Black and white prints always have bluish cast

Martin Connolly

Martin Connolly

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Martin
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Hi folks, I am tearing out my rapidly thinning hair about this. I am trying to print some b&w photos. I'm doing this from Photoshop CC on my Macbook Pro (with Retina display). The printer is an Epson Expression XP442 with Epson Premium Glossy paper and Epson inks. So far I have tried wireless printing, USB printing and also the Adobe Colour Print Utility. I've been through every option I can find, based on tips I've found around the web, and all the prints still look pale and slightly bluish compared with what I see on screen. I've viewed the photos on a desktop Mac and it looks the same. Can anyone suggest what I am doing wrong?
 
My best guess is that the printer simply can't print black and white without a colour cast; in my (limited) experience I never got a cast free black and white until I switched to a printer that had more than one black ink. Also, from my experience, the truest black and white came out on photocopier paper, not photo paper.
 
My Epson (P800) has an enhanced black and white setting you can chose, so there is no chance of getting a colour cast with it, unless you choose to. Check yours to see if it offers the same.
 
The Expression is a normal 4 colour printer. It only has one black cartridge, so it may struggle to print a monochrome image easily.. I have had a look at the control panel for my small Epson printer that I use for letters etc. If you look on the printer control dialogue ( I'm on a Mac so it may be different to yours) under print setting, choose Color Options. and select "Photo Enhance", and then choose advanced settings and from the scene correction box choose " Grey ". This should send a greyscale image to the printer. I've not tried this recently as my A3+ Epson does all the normal printing. This may help though. Alternatively in the same dialogue box select manual and then advanced settings. This gives you access to colour controls and you may be able to dial the colour out
 
Some suggestions (echoing a lot of what @Chaz Photos said...

- Is it a greyscale photo going to the printer? The printer shouldn't be adding blue ink if it's greyscale. Points towards paper more.
- Make sure you're not colour managing in Photoshop as well as the print driver.
- Make sure you have the right profile downloaded for the paper you're using.
- Artificial brighteners can make paper look blue with their "bluey-whiteness". Can you try a different paper? What paper are you using?
 
Chappers said:
The Expression is a normal 4 colour printer. It only has one black cartridge, so it may struggle to print a monochrome image easily.. I have had a look at the control panel for my small Epson printer that I use for letters etc. If you look on the printer control dialogue ( I'm on a Mac so it may be different to yours) under print setting, choose Color Options. and select "Photo Enhance", and then choose advanced settings and from the scene correction box choose " Grey ". This should send a greyscale image to the printer. I've not tried this recently as my A3+ Epson does all the normal printing. This may help though. Alternatively in the same dialogue box select manual and then advanced settings. This gives you access to colour controls and you may be able to dial the colour out
Click to expand...
Brilliant, that did the trick! Still not as deep a black as it should be, but definitely no colour cast now. Just goes to show, I was following the myriad suggestions which all say choose "Photoshop manages colours".

UPDATE - the print looks much better still on 4x6 paper. The grayscales are quite different. I changed nothing except the paper size. Weird.
 
Last edited:
I suspect the printing app is producing a bit of a generic grey scale image. I've generally found these can be a bit "soft" try crushing the blacks a bit in Photoshop and then print again
 
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