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darrenmars
26-12-2011, 11:08pm
I wanted to print a few photos that I've been very happy with after getting to know the Print module in Lightroom. I either choose a print template or set up my print settings and go ahead and hit print. After a short while my printer spits out my image on some photo paper. Looks about as good as I could expect from this printer as far as print resolution goes but... wait a sec...

My black and white image looks sepia toned! It's as if I've applied an orange tone to my shadows!

I don't know a lot about colour management and I may be making the wrong assumption about what I should expect from my printer (no colour in the image=don't need to bother with colour management). I have tried printing using different profiles but I just get a slightly less/more sepia toned print.

I'm printing from within LR3.6 to a Brother DCP-150c at 240ppi. I've made sure LR is up to date, as well as my print driver and OSX (running the latest available iteration of Lion with al the latest updates). I've tried letting the printer look after colour management and also explicitly setting a profile. The images I'm printing are definitely not split toned or have any colour applied and I'm printing from DNG, NEF and CR2 files with much the same toning effect.

I'm not sure what else I can try... I suppose it could be the printer/ink. The printer itself is quite old now I think, and I think the ink is an aftermarket replacement. The paper is cheap "Kodak Photo Paper" and is glossy. I didn't want to waste money on good paper since I don't have access to a great printer at the moment.

Any advice?

ricktas
27-12-2011, 7:12am
what printer? and are you using genuine inks? does your printer have dedicated black ink, or does it just use the three colour inks to 'create black'? If it has a dedicated black ink, are you setting the printer to only use the black ink, in the print settings, or just telling it to print mono?

Lots of questions here, and inside them is probably the answer to why.

darrenmars
27-12-2011, 9:32am
I should learn to type shorter posts...

The printer I'm using is the Brother DCP-150c.
There are 4 separate ink colours - CMYK
The ink is non-genuine.

Maybe I should see if I can score my father-in-law's Epson R210 that he never uses, and sits next to his HP Officejet... I never noticed he had it until this morning!

ricktas
27-12-2011, 11:39am
ah, sorry, I missed the bit with the printer details.

Aftermarket inks often are not 'true to colour' of the originals, and I have seen this slight sepia look before when using generic inks, so that could be the issue.

darrenmars
28-12-2011, 10:43am
I was hoping someone wouldn't say that, but thanks for pushing me out of denial :) I now have access to a better printer with much better inks so I'll slog away at it again.

ameerat42
28-12-2011, 3:40pm
Call me blind, but I re-read your original post in the light of Rick's question, so if I have missed something, were you using only the black ink cartridge when you got those results?
Am.