omoore3

I want to make a copy of an 8x10 B&W photo. Which would be better--scan it or take a picture of it?
The next question is what are the best settings for my Canon Pro-100 printer to print this photo? It's been a long time since I have worked in B&W and I confess that I don't remember anything.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Either method works great if you have decent equipment you know how to use. A photo scanner such as an Epson V-600 (now $300) will do a great job on it. With careful scanner driver software settings, you can make a very accurate copy.

A camera with a macro lens and two well-diffused LARGE light sources will work well, too.

When copying B&W prints with a macro lens, you can record a raw file at the camera and de-saturate it in post-production software. Or, with some cameras, you can set a B&W mode and make a JPEG in the camera.

For best results, set your exposure with a photographic gray card or an incident light reading.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

At the printer, you will need to use either a Canon paper and Canon inks and the driver that came with the printer (or Canon Print Studio Pro). OR, you will need a third party PHOTO paper, and the downloadable free ICC profiles installed in your operating system. Your paper vendor or manufacturer likely has ICC Profiles for the Pro-100 printer using Canon ink. They should have instructions on their web sites for downloading and installing and activating the profiles.

MOST importantly, if you print your own, you should calibrate and profile your monitor(s) using a calibration kit from Calibrite or Datacolor. Without a calibrated monitor, you are flying BLIND. Calibrated and profiled monitors let you adjust the image and get prints that match your screen, provided the lab or printer is equipped with a profile for the printer, ink, and paper in use.

omoore3

Many thanks. I have a Dell Ultra Sharp monitor which I calibrate regularly. However, I do not match paper to ICC Profile. Does it make much of a difference? Also what about no0n-Canon inks for the Pro-100?

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Printer, paper, and ink are a unique combination. Off brand inks vary quite a bit in how well they work with OEM profiles.

If you use an OEM driver, OEM inks, and OEM paper, the driver does the profile match for you when you choose the paper type.

terryMc Loc: Arizona's White Mountains

I have an Epson printer now, having rid myself of the Canon and its plugged up print heads, but this printer has a dedicated B&W setting like some higher end printers. Some recommend NOT using an ICC profile with this setting. You must make a media setting in the driver for the paper, but then print using the B&W setting only. Of course, I don't know if your Canon printer has such a setting or not, of what they recommend for B&W. I get nice B&W from my Epson on Red River paper, and they recommend trying it both with and without the profile and see what works...

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

The high end Epson printers can use all ink colors to print B&W, but I've never liked the results.

fetzler Loc: North West PA

I agree with burkphoto you can use either a scanner or a camera to make the copy.

In post you can desaturate the image or use the color channels to "filter" out any stains or fading. I quite often use the blue channel or a mixture of the blue and green channels.

Print of B&W photos using a color printer can be unsatisfactory. One issue is metamerism - your prints will have a color cast often magenta or green that varies with the type of light used to view the image. Photoshop provides a way to print quad-tone images. Quad-tone images use different colors (shades of gray here) for different degrees of darkness. A couple of the default profiles work well but will require some experimentation. I have several photos printed this way and they are better than the original.

Consider using a commercial printer like Printique.

stan0301 Loc: Colorado

Done both - and like the results I have gotten with a good macro lens quite a bit better