Printing B&W - calibration

[FlyTVR]

What's the easiest way to calibrate my monitor so that what I see on my screen is what I get back from the printers.

A set of B&W images that I printed via Jessops all have a green tinge to them I'll obviously take them back and ask their advice (which may or may not be useful), but in the meantime, any advice from you chaps please?

 

[Chappers]

When you print B&W onto colour paper it's very easy to get a slight bias to the image. This is because you are trying to get all three layers to be neutral, plus the human eye is very sensitive to slight changes to neutral tones.

I remember printing B&W images onto colour paper using a Kodak LED printer, it was always a good idea to rerun the calibrations before printing them, as even a very slight deviation, could (would) show up on the final prints.

You may want to look at the images under different lighting conditions. You'll be surprised how much difference it can make to these type of prints. Moving from Artificial light to daylight can make a difference. They may look OK in the shop, but not outside

 

[Chaz Photos]

What's the easiest way to calibrate my monitor so that what I see on my screen is what I get back from the printers.

A set of B&W images that I printed via Jessops all have a green tinge to them I'll obviously take them back and ask their advice (which may or may not be useful), but in the meantime, any advice from you chaps please?

Did you have the photos saved with the right profile for there printer? was it in sRGB mode? with out knowing more hard to say why Is your screen calibrated?

 

[FlyTVR]

Did you have the photos saved with the right profile for there printer? was it in sRGB mode? with out knowing more hard to say why Is your screen calibrated?

And here probably lies my problem.

I'm lacking in any knowledge of printer profiles. Can somebody point to a noddy introduction please?

Screen is not calibrated (other than me comparing images with their printed equivilants). Obviously this turned out to be a useless exercise!

Edit:

Right, done some reading up. I think this is what I need to do.

1. Get a printer profile for the printer that Jessops (or whoever) use.
2. Install printer profile
3. Get my monitor calibrated.
4. Use soft profiling to get a true WYSIWYG feel.

However, I have elements and I don't think it supports soft profiling :-(

Anyway, thoughts?

 

[Toonie]

FlyTVR
Monochrome images do not need to be in srgb, convert them to grayscale 1/3 of the size & then try printing, Ive always used Epson printers as they let you print monochrome using just the black ink with no colour cast because there is no colour, In the for sale section I've got an Epson 1290s & the first image in the thread shows a monochrome image printed on said machine.

Regards Toonie

 

[Kev M]

It has always been my (not massive) experience that if you print B&W with colour inks you always get a cast of some sort, that's why now I only print B&W using black inks (or in a darkroom).

 

[Harlequin565]

What's the easiest way to calibrate my monitor so that what I see on my screen is what I get back from the printers.

A set of B&W images that I printed via Jessops all have a green tinge to them I'll obviously take them back and ask their advice (which may or may not be useful), but in the meantime, any advice from you chaps please?

If you're looking for B&W prints without a colour cast, and happy to pay extra, then Ilford offer an excellent service. The prints are pricey, but it's a true B&W print.

Quick question to those in the know - If you convert an image to greyscale, does that force photolab printers to use only the black ink, thus removing a colour cast?

Ian.

 

[Chappers]

Quick question to those in the know - If you convert an image to greyscale, does that force photolab printers to use only the black ink, thus removing a colour cast?

Ian.

Depends on how they are printing. If they are using ink jet then I would think that the image is printed with the black ink anyway. It's when it's printed onto photographic printers that the problem occurs. Also the printer software may only recognise RGB images so a greyscale would have to be converted to RGB anyway. I suspect Jessops use their minilabs to print these images, hence the problem woth a colour cast

 

[LeeP]

Most printer RIPs will have the facility to run 'black and white' only.
Our epson prints used an 'Advanced B+W' option in the driver itself, which only use photo/matte black, light black and light light black (!). The results : smooth tone changes and true black and white prints

The issue that I see the most is people have done a conversion in PS, kept it as RBG then done further processing. The processing has forced colour casts (usually blue) which then utilises the cyan ink - the result a greeny/blue tinge to prints.

Ask your lab if they can do a final conversion for you and/or print only in black