n00b home printer question -- black ink in color printing?

Forums › Digital Imaging › n00b home printer question -- black ink in color printing?

Lykho

253 posts

Ultimate Geek

#131028 6-Oct-2013 11:10

is it true that color printers only do "black' in a color print by combining colored inks, or is this only a sh!tty older printer thing (The inability to have true black in a color print)

basically, my issue is this: I want to be able to print true-to-screen pictures... e.g., if I get a picture of a rose and I make everything greyscale except the flower itself, I want the print to be as though I printed on greyscale, but the colored part to use colored inks, rather than being an either/or situation (short of isolating and deleting either or portion and printing in two sessions the relevant portions of the image on the same sheet of paper)

is it possible? do all modern home printers do this (I mean, I'm sure all old printers could do this for text, black text with colored headings always looked normal, but apparently not for images...?)

have I just been mislead? I know my current Brother printer only does what I've described, meaning I'd have to go to a lab to get the proper result.

1 | 2

20587 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#908723 6-Oct-2013 11:24

Most modern printers have a black cartridge.

Why do you care about this? If it's just about cost then use a lab, it's generally cheaper than printing your own.

Bung

6489 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#908728 6-Oct-2013 11:32

It is common for some inkjet printers to have both a text black and a photo black cartridge.

Edit I only print A4 at home now. Any 6x4 etc just go to cheapest shop.

Lykho

253 posts

Ultimate Geek

#908730 6-Oct-2013 11:41

timmmay: Most modern printers have a black cartridge.

my current printer has a black cartridge, but it apparently won't use colors and black in printing the same image (I say apparently because the color printing doesn't work, and I can only go by the claims that black portions of an image won't be printed in greyscale if I use the color setting in order to make sure the colored portions are in color).

Lykho

253 posts

Ultimate Geek

#908731 6-Oct-2013 11:42

Bung: It is common for some inkjet printers to have both a text black and a photo black cartridge.

oh, no kidding?
d'you have an example?
I've never spotted that in any advertising.

Bung

6489 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#908750 6-Oct-2013 12:49

Lykho:
Bung: It is common for some inkjet printers to have both a text black and a photo black cartridge.

oh, no kidding?
d'you have an example?
I've never spotted that in any advertising.

My elderly Canon Pixma i865 has both pigment black for letters and dye black for photos. Canon Pixma iP7260 is a current example.

Lykho

253 posts

Ultimate Geek

#908785 6-Oct-2013 15:06

Bung:
Lykho:
Bung: It is common for some inkjet printers to have both a text black and a photo black cartridge.

oh, no kidding?
d'you have an example?
I've never spotted that in any advertising.

My elderly Canon Pixma i865 has both pigment black for letters and dye black for photos. Canon Pixma iP7260 is a current example.

cool. would you recommend a Canon?
does the quality compare to a lab print, or is home printing at comparable prices (~$5 per A4) substantially worse in quality?

timmmay

20587 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#908794 6-Oct-2013 15:59

I have an Epson Artisan with a RIHAC CIS system. Can't recommend RIHAC highly enough, I bought the system for $180 and a spare set of inks for (from memory) $40, that's 6x100ml, around two years ago. The initial tanks are still half full. It reduced my printing cost by 90%.

I had Canon printers, 3 of them, usually the high end consumer ones. They all broke. Epson seem more reliable.

The cheaper the printer, the more expensive the ink, generally.

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

insane

3240 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#908800 6-Oct-2013 16:24

Bung:
Lykho:
Bung: It is common for some inkjet printers to have both a text black and a photo black cartridge.

oh, no kidding?
d'you have an example?
I've never spotted that in any advertising.

My elderly Canon Pixma i865 has both pigment black for letters and dye black for photos. Canon Pixma iP7260 is a current example.

I used a Canon Pixma i865 all through uni, poor thing was fed only Dick Smith ink and churned out thousands of lecture noted etc. One Black was dye based, the other pigment.

Geektastic

17943 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#911310 9-Oct-2013 12:30

timmmay: I have an Epson Artisan with a RIHAC CIS system. Can't recommend RIHAC highly enough, I bought the system for $180 and a spare set of inks for (from memory) $40, that's 6x100ml, around two years ago. The initial tanks are still half full. It reduced my printing cost by 90%.

I had Canon printers, 3 of them, usually the high end consumer ones. They all broke. Epson seem more reliable.

The cheaper the printer, the more expensive the ink, generally.

I think ink is just expensive period!

A colleague of mine has an Epson photo printer that goes to A2 prints and a set of ink is $998 - the printer cost many thousands of dollars.

The big stand mount Canon photo printers need new print heads AND new ink - sometimes up to $2,000 if you buy both at once, they told me.

I have a laser printer for text (several orders of magnitude cheaper per page!) and no photo printer at all - as you said, it is far cheaper to outsource that now unless you do a lot of printed work. As a commercial photographer and PJ, my clients never want printed work so I no longer bother with the overhead.

andrew027

1286 posts

Uber Geek

#911338 9-Oct-2013 13:08

Lykho:
Bung: It is common for some inkjet printers to have both a text black and a photo black cartridge.

oh, no kidding?
d'you have an example?
I've never spotted that in any advertising.

I have a Canon Pixma MP560, and that also has a large black cartridge for text-based printing and a smaller black cartridge it uses when printing photo images.

The photo quality is OK, if you use the recommended Canon paper, but if I was fussy about the image quality, e.g. if I intended to display the picture somewhere other than on a noticeboard with a drawing pin through it, I'd put the image on a USB key and take it to my local photo shop.

Bung

6489 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#911357 9-Oct-2013 13:31

andrew027: The photo quality is OK, if you use the recommended Canon paper, but if I was fussy about the image quality, e.g. if I intended to display the picture somewhere other than on a noticeboard with a drawing pin through it, I'd put the image on a USB key and take it to my local photo shop.

With my Canon i865 I had no complaints about the quality as printed. In an album my large prints match the commercial 6x4s but the colour wouldn't last as long pinned to a noticeboard.

tchart

2380 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#911582 9-Oct-2013 19:29

We got a Brother something which is wireless and prints from our various devices (iPad etc). As per usual the included cartridges were half baked and we had to replace them after a couple of weeks. Priced up new ones from DSE/Warehouse etc and they were going to be over $120 (which is more than the printer cost).

Got 4 (CMYB) new high capacity ones (ie much bigger than the originals) for US$20 off ebay. Prints like a dream.

So whatever you do make sure you can get cheap cartridges from somewhere - we struggled to get cheap ones for our previous Canon BTW.

tchart

2380 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#911585 9-Oct-2013 19:35

BTW I once heard that a ml of inkjet ink is worth more than a ml of gold. So go figure. Could just be an urban myth of course! LOL

Fred99

13684 posts

Uber Geek

#911695 9-Oct-2013 21:43

tchart: BTW I once heard that a ml of inkjet ink is worth more than a ml of gold. So go figure. Could just be an urban myth of course! LOL

It's an urban myth, but inkjet ink (OEM) prices are outrageous nonetheless.

Lykho

253 posts

Ultimate Geek

#911835 10-Oct-2013 02:52

Geektastic:
I have a laser printer for text (several orders of magnitude cheaper per page!) and no photo printer at all - as you said, it is far cheaper to outsource that now unless you do a lot of printed work.

so, what're the names of a few of the 'far cheaper' places for A4/A3 printing?

1 | 2