When it comes to printing black and white images with the PRO-1000, you have two options: first, you can use the normal color mode with an ICC profile. Second, you can use the printer’s dedicated Black and White Photo mode (henceforth “BW mode”), which is an available option in the printer driver, Canon Professional Print and Layout and Canon Print Studio Pro.

So far I have been using the color mode, with custom ICC profiles created for the papers I use and my specific printer (henceforth “color mode”). This approach produced excellent results and I never had any issues with unwanted color cast in my black and white prints. I avoided the BW mode, mainly because there is no documentation available what it actually does differently and I am suspect of anything I do not fully understand or have control of.

However, since most of my photography and thus my printing is in black and white, I was curious to find out if I am missing out on something when ignoring the BW mode and decided to run some tests to understand the difference. In this post I am sharing the results of those tests and the conclusion I drew from them.

Here two screenshots showing how to activate the BW mode in Canon’s Professional Print and Layout software and the Windows printer driver:

Test Approach

For testing, I created the A4 test image shown below, containing crops from different black and white images, which include fine details, soft gradients as well as harsh contrasts.

I printed the test image on four papers: Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308, William Turner, Photo Rag Pearl, FineArt Baryta and Canon Photo Paper Pro Luster, on each paper once in color mode and once in the BW mode. Note, as it will become important later, that Photo Rag 308 and William Turner are matte papers using media types based on Matte Black as black ink, while the others are glossy papers, using media types based on Photo Black as black ink. For the Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308, Photo Rag Pearl and FineArt Baryta I used custom ICC profiles created by my local print supplies shop. For William Turner I used the ICC profile from Hahnemühle and for the Canon paper I used the ICC profile that automatically comes associated with the media type.

The test image was then scanned using my office scanner. The scanner is not calibrated, so to avoid color casts from the scanning, I have scanned a grey card and used it to color-correct all scans. To verify the correction values, I checked the scan of the grey card with increased saturation:

Finally, to also better understand how the different modes work, I also compared the ink consumption of each print job, using the Canon Accounting Manager software.

Visual Comparison

First, to get this out of the way, in terms of details and fine structures, there does not seem to be any difference in the two print modes. Second, and more importantly, in terms of tone, there are some variations, which we are going to discuss in this section.

Disclaimer: to get a clear picture of the variations I have analysed scans of the images, which already emphasize the differences, and additionally have increased the saturation in some areas. While the differences are also visible when looking at the prints side-by-side under good light, they are not as significant as the scans may suggest. And when looking at each print on its own, all of them are perfectly acceptable by themselves.

Nevertheless, the differences is what we are here for, so let’s have a closer look. For the descriptions I’ll use the terms “neutral” for no color cast, “warmer” for a more yellowish and “cooler” for a more blueish tone.

• Photo Rag 308: both prints look quite neutral and similar, only with increased saturation it shows that both fall a bit on the warmer side, the BW mode more so than the color mode.

• William Turner: the print in color mode is quite neutral, while the BW mode is noticeably warmer.
  

• Photo Rag Pearl: the print in color mode is clearly warmer than neutral, while the BW mode is also clearly cooler.

• FineArt Baryta: similar to Photo Rag Pearl but not as pronounced, the color mode falls on the warmer side, the BW mode on the cooler side.

• Photo Paper Pro Luster: the print in color mode is quite neutral, only with increased saturation it shows to be a bit on the warmer side. The print in BW mode is a bit cooler and compared to the other papers, the cast is more cyan than blue.

The emerging pattern is that the prints in color mode consistently fall on the warmer side of neutral, although to a different extent. The results of the BW mode are only consistent across papers with the same finish, with warmer prints on the matte papers but cooler results on the glossy papers.

At first I thought the tone of the paper could play into this, however, while the FineArt Baryta and Photo Paper Pro Luster are relatively bright papers, the Photo Rag Pearl is a warm paper with a tone similar to the Photo Rag 308, yet, the results are more in line with the other glossy papers. So it is more likely that the BW mode is using a different “recipe” for matte and glossy papers.

Below you can find scans of the printed images, so you can see for yourself. For each paper the slideshow starts with one detail of the scan, for which I have increased the saturation for parts of the image, which emphasizes the differences and also shows which result is more neutral. This first image is then followed by a comparison of the complete page and two more details.

Let’s start with the scan of the Photo Rag 308:

Then the matte William Turner:

Followed by the glossy Photo Rag Pearl:

And now the glossy FineArt Baryta:

And finally the glossy Canon Photo Paper Pro Luster:

Comparison of Ink Consumption

To try to understand a bit better how the two print modes differ, I took a look at the ink consumption, using Canon’s Accounting Manager.

The main takeaway is that both the color mode and the BW mode use all twelve inks, so the notion that the BW Mode only uses grey and black inks is clearly not correct.

On the matte papers, the color mode in total is actually using more ink, while on the glossy papers the BW mode is using a bit more. But this is not across the line for all inks, in each case, some inks are being used more, others less. So you could summarize that both the color mode and the BW mode use the all same ingredients, but with a little different recipes.

Below a table that shows the ink consumption for each print:

Conclusion

Let’s start with an easy and technical conclusion, the analysis of the ink consumption clearly shows that both modes use all twelve inks and any notion that the BW mode only uses black and grey inks is not correct.

But more importantly, I’d conclude that while there are some tonal differences, in my eye all the results are acceptable and the choice of print mode comes down to personal preference.

In my tests the color mode generally produced results more consistent across all papers, all staying on the warmer side of neutral. The results of the BW mode on the matte papers are also warmer, even more so than those of the color mode, while on the glossy papers the results are clearly cooler than neutral. Since the glossy papers differ in their own tone this is probably not the source of the discrepancy between the paper types, instead it seems the BW mode is using a different “recipe” for matte and glossy media types.

Despite some patterns emerging, I would be careful to generalize those results, the outcome for other papers and other ICC profiles may be different. So, if black and white printing is important to you, I would encourage you to run a few test prints of your own and decide for yourself!

As always, I’d be happy to hear your thoughts or questions on this post, feel free to contact me.