Let’s start with an easy and technical conclusion, the analysis of the ink consumption clearly shows that both modes use all twelve inks and any notion that the BW mode only uses black and grey inks is not correct.īut more importantly, I’d conclude that while there are some tonal differences, in my eye all the results are acceptable and the choice of print mode comes down to personal preference. Let’s start with the scan of the Photo Rag 308: This first image is then followed by a comparison of the complete page and two more details. For each paper the slideshow starts with one detail of the scan, for which I have increased the saturation for parts of the image, which emphasizes the differences and also shows which result is more neutral. So it is more likely that the BW mode is using a different “recipe” for matte and glossy papers.īelow you can find scans of the printed images, so you can see for yourself. The results of the BW mode are only consistent across papers with the same finish, with warmer prints on the matte papers but cooler results on the glossy papers.Īt first I thought the tone of the paper could play into this, however, while the FineArt Baryta and Photo Paper Pro Luster are relatively bright papers, the Photo Rag Pearl is a warm paper with a tone similar to the Photo Rag 308, yet, the results are more in line with the other glossy papers. The emerging pattern is that the prints in color mode consistently fall on the warmer side of neutral, although to a different extent. The print in BW mode is a bit cooler and compared to the other papers, the cast is more cyan than blue. Photo Paper Pro Luster: the print in color mode is quite neutral, only with increased saturation it shows to be a bit on the warmer side.FineArt Baryta: similar to Photo Rag Pearl but not as pronounced, the color mode falls on the warmer side, the BW mode on the cooler side.Photo Rag Pearl: the print in color mode is clearly warmer than neutral, while the BW mode is also clearly cooler.William Turner: the print in color mode is quite neutral, while the BW mode is noticeably warmer.Photo Rag 308: both prints look quite neutral and similar, only with increased saturation it shows that both fall a bit on the warmer side, the BW mode more so than the color mode.For the descriptions I’ll use the terms “neutral” for no color cast, “warmer” for a more yellowish and “cooler” for a more blueish tone. Nevertheless, the differences is what we are here for, so let’s have a closer look. And when looking at each print on its own, all of them are perfectly acceptable by themselves. While the differences are also visible when looking at the prints side-by-side under good light, they are not as significant as the scans may suggest. Second, and more importantly, in terms of tone, there are some variations, which we are going to discuss in this section.ĭisclaimer: to get a clear picture of the variations I have analysed scans of the images, which already emphasize the differences, and additionally have increased the saturation in some areas. Here two screenshots showing how to activate the BW mode in Canon’s Professional Print and Layout software and the Windows printer driver:įinally, to also better understand how the different modes work, I also compared the ink consumption of each print job, using the Canon Accounting Manager software.įirst, to get this out of the way, in terms of details and fine structures, there does not seem to be any difference in the two print modes. In this post I am sharing the results of those tests and the conclusion I drew from them. However, since most of my photography and thus my printing is in black and white, I was curious to find out if I am missing out on something when ignoring the BW mode and decided to run some tests to understand the difference. I avoided the BW mode, mainly because there is no documentation available what it actually does differently and I am suspect of anything I do not fully understand or have control of. This approach produced excellent results and I never had any issues with unwanted color cast in my black and white prints. So far I have been using the color mode, with custom ICC profiles created for the papers I use and my specific printer (henceforth “color mode”). Second, you can use the printer’s dedicated Black and White Photo mode (henceforth “ BW mode”), which is an available option in the printer driver, Canon Professional Print and Layout and Canon Print Studio Pro. When it comes to printing black and white images with the PRO-1000, you have two options: first, you can use the normal color mode with an ICC profile. Testing the Black and White Photo mode of the PRO-1000
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