Problem Proof Printing Grayscale Photos

[Mike Wickham]

On 6/20/2013 12:09 PM, Karen Robbins wrote:
> Thanks, setting "pure black" did the trick! Any idea why this affects 
> only .tif files?
>
> --Karen

It's just the choice Xerox made in setting up the printer driver. If you 
look at the choices, "Composite Black" uses all four CMYK plates to 
create everything. As I recall, it is the default setting that comes 
with the printer, probably because it uses a lot of unnecessary toner 
and increases toner sales for Xerox. But composite ink is bad for text 
and line drawings because the danger of slight misregistration of the 
color plates can cause annoying color ghosts on type and lines.

The "Automatic" choice is a little better, using only black toner for 
text and line art, but it still wastes color toner on b&w photos. Again, 
my guess is that Xerox knows many people won't notice this, so it's good 
for toner sales. There is a risk of misaligned colors here, but it's not 
as obvious with photos, and if it doesn't happen, the photos will have a 
darker black and might look a bit nicer.

The "Use Pure Black" option fixes it all and uses only pure black on 
objects that are pure black. There's no wasted toner and no risk of 
obvious plate misalignment on thin lines. If you ask me, this should be 
the default setting for Xerox printers, but then I'm not trying to sell 
unnecessary toner. :)

Mike Wickham