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Blacks come out blue

Started by Sarasocke, March 17, 2010, 10:02:04 AM

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Sarasocke

Any suggestions on a new printer ? Canon again, Epson?

90% of my printing is photos, sometimes DVDs, with the occasional letter. I don't need anything bigger than A4.
Carol aka Sarasocke 
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picsfor

I think it is generally accepted that Epson do a bitter job of printing B&W...

Malcolm1938

Hi Carol

I printed the rectangle on my Epson 285 and it was all black and grey without a trace of blue anywhere.

I would suggest that if you buy a new printer an Epson would be the better choice. Get a photo printer with 6 Claria Inks and you will enjoy using it and get the results you really want

Malcolm
FKA CannOffice
Too old to die young
Every day is a good day - if you wake up....

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Hinfrance

Can I beg to differ here? I have had two Epsons (the last one purchased only recently to replace my 'everyday' desktop printer).

The first was a 265 or something like that. I bought it to replace my worn out Pixma 4000. It was about £130 or thereabouts. And BIG. Don't hold me to the model number. I kept it for two weeks, and it was lucky to last that long - the colour rendition was appalling, it was slow, noisy and simply ate ink like there was no tomorrow. I managed to palm it off onto a neighbour for half what I paid for it and put the money towards another Pixma, a 4200 which I still have and which I find excellent.

The second was the lower priced one. Utterly rank. After 3 days I replaced that with a Canon MP250 which is also cheap and cheerful and I would never use to print colour photographs, but it prints black and white passably well at a pinch. This one is definitely NOT a photographic printer.

My lesson from this is Epson = don't touch with a bargepole. I am sure this is unfair, but I speak as I have found.

It does seem that there is a problem with your printer. I have never had a colour cast on the monochromes I have printed from either of my Canons, even the one that cost less than the box it came in.

I do, however, usually print to matt paper - but I doubt that makes a difference to colour cast.

One last thing - before you throw the printer out, have you tried hooking up someone else's printer to your computer? If that also prints with a colour cast you might have to think again about colour management.

In suggesting further investigation I am minded of the fact that the Canon boys just talked you into buying an unnecessarily expensive flash gun  :legit:
Howard  My CC Gallery
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The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil. H.L Mencken.

ABERS

Can't speak too highly of Epson. I've had a Photo RS 2400 since I returned to photography some three years ago now and am delighted with the results. Can't speak for other printers since I have no experience of them but the Epson serves me well and once you have it set up properly and use the paper manufacturers' profiles, or better still profile them individually, colour is 99.9% spot on and B+W hits the spot every time.

It's got three blacks so you get a good tonal range, especially in the shadow detail.

I suppose it must be said that it's not churning out prints ad infinitum however, perhaps a hundred or so a year and ink consumption is a little on the high side.

As an aside, I'm no techno geek but of all the equipment that is now out there, I think the printer is the most amazing. How does it know when to spray what colour combination and in what amount on what part of the paper to reproduce the image that's on your screen? ???

Before you all rush to tell me, please DON'T, because I shall end up getting all confused and not understanding it all. As someone said in a thread somewhere else, ignorance is bliss. :tup:

Hinfrance

I did say I thought my assessment was probably unfair, and I certainly have no experience of the higher specification Epson printers.

Although I have got an Epson 2480 Photo scanner, and that's rubbish too  :legit:
Howard  My CC Gallery
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The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil. H.L Mencken.

Sarasocke

Apart from this recent palavar with the blacks, I've been pleased enough with the pixma iP4500, which I've been using for about three years now. I've always used the original inks but have had all sorts of paper - I can't always use Canon or whatever, as I print calenders, greetings cards, postcards, t-shirt transfers etc. - as you know a lot of what I have been doing has been for our dog rescue charity. I can't get this sort of thing printed by experts - either they don't do it, postage is too high or the amount I need printed is too low.
I recently gave someone a cd with some photos of their dogs - they had them printed through an online service and the prints were atrocious, the colours had all been "brightened" so much, that the animals looked like clowns. The photos looked fine on both my and their monitor, my prints were just fine and I had a couple of A4 prints done professionally through a "real" high street shop who use a "real" lab and they were just fine too.

I'm wary of cheap printing services, and if someone only wants a couple of prints, I prefer to do them myself - I do have decent paper for this purpose, and as I said up to now the prints have been fine.

I rarely print in b&w - the latest picture which was discussed here was more of an exception. Also I very very rarely need anything larger than A4. If someone really want an A3 or bigger then I send them to the pros. Alan's printer prints A3, and to be honest, it's just too expensive for what I'm doing right now. I do have paying customers sometimes, but I'm a far cry from earning enough to keep us an our animals in food ;) At 58, I doubt whether I'll ever be able to do much more  8)

I'm going to give Canon a ring, and then I'll see what happens with the print this evening at my friends' house. If that is OK, then it may well be a good idea for them to hook up their printer to my computer.

If I should have to buy a new printer, from what I see at the moment it'll be either the Pixma iP4700 or the Epson P50.
I guess everyone has their preferences and experience, same with everything else - buying a Canon or Nikon camera, which make of car (my husband would never buy French or Japanese  :-\ ) or which dentist to go to.

Oh well, I'll see if I can save the printer I have first :)
Carol aka Sarasocke 
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greypoint

I'd always had a hatred of Epson dating from the very first scanner I ever bought - needed a specific one to scan old slides. It nearly ended up being thrown through the window or jumped on several times due to it's, shall we say, quirky nature! So I was initially, and no doubt irrationally, wary of buying one of their printers. I can only say I've found the P50 more than acceptable. Where the odd print has'nt been right it's been down to my getting the original wrong and a bit more tweaking has normally put things right. Sold quite a few prints from last years shows from it anyway! But I have only done prints of dogs and birds of course ::)

ABERS

Quote from: Tringle WP on March 19, 2010, 09:33:10 AM

Although I have got an Epson 2480 Photo scanner, and that's rubbish too  :legit:

Well, would you believe it. I've got an EpsonV500 scanner, specifically bought for scanning 6X6 negs, and it's magic.

You don't seem endowed with much luck Howard as far as Epson are concerned, or microsoft, or IE or...............! :legit:

Hinfrance

Alan, you'll be pleased to learn that I finally got windows sorted, after a lot of tweaking. Tempting fate here, but I haven't had a single crash, or even a annoying glitch for absolutely ages now. It's running as quickly as I need it to.

I bought the Epson scanner specifically for 35mm negatives (the few I have left) but the resolution is awful. Scanning a black and white photograph produces a horrid moiréd mess no matter what settings I use. So I bought a Canon on account of having been so pleased with the printer.

In all fairness Alan you have the top end gear - all my problems have been with their consumer products.

And yes, IE is the work of the devil. He made it on his day off from designing Apple products.  :D
Howard  My CC Gallery
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The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil. H.L Mencken.

Nemesis

From my years in the trade, I can only recommend Epson or HP, they have the best combination of device and driver to match, particularly with/for dedicated photo printers

Sarasocke

Just to let you know - the printer is kaputt.

I tried printing the picture on my friend's Pixma - all nice blacks and greys. I coupled my printer up to her system - blue.

My Canon is 2 1/2 years old  >:(

However, I'm not going project my Pixma experience on to other Pixmas - I do realise that things can go wrong, like with Howard's Epsons.

I have a comparison test report to download, then I'll decide - I realise that these reports are not always 100%, but I have to start somewhere  :legit:
Carol aka Sarasocke 
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Graham

   If your printer is kaput, as mine was, I think you'll find they make a very satisfying noise when you throw them out of a 2nd floor window.  (Mine did.).
                             Graham.
Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day.
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. 

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Forseti

#28
Quote from: Sarasocke on March 20, 2010, 12:08:49 PM
Just to let you know - the printer is kaputt.

In which case it's more likely than not to be the print head which of course have a limited life-span much like the shutter on any digital camera. If you are generally satisfied with the printer as is it might be worth your while sourcing a replacement print head and checking the price out first. I had a Canon 474D print head fail on me several years back and seem to remember that the replacement wasn't exorbitantly priced.

Edit - a quick Google search indicates that print heads for the Pixma 4500 are available priced around €59,95 although with a more detailed search you'll probably find them even cheaper.
Canon 7D,  Canon SX1 IS, EF100 f/2.8 USM Macro, EF70-200 f/4 L IS USM, EF17-40 f/4 L USM, Sigma 50mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM, Canon Speedlite 580EX MkII

"Everyone can take a great picture with digital, the knack is to take two" - David Bailey

Sarasocke

A new Pixma 4700 costs only 89€ from Amazon. I'd have a new printer with guarantee.

Still looking at the Epson P50 as well ....

Everything indicates that they are very very similar. Tests reports give the same quality and the price is more or less the same.  :-\
Carol aka Sarasocke 
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