topic Re: MAGENTA CAST ON B&W PRINTS (PRO-100) in Professional Photo Printers

MAGENTA CAST ON B&W PRINTS (PRO-100)

ed_vatza — Sun, 17 Apr 2016 14:24:39 GMT

I thought I had my Pro-100 issues raised in a separate post all but resolved. But alas even after using Print Studio Pro, I still find a slight magenta cast in the actual print. I'm not sure what to do to correct it. I'm attaching a screen capture of the PSP settings. Any suggestions?

Re: MAGENTA CAST ON B&W PRINTS (PRO-100)

Waddizzle — Sun, 17 Apr 2016 15:57:36 GMT

Sorry, I am not familiar with your other thread. Are you saying the tint appears in printed hard copies, on the screen, or both?

Re: MAGENTA CAST ON B&W PRINTS (PRO-100)

ed_vatza — Sun, 17 Apr 2016 16:03:08 GMT

Printed hard copies only. They look perfect on screen.

Re: MAGENTA CAST ON B&W PRINTS (PRO-100)

jrhoffman75 — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 23:43:22 GMT

The settings look correct Ed. One thing to try would be to use ICC profile for paper to see if that makes a difference.

Also, since you have a B&W file you could try Use ICC Profile in color option rather than B&W. When I print B&W from Lightroom I treat the file same as a color file in Print module.

I printed a test image on Plus Glossy II from Lightroom using printer manages option and Lightroom manages option.

The printer created a print with a brownish cast.

With Lightroom amanging it was better, but still with a slight cast. I used the Other Glossy paper 2 profile option.

Then I printed on Pro Luster with Lightroom managing and it was perfect.

Print Studio Pro provides an option for a test pattern. You could do that, find the image that looks best to you and use the settings to adjust the printer.

Re: MAGENTA CAST ON B&W PRINTS (PRO-100)

ed_vatza — Tue, 19 Apr 2016 10:33:50 GMT

Thank you for the detailed response, John. And thank you for running some test prints. I have some Premium Luster coming tomorrow so I will try again with that paper tomorrow.

That said, I am still... I'm not even sure what word to use... confused, frustrated...

I acknowledge that the Plus Glossy II may not be the best paper in the world. And I readily admit that I don't really use glossy papers at all. My favorite papers include Moab Entrada on the matte end and Canson Infinity Baryta Photographique on the semi-gloss end. That said, I had the Plus Glossy II laying around and used it for the tests. It is a Canon paper and I would think it should work best in a Canon printer. Yet regardless of what I do, I get the color cast. However put the same Canon paper in the Epson 3800 and the prints look perfect. No cast all all. That doesn't really make sense to me. Why does this Canon paper perform better in the Epson than in the Canon?

I know all papers are different. I have run the same color and same B&W image through my 3800 with a wide variety of papers before settling in on the two mentioned above. They all look different. And while the Epson papers worked great on the Epson printer, I just found that I preferred the other two.

So again anyway, I have now run the same B&W image through the PRO-100 on 5 different papers including the Baryta Photographique and the Plus Glossy II and have seen the cast, in varying degrees, on all five.

I'm thinking I may also give Canon customer support a call today and see what they have to say. The PRO-100 has got to work with more than just one paper.

I've been very happy with the 3800. But the PRO-100 came when I purchased the 5DMkIII back in January. (I had used a 5DMkII in the past but about 4 years ago I sold all my Canon gear and went Leica. After 4 years with Leica, I decided to go back to Canon. And voila, I now own a PRO-100.) I like the idea of a second printer. I like the idea of a dye ink and a pigment ink printer. I just want the results to be as close to the same as possible and at this point they are not. I would probably only exhibit or sell prints from the 3800 at this point.

If you got this far, thanks for listening.

Re: MAGENTA CAST ON B&W PRINTS (PRO-100)

jrhoffman75 — Tue, 19 Apr 2016 11:13:38 GMT

Hi Ed.

I also use Canson Baryta Photographique 310; great results.

I use this test image on any new papers to see how they print. http://www.outbackphoto.com/printinginsights/pi049/essay.html

I print through Lightroom.

Definitely worth a call to Canon.

Re: MAGENTA CAST ON B&W PRINTS (PRO-100)

ed_vatza — Tue, 19 Apr 2016 14:51:56 GMT

Just got off the phone with Canon. One line take away... there's nothing you can do.

I was told my setting are all correct. The magenta cast is due to the ink being dye based and it is more pronounced the glossier the paper. According to the printer rep, the color casting should be better with semi-gloss than with gloss and better with luster than semi-gloss and even better with matte than with luster.

Otherwise there is nothing I can do. Oh well. I guess I will run a Epson 3800/Canon PRO-100 comparison on Moab Entrada Matte which I have here.

FOLLOW UP -- I ran a comparison using Red River Artic Polar Satin (semi-gloss for Canon printers and luster for Epson printers). No cast. Both look the same. SUCCESS! It's all about the papers.

Re: MAGENTA CAST ON B&W PRINTS (PRO-100)

ebiggs1 — Thu, 21 Apr 2016 10:51:24 GMT

"It's all about the papers."

How true! The Pro-100 uses all the ink tnaks to print B&W. One might think it would just use the black but that isn't true.

It is not possible to print 256 shades of grey with one, two or even three black or grey ink tanks. So they must use all the ink tanks.

Doing this can cause a color cast to a B&W print. It is usually a reddish or magenta cast. But I have seen a greenish cast on some papers.

Red River will help you select a paper that wil work best with the Pro-100.

Re: MAGENTA CAST ON B&W PRINTS (PRO-100)

ed_vatza — Thu, 21 Apr 2016 12:50:06 GMT

Yes, I have seen both magenta and greenish casts at different times. At this point, I have gotten pure B&W prints with the PRO-100 on Canson Infinity Baryta Photographique and Red River Artic Polar Satin. I just got some Canon Pro Luster and will try it. I also want to try the RR San Gabriel Baryta but haven't sent in an order yet. In short, while I generally use the Canson Infinity Baryta Photographique (Semi-gloss) or Moab Entrada (Matte) for almost all of my printing, I am always experimenting with different papers.

Re: MAGENTA CAST ON B&W PRINTS (PRO-100)

ebiggs1 — Thu, 21 Apr 2016 14:02:22 GMT

"I just got some Canon Pro Luster and will try it."

OK, good luck! I doubt you will like it after Red River Artic Polar Satin. But let me know what you think.

Re: MAGENTA CAST ON B&W PRINTS (PRO-100)

brassman — Sun, 11 Dec 2016 05:28:26 GMT

Ed, I'm also frustrated with magenta casts on b&w pints from my Canon printer. Even with Canon papers. I haven't done as extensive testing as you with various papers. My printer is a Canon Pixma ip8720 which I bought last year to replace an Epson Workforce 30. The jets clogged on a couple of colors but up 'til then I was getting absolutely neutral b&w prints on Red River Premium Matte 2-sided. I'm only interested in making b&w prints for books I'm making - not "fine art" but documentary and street photographs. But prints from the Pixma are disappointing on the RR paper and also Canon Premium Matte paper. Sometimes greenish but mostly magenta casts. I'm not very experienced in this arena of ink jet printing - I'm mostly and still a wet darkroom printer. I just want to make these books. Anyway, last week I finally contacted RR customer support about my problem and after a little bit of back and forth about color management, profiles, etc which I can just barely understand, one of the reps said that one of the characteristics of Canon printers is that they tend towards magenta casts. I thought WHAT??? After a seach on this forum - where I'd been posting my magenta issue for a few weeks with no real solutions - I found several posters agreeing that Canon printers in general do favor magenta casts on b&w and color prints. Although many others had no such problems. Sorry to go on and on but just wanted to confirm your problem with Canon printers and magenta casts is a given. I've now settled on Office Depot Pro Photo Matte 2-sided which is giving me pretty good b&w with no casts if I keep the contrast up. I've limited myself to 2-sided matte papers which narrows my paper choices. I'm even considering going back to Epson.

Re: MAGENTA CAST ON B&W PRINTS (PRO-100)

jrhoffman75 — Mon, 12 Dec 2016 11:50:26 GMT

B&W printing with dye inks can be tough. I am able to get excellent, to my judgment, monochrome prints with my PRO-100.

Two things to work on: 1. the PRO-100 only uses the the gray inks for fine art printing. If your paper type doesn't say to use a Canon fine art media pick a FA media that is comparable, i.e. Fine Art Premium Matte instead of Matte Photo Paper. (you will have to live with the 30mm margin though). 2. use Print Studio Pro and print the ring-around test pattern to fine tune the adjustments.

I also found I have better luck converting the image to B&W with Silver Efex Pro or a similar program and then printing it as if it was a color image. Don't select Grayscale or B&W in the printer driver.