Ahhhhh- that's why my magenta cartridge always empties quicker than the others. Of course i have no idea what the printer thinks! - of warmer black or cooler black. The other old printer i have came as a gift with my iMac and also just prints-- If i do photos, they are not always the same color or shade on the two printers, so I choose the one I like better. But since i don't know anything at all about how to work out a lovely and pleasing image , don't do retouching - i haven't retouched my face in 50 years, I just print as i take pictures - hoping for the best. I mostly do text anyway. I am glad, though, I keep a number of cartridges stored . Epson could give away any printer and still make more than enough on the cartridges. Marta On Aug 8, 2005, at 19:33, Jonathan Fletcher wrote:
> On Aug 8, 2005, at 5:15 PM, Mike Watkins <watk5926 at bellsouth.net> > wrote: > >> Marta, >> >> Jerry Yeager told me once that our printers mix several colors with >> the >> black ink to print black. I forgot why he said it works that way. Mine >> does the same thing. Jerry's a wise man... I have a poor memory for >> details. >> >> Mike > > As a guy who has inhaled a few of the solvents used in offset printing > in his day, I'll weight in on this one. > > Since you cannot vary the amount of ink across the sheet with any > serious degree of accuracy (although some presspeople can sometimes > work magic) the amount of ink slapped on a sheet of paper is not > enough to give you a nice dense black. What happens is that the black, > which is usually trying to cover a really white white, gets stretched > a little thin and ends up looking very flat. If you put too much ink > on the rollers so that it transfers to the plate and thus to the > paper, that same ink will be too heavy in others areas as well. That > means your photos will be too dark and any other mixes that include > some black will be shifted to the dark side. > > What offset printers will do is to add some magenta and/or cyan into > the screening. They end up laying 40 to 60 percent dots of magenta and > cyan under the black (black usually goes down last on the press). That > will give you what is called a "rich black." You can vary your magenta > and cyan (and no two people prefer the same mix) depending on whether > you like a cold black (bluer) or a warm black (redder). > > This is for offset printing mostly. > > In the high quality "photo" setting for your printer, there will be > some color mixed in with the black to make it richer also. But even if > you set your printer for low quality black only it will still not > print with an empty light cyan cartridge for one simple reason. > Anybody who has ever purchased a set of ink cartridges that bargain > basement mechanical marvel will know that reason in their soul: The > printer manufacturers don't make their money on the printers. > > ::-\ > > j. > > -- > Jonathan Fletcher > jfletch at newmediaconstco.com > > > | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will > | be August 25. The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>. > | List posting address: <mailto:macgroup at erdos.math.louisville.edu> > | List Web page: <http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup> | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will | be August 25. The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>. | List posting address: <mailto:macgroup at erdos.math.louisville.edu> | List Web page: <http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup>
