Pinkish color in grayscale prints

HI...Hope I;m posting this in the correct forum...if not please advise...

 

I use an Epson XP-960 with Claria inks...Windows 7...

When printing grayscale I usually get a pinkish cast...not always, but usually...

 

Been googling trying to find a way to correct this...but so far coming up dry...

 

I'm doing something a bit different than most posters here...I record bands at some venues around town and

make up CD's for the artists...With insert pages and art...

 

I get images from the artists FB postings...or they supply me with images etc...Sometimes I convert these

color images to b&w in Photoshop that I run on an iMac...

 

The grayscale images will look very "neutral" on the screen...

Then I move the images to my Win 7 and compose in Microsoft Publisher...then print to the Epson...

I currently use HP Brochure paper 180g glossy on both sides as I normally print on both sides...

 

When I do this in color I have NO problems...no color casts...good contrast, saturation etc....only the B&W that gives me problems...

 

So...that is pretty much what I do...I'm hoping someone can direct me how to get rid of the minkish, reddish, magentaish

color cast to my bw prints...

 

Thanks in advance for any assistance...

Sometimes problems like this happen due to mismatch between color profiles and ink/paper. Does the color cast appear for only the HP paper or any type of paper?

Good question...This is the ONLY paper I've used simply because I print both sides and it was reasonably priced...I can fold it for a CD insert...I did try an Epson paper and one or two others early on...but they were unsatisfactory and I really don't recall why...

 

This paper is used for CD inserts, not for printing high quality photos...I brought this issue to this forum because I figured a bunch of fine art photographers who print grayscale might be able to help me figure this out...When I started doing this about 2 years ago all I printed was color and my results were very satisfactory...

Only very recently have I been converting to b&w and having this reddish tint issue...

 

The HP Brochure paper I'm using is a good high quality photo paper, glossy...but the paper base is designed for brochures, you can fold it without creases, print on both sides etc...If someone has a suggestion for a paper that has the characteristics of this HP paper...I will happily try it...

 

I am a very skilled computer tech...but I am a rank beginner in Photoshop, Publisher, printing grayscale, printing profiles etc etc...

 

Thanks for the help...

I remember I had a HP printer once, and used HP photo paper for printing. Later, when I switched over to a Canon printer, just out of curiosity, I tested one of the HP papers with the canon inks for black and white. The result had a horrible green tint. So its not a good idea to mix specialized papers of one brand with a printer of a different brand. They are usually very ink specific, and the issues are more evident with neutral tones. A similar issue as yours was discussed in a different forum, you can see here.

 

To get accurate results, you need an accurate color profile for the paper/ink combination. Unless the paper manufacturer provides such a profile, you need to create one. Here is an inexpensive way of generating the color profile of a printing paper using a scanner and Silverfast software.

A New Way to Create ICC Profiles Using a Scanner

 

Even if you manage to generate a color profile, the ink may be incompatible with the paper and there may be durability issues in the long run. The bottomline is, its probably a hassle not worth investing in.

 

Epson offers a brochure paper, but it's not glossy, but matte. That would be more compatible with your printer. You can check it out here.

You're always going to get issues with greyscale printing using colour inks. Every change of paper will need a tweak of the profile or a manual adjustment of ink "squirt" in the advanced section of the printer interface. Such tweaks are a real pain, because you have to wait for the ink/paper to fully dry and stabilise (about 24 hours) before you can judge the result properly.

 

Also, the Epson XP 960 is at the very low end of A3 printers. Maybe you should consider an upgrade to a professional quality printer for doing professional work?

 

Some printers use one or more "light black" inks to print photo-quality B&W images. That's what I'd be looking at.

You should be able to control any color cast if you save your Publisher files as TIFFs and then open in Lightroom or Photoshop. I am assuming you have a properly calibrated monitor so that the original image files are correct. You can then tweak the color cast for printing only, without affecting the actual file.

Supriyo...your links led me to another post and I just tried pulling my bw images back into photoshop then added about 3 points of cyan to the image...then printed

that and it was better...probably acceptable for what I'm doing...

 

rodeo_joe...I chose the XP960 mostly for the amount of space I have to place an A3 printer...and knowing that my printed images in color does NOT have to be perfect...remember I print CD covers and inserts...not fine art photos...so I can accept looser tolerances than you guys can...and my color has been fine...

It's just on these last 2-3 CD's I converted the color image to bw and I realize that it's not as neutral as i would like...

 

Robin...my situation is not "normal"...I'm a computer tech and I have a iMac that is about 5 years old...that I use to keep my Mac tech skills up to speed for my

clients...

And it has Photoshop installed so I use Photoshop on the Mac...but everything else I do is Windows...so I'm working off 2 different monitors...they are NOT calibrated to each other nor to the printer...but they are pretty darn close to each other...All my photos come in as jpg's...so I don't see any advantage to convert them to TIFF's...the metadata will be the same and I've gained a larger file size...

 

My last test by adding a few points of cyan to the image gave me better results...I'm going to print a few CD inserts and see what it looks like...

 

Many thanks for everyone's responses and assistance...

My point is that Publisher files cannot be read by Photoshop or Lightroom, so you cannot do any manipulations on your images in these programs, but by converting to TIFF you can. Edited June 9, 2017 by Robin Smith

Supriyo...your links led me to another post and I just tried pulling my bw images back into photoshop then added about 3 points of cyan to the image...then printed

that and it was better...probably acceptable for what I'm doing...

 

A very common issue with black and white inkjet prints is that the color cast sometimes depends on the type of light. What comes off as neutral under incandescent may look greenish in natural light. Better to check under all lighting conditions (incandescent, fluorescent, sunlight) to make sure it looks reasonably neutral.

Robin...The entire Publisher file cannot be opened up in Photoshop...but the individual elements can...those elements are jpg files and I work those over in Photoshop then import them into Publisher...

 

Supriyio...what you say is true...it is called clorochromatic color imbalance...which is why 5000k light sources were adapted as the standard to view prints under...

I'm using mixed room lighting...which is ok, not great....but I can see this slight pinkish cast under most any light source...

"it is called clorochromatic color imbalance..."

 

- Huh? No it's not. It's called metamerism.

 

No such word as "clorochromatic".

There's "chorochromatic", which refers to colouring maps to indicate regions of variance other than geographical, such as political, economic, population, etc.

I am probably spelling incorrectly...I've always pronounced the word starting with a "cl" but it might be a "chl"...

anyway it's a term that Eastman Kodak used to describe the process of making duplicate transparencies in that if

you compared and matched the two transparencies under one type of light, 3200k for example and then compared them under a different light source.y 5000k they would not match in color balance...this phenomenon was first noticed in the mid-1960's when Kodak developed the first film that you could make duplicate transparencies with...the film was developed in E3 chemistry....in late 1974 I started a business, D-Max Colorgraphics...a commercial photo processing lab...(long before digital)...and my principal product was making sized duplicate transparencies for ganged color separations...by now Kodak had switched to E6 development chemistry...It was Kodak's development of the duplicate transparency film that established the 5000k light source as the standard for comparing all color photos...

 

I assume with digital new terms have been established to describe certain phenomena...I did do a google search and did not find anything for chorchromatic color imbalance....I tried various spellings...but I assure you the term does in fact exist and can be found in several publications put out by Eastman Kodak in the1980's...

It's still called metamerism by the rest of the English-speaking world!

 

Not a new digital term, but one that's been around for ages and dealt with in the likes of "Spencer's Colour Photography" published in the 1970s.

 

It's not a phenomenon that only afflicts dupe trannies. It's caused when the reflectance or transmission of a dye has a spiky spectrum. This can interact with the discontinuous spectrum of some artificial light sources to give a false colour not seen under a continuous spectrum.

 

The equivalent colour-temperature of the viewing source isn't really the issue. You can have two light sources which have nominally the same CT - LED or fluorescent monitor backlights for example - and quite different spectra. It's much more important to use a viewing source with a continuous spectrum and no "holes" for colours to fall down.

 

Personally I use a blue-coated "hobby" Tungsten incandescent lamp hung over the printer to monitor its output. That's in the absence of daylight, which should be taken as the real gold-standard reference light.

Edited June 11, 2017 by rodeo_joe|1

It's still called metamerism by the rest of the English-speaking world!

Nope.

Metamerism is simple: two (2) samples with different spectra compared to each other with a given set of viewing conditions, produce a match. Metamerism only applies to two color patches when they are compared. It is not correct to refer to one color from a given ink or paper and say that it suffers from metamerism. A "meterameric pair of color patches" means that they appear to match under a given illuminant. However, they may not appear to match under another illuminant. Metamers ("metameric stimuli") by definition are two different spectrums that appear to be the same color. If they don't look the same color, they are not metamers.

If you are viewing a print (lots of colors) and within differing viewing conditions, and there is a mismatch, this could be called a metameric mismatch or metameric failure. But its not metamerism. One sample (the print) compared to itself in differing viewing conditions, the proper term would be when they appear to match is color constancy and when they don't, color inconstancy.

The lack of a defined term for the metameric mismatch is the problem.

"Metameric failure" is the best so far because it is unambiguous.

Agree Steve, but that surely would be a pain and if the Publisher file is intricate: even more of a pain. Also since it is an overall color balance (each image within it affected by the same amount), just changing the printing color cast as I suggested seemed easier.

Pardon my lack of pedantry.

 

I could have expanded to explain metamerism more fully as being the ability of the eye to see two (or more) monochromatic colours as being a single colour with a wavelength somewhere in between those of the originating wavelengths. And of the eye to be able to match a whole range of mixed wavelengths with that of another single wavelength - plus dilution with white light and adjustment of brightness to match saturation.

 

However I thought the word "metamerism" summed up the phenomenon more succinctly. Enough of a clue to point the OP in the direction of clarification I would have thought.

Pardon my lack of pedantry.

 

I could have expanded to explain metamerism more fully as being the ability of the eye to see two (or more) monochromatic colours as being a single colour with a wavelength somewhere in between those of the originating wavelengths.

 

You originally got the term pretty much completely wrong; sorry. Metamerism is good and useful and provides something many of us want: A MATCH. If it was not for metamerism, none of our three color reproduction systems would work. Because of metamerism we are able, using only three colors, to cause the human vision system to perceive a match between this tristimulus reproduction system and full spectral pigment.

 

Metamerism is not a fault in a given color reproduction system. Metamerism is a good thing.

 

Metamerism (color) - Wikipedia

In colorimetry, metamerism is a perceived matching of the colors that, based on differences in spectral power distribution, do not actually match. Colors that match this way are called metamers.

 

The term illuminant metameric failure is sometimes used to describe situations where two material samples match when viewed under one light source but not another.

 

And there are other cases of metameric failure (observer, capture device etc).

 

And again, it only refers to TWO solid color patches. Not a print filled with millions of possible solid colors.