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

[ed_vatza]

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?

ED

[brassman]

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.         

[jrhoffman75]

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.