[Misc] Ricoh print driver - Auto colour select?

[sav1973]

Hey all

I've recently come back to Ricoh after working as a Canon tech (my bad).

Does anyone know if any Ricoh print drivers have an auto colour select option, instead of only being able to choose to print in colour or Black and white?

Cheers

[sandmanmac]

Re: Ricoh print driver - Auto colour select?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it would seem to me that what your asking is accomplished by simply setting the default to 'colour' in the driver?
B&W docs print in B&W
Colour docs print in colour

[sav1973]

Re: Ricoh print driver - Auto colour select?

Well it appears to me that if I choose colour when printing a pdf for example, that is made of of some colour pages and some black only pages, it will print all pages using CMY, and not print the black only pages using black toner.

Canon had this option which worked very well, and the customer would charged accordingly. I am more concerned about the output of the document.

[sandmanmac]

Re: Ricoh print driver - Auto colour select?

Ok. Now I got ya.
Then to the best of my knowledge, no there isn't

[KenB]

[slimslob]

Re: Ricoh print driver - Auto colour select?

Most dealers bill a higher rate for color pages. Bearing that in mind, when you default to Color in the driver, if a page has one color pixel, the page will be counted as color. If customers are concerned about cost, that could cost you a customer.

As for printing black as CMY, it is a total waste of color toner.

[Phil B.]

Re: Ricoh print driver - Auto colour select?

Most dealers bill a higher rate for color pages. Bearing that in mind, when you default to Color in the driver, if a page has one color pixel, the page will be counted as color. If customers are concerned about cost, that could cost you a customer.

As for printing black as CMY, it is a total waste of color toner.

+1

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[sav1973]

Re: Ricoh print driver - Auto colour select?

It's more that the document they have created is a mixture colour pages and some with black only, but with a large coverage on the page. The black pages are created from CMY and they don't really look that black at all. There may be a setting in the driver somewhere, currently investigating that.

[rthonpm]

Re: Ricoh print driver - Auto colour select?

Are you using a PostScript driver? I seem to recall from years ago that it would tend to favour process black over just using black toner.

You may want to experiment with a different driver to see if there's any difference in the output, as well as checking the Product Support Guide or other supporting documentation as there have been instances where they will break down what gets printed as mono and what as colour.

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[slimslob]

Re: Ricoh print driver - Auto colour select?

It's more that the document they have created is a mixture colour pages and some with black only, but with a large coverage on the page. The black pages are created from CMY and they don't really look that black at all. There may be a setting in the driver somewhere, currently investigating that.

To my knowledge there is no composite black for any Ricoh designed laser or LED MFP and I have been working on them since before the digital . If the pages were created using CMY then that is a function of the software used to create, not the printer driver. If in fact there are pages that are composite black, it is at the pixel level. In color mode the pixels will be printed according to the colors stored in the pixels. That is why they don't really look Black, because they are not.

[KenB]

[Mark Bbb]

Re: Ricoh print driver - Auto colour select?

To my knowledge there is no composite black for any Ricoh designed laser or LED MFP and I have been working on them since before the digital . If the pages were created using CMY then that is a function of the software used to create, not the printer driver. If in fact there are pages that are composite black, it is at the pixel level. In color mode the pixels will be printed according to the colors stored in the pixels. That is why they don't really look Black, because they are not.

I assume this software will recognize the black parts in the printout and will only use the black PCDU to develop that black (and not the CMY PCDU's)?

[slimslob]

Re: Ricoh print driver - Auto colour select?

I assume this software will recognize the black parts in the printout and will only use the black PCDU to develop that black (and not the CMY PCDU's)?

If only black pixels are on a page, then only the K PCDU will be used.

[KenB]

Re: Ricoh print driver - Auto colour select?

A lot of graphics designers like the look of a "rich black", which will make the black on the page look, well, "richer", but instead of bring just "K", it will be a mix of CMYK, and will absolutely count as a color click.

Also, a few years back I had a customer go ballistic over color click charges. He claimed he wasn't printing any color, which we all know, is extremely unlikely. He claimed the machine was "rigged" (yes, he was an asshat) to count as color.

Turned out he was using his MFP (a Canon machine, in this case) to scan docs to .tiff files, and placed those scans into other docs, which became PDFs, and he ultimately printed those on the same machine.

Even though the images appeared black, the scans were in RGB format (scanners always scan as RGB), and even if the values were equal (which was almost never), it counted as color.

[slimslob]

Re: Ricoh print driver - Auto colour select?

A lot of graphics designers like the look of a "rich black", which will make the black on the page look, well, "richer", but instead of bring just "K", it will be a mix of CMYK, and will absolutely count as a color click.

Also, a few years back I had a customer go ballistic over color click charges. He claimed he wasn't printing any color, which we all know, is extremely unlikely. He claimed the machine was "rigged" (yes, he was an asshat) to count as color.

Turned out he was using his MFP (a Canon machine, in this case) to scan docs to .tiff files, and placed those scans into other docs, which became PDFs, and he ultimately printed those on the same machine.

Even though the images appeared black, the scans were in RGB format (scanners always scan as RGB), and even if the values were equal (which was almost never), it counted as color.

Like I said earlier, when printing in color mode it only takes one color pixel on a page for the entire page to be counted as color.