Black isn't color?

[technical.angel]

Got a work order that a personal printer was acting "weird". The idiotic faculty member in question had tried replacing an ink cartridge, it didn't work, so they kept the old one, just in case.

After much fighting, and scratching of the head and cleaning of the cartridges, I tried printing the document the faculty member had left open for me. I changed the color to blue, and it printed without any problems.

The faculty member came in at that time. I asked where the cartridge was that she replaced. It was color.

I told her that the problem was that she was out of ink.

"No I'm not! I just replaced the cartridge!"

"You replaced the color. It's the black that's out."

"Black isn't color?"

A billion responses were born and then killed themselves in my head.

I explained everything. I don't think she believed me. As I was about to leave, she pulled a random form out of her desk drawer, and asked me where she could find it on the website.

I looked at the form, and suggested she contact the Academic Dean's office, as that's the office it came from.

She acted highly insulted.

Sure, yeah, okay, I know where every single piece of information is located on our website. Sure.

[IT Grunt]

Uhhh.... <drool>

BEEP!

Ah, much better. My brain had to reboot after that system crash. Each time I read this, it just bolsters my argument that there should be a license for people to use technology.

Slightly OT, I for one liked it when they started putting the two cartridges together into printers. I had an old Epson that required you to install one or the other, and black came out looking like a washed out gray on that one. Best it could do mixing the colors.

[technical.angel]

Well, for the most part, she doesn't... thankfully.

Although the times when she doesn't have her cadre of work study around are the times I want to kill myself.

This is the person who absolutely FREAKED when we upgraded her to XP from 2000. We were able to make it LOOK like 2000, and it made her happy. Though, we couldn't do anything about the Office 2003.... We just don't have a copy of Office 97 any more.

Despite NOT being blind, she has about a 20+ inch monitor, with the screen size set to like HUGE since she claims the old monitor display wiggled.

Then, to top everything off, she got mad at us because...

WARNING! SC LOGIC AHEAD!



We didn't send out a voicemail saying the voicemail was down.

[LifeCarnie]

"You replaced the color. It's the black that's out."

"Black isn't color?"

A billion responses were born and then killed themselves in my head. .

To be fair, by scientific definition, black isn't a color. Black, as scientifically defined, is the total absence of color.

Soooo, maybe the SC is a science geek.

[clowninasack]

To be fair, by scientific definition, black isn't a color. Black, as scientifically defined, is the total absence of color.

Soooo, maybe the SC is a science geek.

Sounded like she was confused as to why black wasn't a colour.

Besides that's when you're talking about light. Ink is different, right?

[technical.angel]

Correct on both counts.

The SC couldn't fanthom why the black ink wasn't included in the color cartridge.

In ink, black in a mixture of all possible colors. In light, black is the absence of color... or you know, light.

[Fenrus]

Okay... I'm pretty sure the blue screen flashed before my eyes...

Not sending a voicemail saying the voicemail is down, not knowing a Black cartridge has black ink, not the Color cartridge...

...

I think my brain just reset itself again....

[technical.angel]

I think my brain just reset itself again....

And I have to deal with her in person!!!

Which is why I usually take a babysitter over with me. That way, someone can hit me before I say what they know I'm thinking.

[lordlundar]

From the artistic point of view:

When artists talk colour, it is in reference to light, so black is an absence of colour and white is all the colour. That is why you get a rainbow when you hold a prism up to the sun. There are three colours that when combined in various ways, can produce any colour available. These are red, blue and green. When you look closely at a CRT TV or monitor, you see the three primary colours there.

Now, when artists want to talk in reference to materials, they refer to it as pigments. Where in theory black is a combination of all the pigments and white is an absence of pigments. Like with the colours, there are three primary pigments that can create any pigment when mixed together. These are yellow, cyan, and magenta. What you see on paper is a combination of these three pigments.

Yes, I remembered that from my junior high art class. My mind is a funny thing in that respect.

So why is there black ink when the three primary pigments can also produce black? 2 reasons:

1) in theory, the mix creates black, but in practice, you have to be pretty precise to pull it off, the black ink is effectively pre mixed precision.

2) cost. It is cheaper to replace one reservoir of black then three of the primary pigments, and seeing as most business prints are black and white, having that black is a lot cheaper in the long run.

[Kogarashi]

Artists: color vs. pigment

While true that when talking white and black, with light white is all and black is none, and in pigment white is none and black is all, my junior high art class never talked about color in terms of light. We only ever talked about it in terms of pigments. It was only in science class that we got the light discussion instead. I'll have to check with my art major friends, but I seem to recall that with them it was the same way.

As for mixing black with colors instead of using the pre-mixed stuff, I had a nutty art teacher in 8th grade. We had to do a unit on the color wheel, and mix paints together to fill the different spots. Red, blue, and yellow were easy. Orange, green, and purple also rather easy, though shades varied among students. But then the teacher also expected us to mix precise portions of paint to make "neutral gray" for the middle of the color chart. No one, and I mean no one, managed to actually get gray. Most of us got a muddy brown. And the teacher seemed awfully frustrated by this fact and had us each re-mix and re-paint on our charts twice before giving up. No, she didn't actually mix her own to see if she could get gray. Her sample chart clearly used a bottle of gray paint for its center space.

With having two cartridges in the printers now (or more), there's only one time that bugged me. I used to have an Epson 777. Not only did it become extremely difficult to find cartridges for this stupid printer, and not only was it slowly dying and had lint and old ink gunked up between the rollers (dragging marks of black across paper I printed on), but it apparently required enough ink in both cartridges every time it printed to draw a little out, "to keep the printer heads clean." Which was laughable, because I had to clean the printer heads multiple times before printing anyway, at least the last of its 7 years of life. What this meant, though, was that if we ran out of color ink, we couldn't print our school papers (in plain ol' black) until we replaced the color cartridge, because the printer whined at us. Much as I dislike HP printers, at least my parents' old HP could still print in blue or magenta or something if the black cartridge ran out.

But now we've got my parents' old HP all-in-one which, while murdering the art I scan in on it, prints quite decently. I may be modifying my stance on HPs after all.

[technical.angel]

at least my parents' old HP could still print in blue or magenta or something if the black cartridge ran out.

Which is how I made the scary teacher of the year happy.

I showed her how to change her font color on the document. Which I'm sure she promptly forgot.

[Geek King]

In ink, black in a mixture of all possible colors. In light, black is the absence of color... or you know, light.

<hums She Blinded Me with Science>

[...]but it apparently required enough ink in both cartridges every time it printed to draw a little out, "to keep the printer heads clean."

Would this be a bad time to mention the HP printer I bought to replace my old no-name a few years ago has replacable print heads seperate from the ink cart? A couple of button presses and *pop*, there they are. So of course, I've had no issues with clogging since I've been using it.

[Naaman]

Would this be a bad time to mention the HP printer I bought to replace my old no-name a few years ago has replacable print heads seperate from the ink cart? A couple of button presses and *pop*, there they are. So of course, I've had no issues with clogging since I've been using it.

That was always my biggest issue with supporting Epsons, "oh, your cleaning the heads isn't working? Hmmm you may have damaged the print heads and it'll cost a small fortune to send it away to get repaired". That's why I liked it when we switched to Lexmarks , expensive ink but at least the cartridges came with new heads every time.

[Andara Bledin]

If you've got an inkjet, you really want to stick with OEM ink. Some of the generic stuff is just awful and will gunk everything up in just one cartridge.

Mr Bright-idea at the shop bought some cheap black ink carts for one of our machines, and they made a mess of the printer. We swapped back to the OEM carts, and after several pages, it went back to looking halfway decent.

But I hate that printer, anyway. The controls and alarms are obscure and esoteric, and I'm not sure you don't have to know some ritual magic to make it work right. Actually, to be honest, I don't like any inkjet printers I've run into. I also never print photos, so I have no use for any of them.

^-.-^

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Uhhh.... <drool>

BEEP!

Ah, much better. My brain had to reboot after that system crash. Each time I read this, it just bolsters my argument that there should be a license for people to use technology.

Slightly OT, I for one liked it when they started putting the two cartridges together into printers. I had an old Epson that required you to install one or the other, and black came out looking like a washed out gray on that one. Best it could do mixing the colors.

That sounds like my old Epson Color Stylus IIs . . . that one was a royal PITA to change a cartridge in. It would take several attempts just to get the cartridge to snap down in the correct position after putting one in. It was almost as bad just trying to get one out.

Needless to say, I wasn't too upset when it got "Zoeyed." (I guess that cat didn't like that particular printer either.)