · April 5, 2004

That's a cool link. It really does a nice job of illustrating the problems with different B&W conversion methods.

However, it doesn't touch on two methods that we've discussed around here. One is using layers of hue/saturation, described here by Zero-Zero. I guess you could say it was the same as Desaturate. But with a difference.

The other is converting to B&W by using the channel mixer. The first step there is to change the pic to monochrome.

Important, I think, is that both methods allow you to adjust the level of contrast. That's a level of manipulation you give-up when you use a one-click solution like Desaturate or Grayscale.

Pengwinn, are you shooting in B&W, or converting color images? I'm kinda curious whether any of the above applies to you!

Printing B&W images

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