Canon Black

[wilko]

Can someone fully explain the functions of the Canon Pigment & Photo Black cartridges.

I am aware that the pigment black is used to print documents but is the photo black isolated during these prints?

I thought that I had read somewhere that the photo black is used during duplex printing. however, I do a lot of duplex printing and have found that the pigment black is soon depleted whilst the photo black ink levels seem to be untouched. Is only the pigment black used during duplex printing?

I presume that the photo black is used for photo printing but is the pigment black isolated for these prints and does this also apply for B&W photo prints?

Finally if greyscale printing is selected for documents does this solely use the pigment black cartridge?

 

[ghwellsjr]

You can get complete answers to all your questions by clicking on the Injet FAQ's link near the top of this page and looking at the answers to the questions about pigment and dye ink and about greyscale printing.

In general, pigment black is used only on plain paper and dye black is used only on any kind of photo paper but there are special cases. There is no case where both pigment black and dye black are used at the same time (except for a nozzle print which doesn't really count).

Pigment black is mixed with dye colors (but not dye black) on duplex printing on plain paper and dye black is used on borderless prints even on plain paper.

Greyscale printing on plain paper uses only the pigment black (unless you are doing duplex). You can get some fairly good photo prints on plain paper using only the pigment black ink by selecting the High quality setting.

 

[wilko]

ghwellsjr

Thank you for your information and for pointing me towards the FAQ. It was most remiss of me not to consult this section. It is fascinating information.

I have copied some text from the FAQ which helps to answer my question.

The surprise I found was that The black pigment ink density is cut to 50% when performing duplex printing, so presumably using black dye ink in the black pigment cartridge will result in an inferior print when using the duplex function. However, magneta and cyan are added to the mix to make up the difference so presumably this compensates for the reduction in black printing whether dye or pigment is used. I must admit to using dye black in my pigment black cartridge as all my print outs are mainy duplex printed temporary documents which I discard after reading.

I must compare single prints to duplex ones to see if indeed there is a discernible difference but it explains why why my magneta and cyan cartridges are being used when I am printing mainly greyscale documents

Here is the info from the FAQ

"black pigment ink is [almost] always used on plain paper--never on photo paper and the dye black ink is always used on photo paper--[almost] never on plain paper.

The exception is when doing borderless printing which is not recommended on plain paper, but if you do it, the printer will use the dye black ink instead of the pigment black ink.]

When doing duplex printing, the black pigment ink is cut to about one half of the intensity that it would normally print. Then, to make up for this decrease, the magenta and cyan inks are printed in the same area as the pigment black. The yellow and dye black are never added to the pigment black to make up the difference. NOTE: Recent tests have shown that this last statement is only true for 100% black. In fact, yellow, along with magenta and cyan, is blended for some shades of grey. Also, it doesn't matter whether the duplex printing is done automatically or manually, or whether you are doing booklet printing. And, in all cases, we are talking about duplex printing on plain paper".

 

[juliandroms]

I read a Canon forum regarding the MP830 (which I own), that the printer may use pigment black for single sided printing, but always uses the dye cartridges and never the pigment black for duplex printing. Someone asked a Canon rep about this, and the reason given was that the strong color of the pigment black too easily shows through on the opposite side of the paper in duplex, so it's not used in that context.

A hack to get around this behavior is (supposedly) to choose the paper type Hagaki, which is a thicker type of Japanese paper. If this is selected, the printer may use the pigment black for duplex printing.

 

[juliandroms]

Actually, not sure if that is 100% correct. In duplex mode, the MP830 may use composite black (mixture of the color dyes), whereas in simplex mode, it may use pigment black and / or dye black. You'd have to check. As I recall, people were complaining because the behavior was eating up the more expensive color inks in duplex mode even when printing black and white text. But the explanation given and the behavior w.r.t. Hagaki stands.

 

[juliandroms]

Just looked it up again. At the time of origin, the MP830 uses composite black for duplex. But given how much flack they got for it, this may be the only Canon printer that does it. Not sure if Hagaki solves the problem, either, judging from a follow-up post, but I think it likely that show-through on the paper may be the reason your printer was designed differently in duplex vs. simplex mode. You could try another paper type if it is causing you problems but it may not change anything.