Epson printers - grey color in colorful photos

[crexas]

Hi. One question has been bothering me and I fail to find a clear answer for this. Let's say I have an Epson printer (presumably R2880 or something similar) with ~8 different color carts. Let's say 2 of them are grey - light black and light light black. Are these 2 colors used only in B&W printing? I mean the one that you must manually specify in printer settings before printing. What happens if I print a photo that is half colorful and half B&W? Or has some B&W elements in it? If I print the picture normally, will LB and LLB ink be used to form that grey part of picture or are those LB and LLB inks used only when B&W printing is specified in printer settings BEFORE printing? Because if they are, then that would mean that in normal printing grey colors would be mixed and printed using other colors rather than LB and LLB (and presumably have a color shift away from neutral grey when using 3rd party ink). So how does it work?

 

[mikling]

All colors are used in both color and B&W printing ( more the light colors for tinitng). The K3 ink moniker indicates that 3 levels of black (K is used to describe black) are primarily used in B&W and the colors are used to tint as req'd by each user's choice and paper's requirements.

 

[crexas]

Thank you. That is exactly what I wanted to know