# Epson printer prints only in black and white



## Snarkum (Nov 24, 2012)

A friend of mine prints from his own extensive collection of historical railway negatives black and white as well as colour prints to sell at flea markets and the like.

His Windows XP machine died a while back and is only for scanning of negatives and printing decided he should join the Mac World. Purchased a basic Mac mini and transferred all of his numerous files 9many of which were using Corel as the basis for storage to two 500 gig
hard drives. His actual collection is stored in four four drawer vertical file cabinets. If a client wishes a print he pulls it from the file, scans it on the Epson 750 flatbed scanner and then prints it using the save function on the computer. Once scanned it is filed with other such negatives on the computer hard drive. BTW most of the negatives are long gone sizes i.e. 116, 122, 120 3.25 x 4.25 as well as the generic 4x5,5x7 and 8x10 negatives as well. He also has a selection of glass plate negatives.

The problem after transferring from the Corel system to standard jpegs and transferring drive content and the like is one of printing. Images on his monitor
which are black and white print as expected reproduce in black and white
However colour negatives appear on screen as colour positives, however they print black and white.

My friend’s XP system was set up years ago by a good friend. The owner of the collection is at best computer dumb. Push this button or that and it works. if it doesn’t he is stymied. BTW he does not have internet connections, for various reasons.

So my question is, where to look. Did the colour change transferring images from Corel to jpegs on the Mac? Or is there something on the setup on the printer.

He is using an Epson 2880 printer, three years old from new; and has not had any problems, except this particular problem. Latest Epson based software was downloaded here at my place from the internet, however never did try to print colour from here…

Suggestions or thoughts?


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Can he print ANYTHING in colour--like a web page--to test the printer?

Unlikely, but in Epson Print settings there is a setting for "print in greyscale"... you don't suppose...


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## Snarkum (Nov 24, 2012)

Macfury said:


> Can he print ANYTHING in colour--like a web page--to test the printer?
> 
> Unlikely, but in Epson Print settings there is a setting for "print in greyscale"... you don't suppose...


Spent quite some time with him and his printer yesterday.
There is something worse than an owner who knows a little bit to mess things however not enough to really screw things beyond hope.

I removed all the software from his computer regarding the printer; saved it on a 
USB 4 gig stick and then started all over again doing a proper reload and admonished him to leave things well enough alone.

Now the printer works just fine. Seems he figured if he tweeked this or did that all would be well. It made the whole situation much worse, much much worse. Hence the wipe clean and start again method. And i gave him heck for screwing around with computer software he knows nothing of...


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I'll bet he was "printing in greyscale."


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## Snarkum (Nov 24, 2012)

Macfury said:


> I'll bet he was "printing in greyscale."


Not just greyscale, he had a whole bunch of other settings messed.

best to start all over...


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