Pigment or Dye? Does the printer driver choose? (Canon ip4500)

[wileymm]

The question really came up because I print a lot of PDF files. I'm curious if the Canon driver for the ip4500 always sees a PDF as a graphic file, and chooses the dye black ink, instead of the pigment ink. I am seeing the dye black ink level go down, even when I print a a number of PDF files that are 100% black text. What do you think? Is there a way to force the use of the pigment ink for PDFs?

 

[panos]

Are you printing in the duplex (manual or auto doesn't matter) mode offered in the printer driver ? If yes, then a mixture of pigment and dye black (as well as cyan) will be used without an option to turn this off.

Normal PDF files (with vector fonts, not bitmap scannings) will be printed with the pigment black.

 

[Simon R.]

I didn't know that a printer can operate both type of inks at the same time. I thought that the printer uses the type of ink which the ink tanks are filled with.

 

[wileymm]

So you are saying that PDFs that are generated from Word, via a PDF print driver, will trigger pigment black ink to be used with the generated text, and scanned docs will use dye black. OK, that sounds reasonable, as virtually all of the pages that I'm printing are scans of printed docs.

It looks like I can expect more refills of the dye black cart than I would prefer. If anyone has a tip about how to change the print driver's behavior in this instance, I'd really like to hear about it.

Thanks.

Wiley
Oregon, USA

 

[stratman]

Compiled Ink Use Data for the IP4200 engine:

PGI-5 Pigment Black Ink is used ONLY For:
- Plain Paper Test (monochrome and grey scale)
- Envelopes
- Transparencies
- Duplex Printing On Plain Paper
- Camera Direct Printing on Plain Paper

CLI-8 Dye-Based Color Inks are used anytime color is printed and is used exclusively for:
- All Photo Paper types (including when Duplex printing)
- High Resolution Paper
- T-shirt Transfers
- CD-R's
- All Borderless Printing, on both PhotoPaper and Plain Paper


According to Wikipedia:

A PDF file is often a combination of vector graphics, text, and raster graphics. The basic types of content in a PDF are:

text stored as such
vector graphics for illustrations and designs that consist of shapes and lines
raster graphics for photographs and other types of image


It would seem that a PDF made from a scanned document that has text will be treated as text by the printer and black ink will be used according to the media used for printing. Any image that contains text, like a photograph with text within it, will only utilize dye-black ink, PDF or not.

If your curious enough, print out a typical single page of a PDF that contains text, let it dry completely, then run water over the page. If the black text smears/runs, then it is dye-based black ink and not pigment black ink (or you have poorly manufactured aftermarket pigment black ink).

 

[ghwellsjr]

This is a Frequently Asked Question. If you go to the top of this page and click on Inkjet FAQ's you will see the question: What is the difference between pigment and dye based ink? Click on the second answer. I don't have a Canon printer that uses the chipped cartridges but I believe they use ink the same way as the older printers do. The short answer is that the determining factor is the paper you are printing on, not what you are printing. The one exception, as stratman has pointed out, is that the dye ink is used when printing borderless on any kind of paper. Otherwise, pigment black is used on plain paper and dye black is used on any kind of photo paper. The printer does not know that it is printing text vs graphic. It doesn't matter whether text is coming from a text editor or word processor or a pdf or embedded in a graphic image.

 

[Thrasher]

I was just printing some scanned text, because I wanted to use up my Pigment black, so I can refill it. I used the software called Photocopier Pro, that scans and prints the docuent all in one shot.... Now I guess I only depleted my dye black instead of using up my pigment black, right?

 

[Serville]

The printer does not know that it is printing text vs graphic. It doesn't matter whether text is coming from a text editor or word processor or a pdf or embedded in a graphic image.

Actually I think the printer does know whether it prints text or graphics. I'm not technically-savvy enough to explain how, but I think the printer does know from the data type sent by the computer to the printer. If it is graphics, the data sent is actually raster data. If text, the data type is a different type (something like postscript, or scalable something). That's why when you print the text as text (like from Word), the printing speed will be much faster, but if you save the text as a pure JPG file for example, it will take much longer to finish. The printing quality will also be different, where text printing will be much sharper from the text in JPG format. You will also notice that the option "Vivid Photo" or "Image Optimizer" will have no effect at all when you print text in color, but it will when you print the text in JPG format (simply because the printer assumes your text in JPG is a raster image, graphics or photo). That is also why Canon printer gives a much larger black inktank PG-5BK for text printing because Canon has assumed that your daily printing habit will involve more text than graphics. If it is a 4-cartridge printer, the black inktank will not be used when printing photo because the black will be produced by mixing C,M,Y, which is why the black will not be solid black.
That's how I understand it.

As far as PDF printing, the CLI-8 Black will be used instead of PG-5. PDF printing is always assumed graphic printing. PG-5 will not be used at all.
I know this is funny because we assume the PDF is mostly text, but that's not how the computer sees it. I know because I have once printed a 1500-pages of PDF file (with graphics and text) with my broken i865. I had to refill all my BCI-6BK, BCI-6M, BCI-6C, BCI-6Y as many as 5-7 times, but the BCI-3BK was still completely full. In my curiosity why my BCI-3BK was not used for the text printing, I researched the internet and found the fact that PDF printing is always considered graphic printing (raster or vector format). And that's why printing each page of the PDF will take some time than printing the same text directly from Word.

This page will give a better understanding how PDF is considered Raster or Vector graphics.
http://www.querycat.com/faq/4339375ee6ff18b30ce4f94f2944a9ba

 

[Serville]

I was just printing some scanned text, because I wanted to use up my Pigment black, so I can refill it. I used the software called Photocopier Pro, that scans and prints the docuent all in one shot.... Now I guess I only depleted my dye black instead of using up my pigment black, right?

It won't use your pigment ink because you scanned the text with Photocopier Pro.
The result is a bitmapped graphic that looks like your text (and the printer also assumes graphic printing, and it doesnt care if it looks like text)
That's why your dye-black will be used instead. Your pigment black is not even touched.

 

[IGExpandingPanda]

The printer does not know that it is printing text vs graphic. It doesn't matter whether text is coming from a text editor or word processor or a pdf or embedded in a graphic image.

Actually I think the printer does know whether it prints text or graphics. I'm not technically-savvy enough to explain how, but I think the printer does know from the data type sent by the computer to the printer. If it is graphics, the data sent is actually raster data. If text, the data type is a different type (something like postscript, or scalable something).

You could be correct, however I just tested this by printing to a file. I tried the following line form notepad "the following is a test". The result was a 25k document without the words "the following is a test". The driver was the Canon mp830

For laughs I had the old epson 1520 driver still installed on this machine, and that too resulted in a 17k document without the words "the following is a test".

The amount of information seems to be larger than the font used. It does appear to be raster data. If it was something like postscript or HP there would be the words to be printed preceded with which font to use, possible location, and perhaps the font downloaded to the printer. That doesn't appear to happen. While I have met a postscript inkjet (IBM lexmark IIRC) inkjets tend to print in real time. Postscript is a language, and doesn't lend it self to printing in real time.



http://marc.info/?l=gimp-print-devel&m=117070211520290&w=2
http://www.s-line.de/homepages/phoenix/curios/canon/pixma.html