Printing in black and white

[rustyLr]

Lightroom Version Number

9.4

Operating System

1. macOS 10.13 High Sierra

I gather that if you want to print a neutral B+W images from Lr you need to turn of colour management? I use a Mac so after fiddling around I found out how to set Printer Managers colour and then I can see Advanced B+W Photo option and Advanced Settings tab is visible. I'm starting to use my new Epson P906 A2 printer. Anything else I need to know about B+W printing from Lr or using a colour printer for B+W jobs?

 

[Bernard]

When your image is converted into B&W, you have several options to print it:
. 'normal' printing with an ICC color profile in LR, color is managed by LR as usual, color management set to off in the printer driver.
. almost the same as above, but with a specific ICC profile tailored for B&W. You have to buy it for your printer+paper combination.
. use the advanced B&W option of the Epson printer driver.

Option 1 gives good results if the B&W conversion is ok
Option 2 may give better results, normaly you get your B&W ICC profile in 3 flavors : neutral, warm and cold
Option 3 : I have never used it
Bernard

 

[rustyLr]

When your image is converted into B&W, you have several options to print it:
...
. almost the same as above, but with a specific ICC profile tailored for B&W. You have to buy it for your printer+paper combination.

I tried to get a B+W ICC profile from my printing place but they said it couldn't be done on a Mac as the drivers have changed. When I select Generic RGB in Mac Photoshop (recommended for printing B+W calibration test page) it says its does not support 'no color management' and to use Adobe Colour Printing Utility instead, but in that utility the black and white drop-down is greyed out in the Color: setting

 

[Bernard]

"I tried to get a B+W ICC profile from my printing place"
What do you mean by printing place ? You have to buy the profile from a specialised provider, and to print a special chart with hundreds of patches. To print that chart, you need indeed to use 'no color management' which is not possible anymore, I think, from photoshop. So you must use that Adobe utility, but only for printing the chart. For printing your images, you will use photoshop or LR.
I don't know about a limitation for no color management for the mac with that utility, I am using Windows.

 

[Bernard]

There is a special procedure to get 'no color management' with the Adobe utility on Mac :
https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/no-color-management-option-missing.html

 

[rustyLr]

"I tried to get a B+W ICC profile from my printing place"
What do you mean by printing place ? You have to buy the profile from a specialised provider, and to print a special chart with hundreds of patches. To print that chart, you need indeed to use 'no color management' which is not possible anymore, I think, from photoshop. So you must use that Adobe utility, but only for printing the chart. For printing your images, you will use photoshop or LR.
I don't know about a limitation for no color management for the mac with that utility, I am using Windows.

I use a specialised printing place that sells high end printers, does pro printing and sells custom ICC profiles. He's primarily PC based but says he can no longer provide B+W profiles for Macs. He told me "you can only use B+W profiles for soft proofing on the Mac - you won't be able to use it to adjust the print the way you can on the PC, or the way you can with colour profiles on the Mac." I couldn't get the Adobe Print Utility to work for B+W profiles correctly as the Advanced B+W option is greyed out and the profile needs this to produce correct prints. I was seeing if anyone else had this issue.

 

[Bernard]

Again, I have no expérience of printing with a Mac.
But, here in France a company called CMP known and used by all professionnals is providing different services around printing. They do not mention any limitation concerning B&W profiles for mac, and concerning the Adobe utility for mac, here is a quick translation of their remark for mac users :

" Check that you have installed the complete printer driver, usually called 'xxx serie 2', allowing all available options (colorsync, large paper choices, advanced options...). When you print the chart with the Adobe utility, the colorsync choice is greyed, that's normal and indicates that color management is indeed disabled (mac only)".

" vérifiez que vous avez bien installé le driver complet de votre matériel ( souvent nommé XXX series 2, qui permet d'avoir toutes les options disponibles ( colorsync, large choix de papiers, options avancées ... ). Lors de l'impression des mires à l'aide de l'utilitaire Adobe, le choix " colorsync " est grisé: c'est normal et cela indique que la gestion des couleurs est bien désactivée dans le driver ( sous mac uniquement )."

 

[rustyLr]

Again, I have no expérience of printing with a Mac.
But, here in France a company called CMP known and used by all professionnals is providing different services around printing. They do not mention any limitation concerning B&W profiles for mac, and concerning the Adobe utility for mac, here is a quick translation of their remark for mac users :

" Check that you have installed the complete printer driver, usually called 'xxx serie 2', allowing all available options (colorsync, large paper choices, advanced options...). When you print the chart with the Adobe utility, the colorsync choice is greyed, that's normal and indicates that color management is indeed disabled (mac only)".

Ok thanks for that info