 Mary E. McCabe |
Black and White Comes out Purple I'm turning some of my images into "black and white" and have been following the advice from Doug Elliott mentioned in a SnapShot in mid-June. However, though it looks great on my monitor, when it prints out, the image still looks great but it has a purple/lavender cast to it, which is not black and white! Is this a printer calibration issue or simply an ink issue? I'm using HP DeskJet 5650, Ink Cartridges 57 and (58 which is the photo cartridge) and a professional grade photo paper. This happens whether I desaturate and add 10-15% black, or simply change the image mode. Any help is appreciated. Mary www.maryemccabe.com
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Michael H. Cothran |
This is an "ink" issue common to most inkjet printers. Theoretically, when you use all the ink colors in your cartridge, you should get a neutral gray. Sadly you don't, and usually the culprit is the Magenta ink, hence the "purple" color you are experiencing. There are only two ways you can correct this problem - 1. Print with only the black ink. Try it - I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with the quality. 2. Set up a dedicated printer with third party B&W inks. Lyson makes some ink sets (4 & 6 sets of different shades of black inks) made specifically for printing fine art B&W. As I stated, using these inks will require you to have a separate printer set-up permanently for B&W. If your goal is to print lots of B&W, I'd definitely go with #2. For the occasional B&W, I'd stick with #1.
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Mary E. McCabe |
Believe it or not Michael, I'm a reasonably intelligent person, yet, it never occurred to me to just put in the black ink cartridge! Afterall, there are slots for two cartridges, so I guess I must put in two - I feel like an idiot! ;-o I tried it out on one of my b&w's and it looks great! If I wind up doing a lot of b&w's I'll go with option 2, which makes sense. Another question regarding b&w, if you don't mind. Do photo labs usually use resin-coated sliver prints since they can be done completely by machine, or are there some that will do the silver gelatin prints if you have your image on a CD? You're the bomb, Michael, as some of my 7th grade kids say! Mary
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Michael H. Cothran |
I'm so glad it worked for you. Normally, one has to have both cartridges inserted before the printer will actually work, but you can turn off the color in your printer software. There should be a choice somewhere to click either "color" or "black" ink. To answer the questions in your last paragraph - And yes, you CAN have a silver gelatin print made from your digital file. I believe they're called "light-jet" prints, maybe "laser" prints, or something to that affect. These represent a "marriage" of digital and conventional photography. The digital file is scanned onto a sheet of conventional photo paper, one row of pixels at a time. It is then processed as it normally would be had it been exposed to film (probably RA4 chemicals). So you have a digital image on "real" photo paper. Many labs use the Fuji
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Mary E. McCabe |
Michael, you are wonderful - thanks so much - I had a local photo processing place tell me that "you can only get prints on silver gelatin if they come from a slide, and you can't make a slide out of a digital file." They do use a Kodak archival (200 years) paper but said the process would be like ink jet - not that there's anything wrong with that - :-) thanks again. Mary
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Michael H. Cothran |
Mary - keep shopping. The "Light Jet" or "Laser" prints are conventional photographic prints made from digital files. My apologies though, because you are after b&w silver-based prints from your digital files, and the Light Jet prints are color. Try this - email Larry Berman (larry@bermanart.com). He runs a very nice Yahoo forum for art show photographers, like myself. He has a list of sponsors, and a good knowledge of what's available. Email him, and ask him is he has any sources that can print a silver-based RC print from a digital file. Perhaps he can lead you in the right direction. Michael
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Mary E. McCabe |
Thanks Michael, I will email Larry.
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