Aside from being a way to screw you out of another fifteen bucks more quickly...

Is there any valid reason why a printer should print "black" by printing in all three colors? I mean, it's not as though the nearly-full black ink cartridge isn't immediately adjacent to the tri-color cartridge.

:wtf:

Edited because "what the fuck?" makes a lot more sense than "what the ruck?"

And another printer isn't quite in the budget right now.

But thanks all the same! :hi:

there should be a "print black only" setting. Aside from that, you get a better black if you use all colors.

The printing industry frequently asks that you prepare your black areas (if they are extensive) with a percentage of cyan and magenta, and sometimes yellow.

But why do they bother with two separate cartridges if they're just going to mix the ink anyway? A single cartridge with four chambers, one of them for black, would seem to accomplish the same thing...

because people use more black than colors. If you remember to keep it black only, you will end up saving money.

I have 6 separate cartridges on mine, which is geared for reproducing photos. Cyan, light cyan, magenta, light magenta, yellow and black. It saves money in the long run to replace only the color that's running low.

there should be a setting in the printer menu where you can select 'draft output' or exactly what it says may vary from machine to machine, but that makes the printer use less ink and print kind of a gray shade in stead of black, which may be what you want to do with alot of your stuff.

I finally got an okidata laser b&w printer, which is alot cheaper inkwise than an injet. I found that the rare times I want to print a pic, or even a pile of pics, it's cheaper to just go to a copyshop and pay for the pics than printing them at home.

I got the okidata secondhand but they're only around $200 new. I am not up on the cost of the ink yet, though.

I think they're refillable to some extent and I may investigate that option and see how hard it is to do.

When you print, your image goes through a process that makes the colors in your image printable on your printer. The software that does this is the "output profile," and yours is separating black into all four colors to make it darker.

If you can figure out where to change this, it should solve your problem.

You only pay $15 for an ink cartridge? Lucky you. I have two kinds of printers, two Mutohs and a Roland. The ink for the Mutoh printers, which is a private-label product, costs $40 for a 220ml ink cartridge. Ink for the Roland, which is Roland-branded ink to maintain the warranty (you'd maintain the warranty too if you had paid $27,000 for the printer) is $120 for a 440ml cartridge. And these damn machines take TWELVE cartridges!