Great video as usual. You mention that the small market prevents printer manufacturers from producing black and white only printers. But actually, it can be done in a very simple way: They could take a 5 or 6 colour printer, make a greyscale ink set, and offer greyscale firmware/software for that printer. Since both Canon and Epson offer very reasonably priced 5-6 colour printers, this could become a printer that many could afford to have as a number 2 printer. A 24" printer would do, since b&w is rarely printet in huge formats anyway.

I’m a boutique print studio running Piezography® Pro 11-inkset in Epson SP-9900 since March 2021 when I brought it over for my BA Photography (Hons) final major project. I decided to convert my 9900 to piezography because I couldn’t find anyone else offering it in the UK and I had already invested in the P9500, so was willing to take the risk after doing my research. Having made the conversion and exceptional prints for my project, I made Piezography® Pro available to other artists and photographers who wanted superior monochrome prints. The archivability, detail, neutrality and flexibility is outstanding. Jon Cone nailed it with Piezography. Appreciate your work Keith!

Need to go back to the old days.... Durst Modular 70 Multi-grade! Heaven!!!

I always enjoy the technical aspects of your videos, especially learning new technical terms found at 8:49!

Very good information! Thank you.

An excellent explanation. Thank you so much.

Good information! Thank you.

Nearly a week back I went to a print shop to get a few black and white photographs printed and framed to hang it on the wall. All the black and white photographs had green tinge in varying amount, so I asked to print it in black and white mode and that print still came out with a green tinge but was slightly less in intensity when compared to the print that was done in colour mode. I felt bad as it was the first time I went to get a few black and white photographs printed. After I came back home and hung those framed photographs on the wall, the green tinge couldn't be seen at all unless I looked at the photograph in particular angle and it was seen to a very slight degree. I was happy to see the neutral black and white photographs that I wished for. Thank you for this video.

Thank you for a great video.

You always an inspration Keith. Thanks for the tip of covering to grayscale before printing.

Thanks again, Keith - also for former reply on my quiz on failing to calibrate my BenQ SW272U - everything now works. And also had time to refine my workflow on printing , setting up the correct "media settings" / associated with paper ICC Profiles . MY results are now more to my eyes taste - and a pleasing learning journey ( being postoperative after back surgery some weeks ago) As surgeon myself I find myself learning new aspects on both editing and printing almost "every day" . Thank you so much, Sir ! I live in Norway, and my setup ( shooting: Leica M10P / M9Monochrome ) ; MacMini (2023) / Lightroom CC / Photoshop / SileverEfex and subsequently printing ( either thru ICC og ABW mode ) with EPL on the P900. Cheers !

Good 1 Keith

Amazing how powerful our brains are, when you consider that we actually see in B&W and our brains change it to colour, I watched a programme on it and others where the mind takes over. So I suspect that like other things, we love black & white well I love it and again like everything, we sometimes look to close or in some cases not enough, we even accept a majority opinion and I personally feel that if you are happy, then it’s fine, when you see some of the manipulations of photography today, it’s down to the individual. Very interesting points though.

Very interesting video. Thank you. I recently printed a black and white portrait photo and wondered why it had such a pink/purple look to it. I will experiment with different paper ps as per your suggestion.

Off topic but in the 1950s Superman TV series with George Reeves, Supermans cape is meant to be red but in the B&W movie, the cape was coloured brown which made it stand out better than a red cape.

On my old Epson photo printer, I needed to use B&W mode to get good B&W prints. But on my SC900, my custom color .icc profiles work even better for B&W printing. I don’t know why, but it’s a really simple solution.

I use a Canon 200. I print o (usually) Canon Semigloss. The printer is CMYK, photo magenta photo cyan, grey and light grey as well as black ink. I occasionally use Canson baryta. Everything comes with a paper manufacturers profile for my specific ink and printer. The best prints I ever made were on an Epson with Epson paper. I had a savy co worker and a recent grad ofPratt in sist that i was lying about them being injet prints.

Keith . Id love to see a whole video on QTR please

I use an IOne Studio to not only calibrate my monitor, but to set brightness. Then I used it to create custom profiles, not only for color, but black and white profiles. It turned my printing from hours of cursing, swearing, frustration, wasted paper and ink to one step... hit print.

I had an epson 1400 with costum black and white inkset that printed beautiful prints b4 its eventual death. I now have an 8550 that does well with some tweaking. I found that if you change the paper finish type to gloss, satin or semi -gloss etc. it will change the cast of the print. So I have found that some papers this is the only tweak I need. So the best bw might be on a satin setting for a gloss paper.

Thanks, as always. As you say, different people perceive color differently, but what it really comes down to is how the image looks subjectively. The actual "accuracy" of color (including shades of grey and subtle, or not so subtle, tinting of "B&W" images isn't as important as how the image "works" (from the perspective of the photographer and/or viewer). Of course, B&W film prints aren't '"pure" greyscale either, dependent on many variables. As you also point out, studio/gallery lighting affects things as well. Bottom line: there's no such thing as a "perfect" print but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to make the best prints we can (and you help a lot of people in that regard). BtW, in many cases where an image "should obviously be B&W," I often find myself NOT converting it, as subtle colors can be more interesting. This often occurs with images recorded near dawn or twilight when there are both warm and cool areas in the scene or when there's some prismatic/refractive effect. That can make the image. I'll continue to rely on Silver Efex Pro, just not all the time. That said, great idea regarding B&W-optimized profiles. Maybe you should start a campaign to lobby the printer/ink/paper suppliers to address that. I'd support your efforts!

Great videos Keith. I've got a Canon Pro 1000 I've used for 5 years, recently some cartridges can't be removed & replaced and other cartridges won't engage and stay in. I researched and found SLD Office Systems who allegedly work nationally and claimed to know my Canon machine and claimed to be able to service and fix 95% of the issues on their first visit. Despite describing my printer and the issues I was experiencing to them over the phone before the y came out, very quickly I realised that the chap that arrived didn't know the machine, had no spare parts and had no intention of repairing and servicing my Pro 1000. He simply poked his finger in the cartridge slots, tugged a few bits (all of which I had tried before his arrival), only for him to then tell me its cheaper to simply replace the printer. He then wanted to charge me £120+VAT for the 20 mins he was in my office. I just wondered about your experiences and thoughts about such cowboys, getting printers serviced and repaired and by whom. After watching all your reviews I'm going to get rid of the Pro 1000 and replace it with a Canon Pro 300. Another question, how do I dispose of the old Pro 1000 responsibly? The cowboy that turned top told me to put the Pro 1000 in the green recycle bin covered with lots of news papers etc so the bin men didn't know it was in there!

When it comes to using Canon Pro series printers, lightroom and/or photoshop are terrible for bnw accuracy (i was always getting green or other tinges). The only way to print reliably is to export then us canons proprietary app. Painful, but it works.

Wasn't piezo printing supposed to solve the b&w printing by offering various shades of gray? However, it seems piezo has been killed off by the printer manufacturers chipping the cartridges.

Just popped into my head, almost immediately, when you mentioned "your favourite paper for colour", that those darned UV brighteners can likely produce anomalous colours in even one of the dies or pigments, so that UV content in a particular illumination environment will vary the tint, vs. any different UV, or near-UV, illuminant. So, giving up on any UV-enhanced white...

This might seem something of an odd solution but instead of printers relying on the base colour of the paper to represent white ( ie areas where zero or very little ink is deposited) why don't they introduce a pigment white ink? A white ink could then be applied in areas which are required to be pure white but also mixed to produce lighter tones in the way greys are utilised. The white ink would need to be pigment based of course to remain opaque, I doubt dye based white ink could achieve that. The entire surface of the paper would be printed to with none of the papers underlying surface colour affecting the final reproduction. Surely this would have benefits to both Black and White and Colour prints. Just a thought 🤔

How about printing a B&W image, photograph with the colorchecker passport, white balance on the colorchecker so it's accurate, then white balance on the photo (for added accuracy, you could make a camera profile with the colorchecker passport first) then save that a white balance preset in Lightroom.

As always excellent video. I just bough a canon pro 1000, so I intent to dedicate ma Epson R3000 for BW by “converting” it to piezography inks. Do you have experience on this process or do you know people with it ? Based on your comments in this video, I’m more specifically concerned about calibration (if needed). Thx

IMHO If you want the ultimate B/W inkjet prints, the only way to go is the Piezography Pro inkset. Yes the inks are expensive & can only be used in an Epson printer, but the prints are stunning.

On a B&W photo, or in B&W mode does the Epson ET-8550 use pigmented black only? Is there a way to get it to use black pigments only?

Hi Keith, i bought a Canon G510 (6 inks) with black and light grey. Do you have any tips to improve my B&W impressions?

Excellent! 👍🏾🙏🏾 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇸🇪🇹🇹

Hi Keith, Is Black and White printing easier with photos shot with a B & W camera eg: Leica monochrom ?

How did we exist with silver print before? There were only silver halogens. ))

Are there any turn key solutions for this problem that don't cost thousands?

I fail to understand why this remains an issue. Both epson and canon have dedicated bw modes and you can experiment with them to get the tone you want on your paper of choice. I tend to NOT like printing neutral; i prefer to look at the image and decide if i want to print it cool or warm.

You have no comments on printing from a digital b and white cameras

I feel like this is one area where machine learning and AI could come into play. At this stage its sadly a nothing more than a hypothetical possibility, as most implementations of ai ™️ is garbage and gimmicky at best. Sadly, as you pointed out, the demand for black and white is low, therefore as will the efforts. Considering the anachronistic nature of printing and color management software I think new players could revolutionise this industry. Sadly I think IP will also hamper this domain. It’s intriguing. Ultimately, if AI fails, i think we may see people returning to darkroom printing , possibly utilising hybrid workflows ( eg digital negatives)

Clogging is inkjet's main enemy