Printing Green: This is definitely weird. My old Canon iP4500 will print in different colors if it doesn't work off the black cartridges (for whatever reason). I was printing some...

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

This is definitely weird. My old Canon iP4500 will print in different colors if it doesn't work off the black cartridges (for whatever reason). I was printing some music yesterday, and Galway Girl printed green. I thought it was just a funny coincidence because the printer was having trouble using the black cartridge. I did more printing, and it was all black. Today, I printed Molly Malone, and it's green.

Both of these were printed from a PDF, and I don't see any color indicators. I printed them on my Epson, and they printed black.

dennis2146 Loc: Eastern Idaho

jerryc41 wrote:

This is definitely weird. My old Canon iP4500 wil... (show quote)

Normally that only happens on St. Patricks Day. How odd.

Dennis

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

dennis2146 wrote:

Normally that only happens on St. Patricks Day. How odd.

Dennis

I thought I might have had the wrong date on my computer, but it's okay.

Bob Mevis Loc: Plymouth, Indiana

Yes, it's early for St. Patrick's day. Sorry, couldn't resist. Grin!

Bridges Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA

Check the mfg. label ---- maybe it was made in Ireland!

DaveMM Loc: Port Elizabeth, South Africa

I have found that some JPGs look black but are actually slightly non-black and so will print with the colour cartridges. This usually leads to a slight tint - I use non-Canon ink so this may make it worse. If there is a problem with one colour head, there will be a very strong tint.

When printing a supposedly black JPG, I use Irfanview to make the image black and white (Image/Decrease color depth/2 colors (black/white)) and then print it. You can also save the new 2 bit image if you like.

This probably only works with a black and white image, not for shades of grey.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

DaveMM wrote:

When printing a supposedly black JPG, I use Irfanview to make the image black and white (Image/Decrease color depth/2 colors (black/white)) and then print it. You can also save the new 2 bit image if you like.

Thanks for that tip. I have some copies that were typed not in black, but in ray, so maybe Irfanview can make the text darker.

DaveMM Loc: Port Elizabeth, South Africa

Provided the gray is darker than 50% it should become black. Lighter grays will become white.

Rusty69 Loc: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

The 4500 used to be one of my go-to printers for documents, and I would select "gray-scale" on my Canon printer utility. The images started to get less black as the smaller die based black cartridge depleted, even though the larger pigment ink one was still almost full.
I did some googling and was curious to discover that the grayscale setting invoked a pseudo B&W using the coloured inks. It was not advised to use this setting in the mistaken belief that you were saving coloured ink. After that discovery I now always print documents "as indicated". If they are B&W, the color setting should choose the right cartridge. If they are off-black, you will still get some tinting I believe.
However, one caveat, - both my 4500 printers died when the print heads got blocked on the pigment ink channel. My attempts at cleaning were a waste of effort using a variety of methods. I assumed that this was largely the result of my having avoided the use of the pigment black for so many years - the solids in that ink just clog the head if not flushed through with constant use.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Rusty69 wrote:

The 4500 used to be one of my go-to printers for d... (show quote)

Thanks. Interesting.

aggiedad Loc: Corona, ca

Its not easy being green.

Hangingon Loc: NW North Dakota

I had an Epson which printed b/w photos green when one of the color cartridges (I don't remember which one) ran out. It still doesn't make sense to me but apparently you need colors for black and white prints. Being red/green color blind I did not realize it and was embarrassed when someone pointed it out to me.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Hangingon wrote:

I had an Epson which printed b/w photos green when one of the color cartridges (I don't remember which one) ran out. It still doesn't make sense to me but apparently you need colors for black and white prints. Being red/green color blind I did not realize it and was embarrassed when someone pointed it out to me.

yes, the printer seems to use color, even for black. There is the option to print grayscale, which uses only black ink.

Rusty69 Loc: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

jerryc41 wrote:

yes, the printer seems to use color, even for black. There is the option to print grayscale, which uses only black ink.

Not so with Canon printers - Grayscale uses the colored inks to produce a pseudo black. One good reason to use a different app for printing, provided it gives you a straight up B&W option. I actually find the one that comes in the Adobe PDF app best for documents that are in fact PDFs.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Rusty69 wrote:

Not so with Canon printers - Grayscale uses the colored inks to produce a pseudo black. One good reason to use a different app for printing, provided it gives you a straight up B&W option. I actually find the one that comes in the Adobe PDF app best for documents that are in fact PDFs.

Thanks for that.