Black and White with a red tinge

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Not sure where to start. I have converted a raw dng image in lightroom to greyscale and played with the grayscale mix to achieve a nice tone. Not all of the ones I have converted to b/w have this problem but what I noticed is when I got them printed in a professional lab (profiled) some of my b/w have red tinges in them in odd places. Mainly in the highlights. I thought that maybe it was the lab so I tried a 1hr print spot, the colours not great but the red tinges are still there. So the problem is on my end. I thought if it is greyscale there wouldnt be a colour issue. I am adjusting the red slider in the greyscale mix quite high to get light skin tones. But I wouldnt of thought this would introduce red into the image? To fix this I am going into photoshop and using a hue/sat adj lay to reduce the red sat. (it seems to be working) But I am not wanting to go into photoshop all the time. What gives? TIA
 
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There are a whole set of other problems that might happen by using colour inks to print black and white, but first do you have the Split Toning saturation sliders set to zero, because that could certainly introduce a tone.

John
 
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Thanks for your reply John. I dont have the split toning set to zero because I introduced a soft sepia tone. The sliders are set to highlights hue 35 sat 4 bal -27 shadows hue 6 sat 3. I understand that the whole image will be toned but the problem I have isnt over the entire image and not even on all of the images treated with this preset. Only on a few, just small areas here and there and they are toned red. Like for example I had an image of a newborn being held by her father, there was an area on her forehead, another on the back of one of dads hands and a small area on his chest. It almost looks like sloppy masking. But the image is raw and only had the preset run, sharpened and then professionally printed - no brushes or masking. I cant think of where in my workflow the colour would be introduced in those spots.
 
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OK, then we can eliminate the printing b&w with colour inksets. My bet is this is because of how the printer handle the colour space in the export files. How are you sending them? sRGB is the most dependable.

John
 
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I had uploaded to my prof printers in pro rgb as they will print with all pro adobe and srgb. The 1hr I exported as srgb. I should add that it wasnt always the same photo that has the problem. I printed a set of 6 from each place and the problem turned up in different images from both places. So I think the problem lies with my processing somewhere. If I adjust my colour image in LR with exposure and curves and such and if I use the brush on the colour image say with clarity and some selective dodging and burning, then convert to greyscale. All my image adjustments should hold the greyscale tone? I have noticed that if I use the brush with a colour selected then convert to greyscale where I painted with the colour brush doesnt convert to greyscale. Thanks for your continuing help with this John.
 
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Well you won't get much more if you keep on calling black and white "gxxxscale" ;)

Maybe the problem is that you have odd bits of colour which you added with the brush? Convert to black and white doesn't make the final image into greyscale mode, but just renders the raw data as an initial b&w RGB, leaving you free to add a split tone or colour from the brush or gradient. Try setting the split tone sliders to zero and see if there are any red patches.

John
 
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John, the OP is referring to the Grayscale in LR I think.......
Ingrid, if you have used the adjustment brush or gradient tool with any colour in them, these are applied after grayscale so will show. The idea here is to allow for selective colouring or gradient colouring of a grayscale image.If I am printing a b+w photo at a lab (have only used Fuji ones for this) I export from LR as sRGB then open in PS and convert to grayscale and print from this. This eliminates any colour casts in my experience. I operate printers from time to time as well.
 
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Yes, I know that. We've eliminated colour space/cast issues, and discovered they we aren't dealing with b&w images but split toned ones with colour added from the brush.

John
 
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I don't think so John, check her second post where Ingrid states that there is only split toning and no brushes. etc.Can you post one of these files or a scan of a print.I have seen some weird colour spot issues but understood they had been resolved.As an experiment, if you convert the file to grayscale and back to RGB in PS then add a split tone to see if that removes the spots. Also try converting to g/s in PS then reimporting to LR, added the split tone and export and see if that gets rid of the spots. And as John said try one with no split toning. Sorry this is a bit of an effort but there are many possibilities to try and eliminate.Thanks.
 
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Thanks for your continuing help guys. Sorry John, Kiwigeoff is right, I am calling it grayscale because that is what the panel in LR is called. I checked on one of the images that had the problem and I hadnt used the brush at all. But on another one I had used the brush with -clarity on the skin, but the patches when printed were only on bits of the skin not everywhere I had used brush. If I use the brush with increased exposure after it has been hit with the split tone, it should just lighten and not introduce any colour... right? If it helps my process with these images all in LR has been fix exposure, cloning, then use the brush if needed with exposure, skin clarity, then using the greyscale panel and moving sliders around in there generally increasing the reds to lighten skin tone, doing a curves then adding a split tone then a final brush with doding and burning (exposure) if needed. I like the conversion with LR and havent managed to get the same effect in PS is there a way to mimic what I have done in LR? In the meantime I will try your suggestions and get an image uploaded. Thanks
 
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Thanks Ingrdid, is that the exact file that you printed or a copy for the web? Can you email me the file from LR as a DNG: geoffwalkernzatgmaildotcomThanks.........
 
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