printing problem

[Mari]

I have an Epson printer. My color photos come out great! Anything black and white comes out with a tint...usually a brown....I have even had green and purple.
I have tried different setting in the printer options.
I have tried changing the 'mode' in Elements and the 'color convert profile'.
Also, I experimented using different company's photo paper.
I cannot seems to get this figured out!

(If I print the picture on plain typing paper...it turns out black and white.)

Thanks for any suggestions!!!!!!

[TonyW]

Mari: Hi there and welcome to the forum. In the printer preferences dialogue (the Epson one that comes up when you go to Printer Properties) you should find an option to check that says use Black Ink only (it is probably in the Advanced section). Try checking that and see what it does. The problem is that the printer is using coloured ink to print black and white and that can have odd effects on some papers depending on the way your color profiles are set and how your monitor is calibrated.

Tony

[Mari]

Thanks, Tony. It is a good suggestion, but I have already done this and the same problem occurred.
I am wondering if anyone gets a true black and white or if there is always some tint?

[NickLewis]

Hi Marie,

It's very difficult to achieve a true black and white photographic quality print. Much depends on the printer inks and the paper you use. As you seem to be finding out, there are often subtle shadings, noticeable to the eye.

I know some people go to extraordinary lengths to eliminate this, with printers fed with inks of varying shades of grey.

You probably need someone with detailed knowledge of your specific printer to advise you how best to achieve it.

Nick

[Mari]

Nick, you , at least, made me feel better knowing that this problem in not unique to just me!
Thanks!

[TonyW]

Mari: Sorry that didn't work, I use an Epson R300 and with Epson inks and Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper I can get pretty good black and whites without using Black ink only (which although it prints black and white doesn't come out as well as using colour). I do however use the SPR300 Premium Glossy Printer Profile and turn off Color Management in the printer. Not sure what Epson printer you have and whether printer profiles are available for it.

One thing I do see is that they initially have a greenish tinge but that disappears as the inks dry - but that can take several hours.

Tony

[Mari]

Tony, I will try turning off the color manager. I think I have done that in the past, but maybe I missed that.

Here is a strange..... With all the experimenting I have done, I made a discovery. I found that HP photo paper works the best in my Epson R380.
The color photos are excellent. When I have showed people the difference between using same best quality Epson paper, Kodak, and HP, they are amazed. I stumbled on this when I was trying to save Epson paper when experiment and had some sheets of HP left over from an HP printer (which I had returned within 3 days!)

By the way, I clicked onto your pictures!!!! WOW! They are beautiful. Instead of printer problems, I should be asking about your camera!
M

[TonyW]

Mari: That's strange - I didn't have much luck with HP paper but then I think the 300 and 380 use different inks so maybe that's the difference (or maybe HP have improved since I last tried).

And thanks for the nice words about my pictures - I don't update them very often and I think there are 3 different cameras represented - a Fuji 7000, 9000 and a Nikon D80

Tony