Photo black cartridge life too short

The photo black cartridge in the Photosmart 7525 has a very short lifespan compared to the other cartridges. I rarely print photos. Can this cartridge be bypassed to save on ink?

Hello @MinPville,
Welcome to the HP Support Forums!
I understand that you would like to bypass the photo black cartridge on your HP Photosmart 7525 e-All-in-One Printer. I would like to assist you with this today.
This printer is meant for printing photos with high quality, therefore there is no way to 100% avoid using the photo black cartridge. When you go to print from your computer, ensure that the paper type is set to 'plain' paper. Also, set the quality to 'draft' or 'normal' rather than 'best' and the printer shouldn't use very much if any photo black.
In this model of printer the HP 564 Photo Cartridge will give you a page yield of about 130 4 x 6in pages. This is based off of a 5% page coverage. The 5% page coverage works out to be about 2 paragraphs double-spaced on your page. Also, the photo black, just like the other colour cartridges, are also used for printer maintenance to keep your printhead healthy. Therefore, a small amount of ink will be used during the printhead cleaning process or printer maintenance that will occasionally run.
When printing photos from your computer and certain documents (PDF or Internet Files) your printer generally uses a bit of colour and photo black to enrich those print jobs as they are sent from your computer to the printer as image files. Should you rarely print in colour I would suggest setting your printer to 'black ink only' which would only utilize your regular black cartridge rather than your photo black.
How to set Black Ink Only:
Click on your Start menu
Select Devices and Printers
Right click on your HP Photosmart
Left click on Printing Preferences
Select the Advanced tab and set the printer to 'black ink only'
Hit Apply and OK to save the changes
Should you ever want to print in colour, then open up the colour document you wish to print and go to 'file' and 'print'. Once the Print dialogue window opens, click 'properties' and set the printer back to 'colour' rather than 'black ink only'. This setting will only be changed for this one job and will revert back to black ink only for any new jobs.
Going forward, should you mainly print text documents and rarely print photos I suggest avoiding Photosmart printers in the future. Rather, Officejet printers would suite your needs and ink usage more efficiently and you can still print photos with great quality.
Please let me know if the information I've provided resolves your photo black ink issues. Best of luck!
X-23
I work on behalf of HP
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Photosmart Premium C309 printer using Photo black cartridge when it is not printing pictures

My printer has started using the Photo black cartridge a lot more than it used to. I think it is using the Photo Black even when there are no images on the document. I have had the printer for about 4 1/2 years, and it just started doing this in the past six months. I used to only replace that cartridge about every 6 months. Now I have to replace it about every 2 months even though I am not printing images. I replaced the photo cartridge 3 days ago, and it is down about a third, and I have printed no images. I saw something in one of the responses that talked about changing preferences in the Advanced tab of my printer, but the only option I see there for printing is Automatic. I would appreciate any help I can get before my printer sucks up my bank account!

Hi @smithloi , and welcome to the HP Forums!
I see you're experiencing cartridge issues. I would like to help!
I'd recommend removing the cartridges, and performing a power reset. Disconnect the power cord from the printer and the power outlet, then wait 60 seconds. After 60 seconds, plug the printer back in. Ensure you plug the printer directly to a wall outlet. Make sure to bypass any sort of surge protector or power bar.
I'd then suggest running the following updates:
Critical Update
HP Update Software Utility
HP Print Software Patch
Good luck and please let me know the results of your troubleshooting steps. Thank you for posting on the HP Forums!
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Jamieson
I work on behalf of HP
"Remember, I'm pulling for you, we're all in this together!" - Red Green.

Photo black cartridge problem

Why does my Photosmart 7510 constantly use up the Photo Black cartridge when I'm not printing photos? I have plenty of black ink, but I am constantly going through photo black cartridges. I have "plain paper" set as default.

AreteOne wrote:
Thanks, but I don't understand
1) how adding yellow to light blue produces black.
2) since the printer has a dedicated black photo cartridge, why doesn't it just use that for black?
3) since I've pretty much only printed DVDs since installing a new black photo cartridge, and since it's now 1/2 full, wouldn't that suggest that it's being used to print the black titles on the DVDs?
See above, cyan+magenta+yellow mixes to black.
Photo black can be used for the blackest areas. For shades of gray color ink is used to provide smoother gradations.
I do not know which inks are used to print DVD's. Whether ink is used or not to print on the printable DVD's, some ink is used for servicing as described here.
Bob Headrick, HP Expert
I am not an employee of HP, I am a volunteer posting here on my own time.
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My Photosmart C309g printer ALWAYS uses the photo black cartridge

I have a photosmart Premium C309g, wireless network connected to an iMac running OS 10.7.2. I use the printer only occasionally to print photos - I have a smaller HP printer for photos. However the C309g always uses the Photo Black cartridge for print jobs. The printer will not operate without a cartridge fitted. But Photo Black is more expensive! How do I make the printer use the ordinary black cartridge for text jobs?

Hello,
Thanks for the post, great question. I've attached a link below that may assist with this, it refers to MAC OS X 10.5/10.6 but the idea remains the same. Good Luck!
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01662356&tmp_task=useCategory&cc=us&dlc=en&lang...
I worked for HP but my posts and replies are my own....Thank you!
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mndl_vs, instead of my guessing when, please state with detail when you hear this "shodk" sound?
Do your battery life, what you're experiencing is that the on-device battery software meter is off sync with the actual battery charge. To fix that, this will normally work: leave your BlackBerry turned ON and charge for an hour or so through the OEM wall outlet charger, and still connected to the charger remove the battery for five minutes, reinsert and reboot you may need to do that again the next day. Same exact procedure. But that should reset the software reading of the battery.
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My ipad mini with retina's Battary life too short

I have used kindle for reading e-book. My ipad mini with retina is used the battary 1% per 4 minutes.
Is it normal case or not?
I think It is abnormal because three weeks after I had got the ipad. Its battary life is very good. It may be10 % per hour.
After some time I tried to download something via ipad safari as a result the download is failed, my ipad battary life gone bad (1% per 4 minutes)
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2. Do you think about virus or some malware that may impact battary life? If yes please give me a solution.
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It's not a virus or malware as there are no known instances of these that affect iOS.
Battery optimization: http://www.apple.com/batteries/iphone.html
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Aperture exporting to email takes minutes not seconds - Is life too short?

I'm writing this while I am exporting 5 images to email on Aperture. I am lucky that I am even able to write this as when I export images it slows down the entire computer and my typing is spluttering while I am doing this. The email has just appeared with the images just now - after about 4 minutes. Ocassionally they take less time but mostly they hang and hang on exporting and as I say slow my imac to a stop. The only adjustments I used in this batch (and most other batches) are exposure, sharpness and dodge and burn.
I am not new to posting my Aperture issues here but just wonder does anyone see an Aperture appearing anytime soon that just " works" or should I just move away from it even though I love it (when it does occasionally work properly) and I am tied in to the system with over 100,000 images in the programme.
I do realise it seems to work for some lucky people whose system seems to be the perfect optimal system. - I would just love it to work for me.

Armagh Mac wrote:
...it seems to work for some lucky people whose system seems to be the perfect optimal system. - I would just love it to work for me.
It is not about luck, it is about strong hardware very carefully set up. When we lack the strongest hardware we do our best to develop optimizing workflows. Note that on weaker Macs like your iMac any one thing can bog down Aperture, so carefully implement every one of the suggestions below.
Some generic advice I posted in another thread:
Aperture is a heavy pro graphics app that is very demanding of hardware. Your Mac's CPU, GPU, i/o and RAM are all limiting to Aperture so we need to do what we can to optimize. Some steps:
• Set Previews to only be built manually, and only tell Aperture to build Previews when you are not otherwise editing in Aperture. I suggest setting the size of Previews to be the pixel dimensions of your display.
• Update the OS to the current 10.6.x version and Aperture to the current 3.x version.
• Keep the internal drive underfilled for speed, which sooner or later usually requires using a Referenced-Masters-Library with Masters on external drives. Back up originals before importing into Aperture or any other images app.
• The Aperture Library should be on an internal drive.
• Turn off Share Previews with iLife and iWork.
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• If page outs increase significantly during operation, max out RAM and/or try to run Aperture by itself. On my C2D MBP with its max of 3 GB RAM I always did a restart prior to a heavy Aperture session to clear any memory leaks and make sure no other apps were open. Browsers in particular will often suck RAM Aperture would otherwise be using.
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Black vs Photo black ink cartridges

I've watched the threads and their respective comments on HP and other websites for years. At some time or another I myself have probably asked someone somewhere all of the questions posted. Clark Howard, of radio/TV fame has said for years that the profit for printer manufacturers is in the ink cartridge, not the device itself. Ridiculously expensive, to the point that I personally could never with a straight face charge the money that HP and others charge for the cartridges. 500% plus profit per cartridge isn't an over statement. Clark Howard actually used to buy two of the cheapest printers he could find, use the cartridges and donate the brand new printers. He would repeat the process whenever he needed new ink. I don't know if he still does that, the corporate greed has probably figured out a way to prevent that by now.
One question I have, that I have not found addressed specifically, if you don't print photos, do you even need a photo black cartridge? Or is that just another gimmick by the corporate greed to put more money in their bank accounts?

Hi Ken
I presume your printer takes HP564 cartridges and has a 5 slot printhead? If so, yes - all cartridges (inc. the photo black) need to be installed for the printer to work.
Ciara
Although I am an HP employee, I am speaking for myself and not for HP.
Twitter: @Ciara_B_HP

Photosmart B8550 photo black prints blue/cyan

My Photosmart B8550 has recently begun to have problems printing dark/black on photos.It has printed wonderfully up to now, but I began to notice that Photo Black doesn't seem to be printing black when I print on glossy photo paper. Where black would be in photos becomes bluish...or cyan. I've even bought a brand new HP Photo Black cartridge, but still the same thing.
Oddly, a diagnostic printout on regular printer paper shows no photo black in the large color squares. At first I thought I was out of ink, but it's a new cartridge now. and still on occasion only shows some black smudges. Now I'm thinking perhaps something is clogged though I'm not sure what to try to clean, or how. However, when I print to glossy paper it's as if it's substituting cyan for what should be photo black. Strange...
A test print of a strip of blocks of grey scale...white changing to solid black... will begin white and slowly change to grey. But at about the 50% point it begins to show more of the cyan. By the time it gets to what should be solid black, it's solid cyan.
Anyone have any experience with this or know what I can do to fix it before I have to junk the thing already?
Thanks,
C

A quick follow-up: I downloaded the HP Diagnostic Utility and ran it on the B8550. The printout that resulted from running the utility looked perfect, though it printed on regular printer paper--not glossy photo paper, which seems to be the issue in my case (fwiw, I've been testing on 4x6 glossy).
The diagnostic prints out a sheet with text and a square for each color..and black. That black looks nice and black, though if it's diagnosing this printer it doesn't tell you whether the black square is specifically 'Photo Black' or just a black that might have been the big text-black cartridge. Still, everything looked fine and the small still-life picture on the sheet also looked fine as far as I could tell.
So I'm still stumped why, when I print a test photo on 4x6 glossy (true HP paper that came with a cartridge), solid blacks will look bright cyan blue. There may be shades of grey along the way, black hair may show some blackish-greys...but a black shirt will print almost totally bright cyan blue.
--@#$% :/

Stop it from using photo black ink for black text printing and where has the color ink gone?

My HP Photosmart Prem C310 series all in one is using the Black Photo ink cartridge for text printing instead of the XL Black that I put in it for text printing. How can I get it to use the right cartridge for printing? Also, even though I have NOT printed ANY photo's and very few pages of text the new set of color cartridges I put in it a few months ago are almost empty. Why? How could they be almost empty when I have NOT printed anything in color? This is getting ridiculous replacing ink cartridges every few months WHEN I HAVE NOT BEEN PRINTING ANYTHING!!!
The set of ink cartridges that came with it lasted for several months. Since then I've gone through two sets in less than a year. That's 3 sets of ink cartridges when I have only printed 3 photo's when I first set it up. And have only used les than a 1/4 of one package of printing paper. I've only put paper in it twice. Each time it was about a 1/4 inch or 3/8 of an inch thick stack of paper in the tray. I've even tried shutting the printer down when its not being used for a long period of time but the ink is still disapearing. Where is it going? Why is it going there? How do I stop it? This is rediculous. I may as well junk the thing even though it still works because I cant aford to keep feeding it ink when its just sitting there doing nothing most of the time.
Thank you
This question was solved.
View Solution.

I just got another email from HP about this problem wanting to know what I found for a solution to this problem. From all of the suggestions from the HP tec support all of them pretty much kept saying the same thing. That it is my fault that it's using so much ink because I have it on the wrong settings. One tec did slip and say that it doesn't matter what settings you have it on it will always use the Photo Black cartridge for printing plain black text and it doesn't matter if you have a X-Large Black cartridge in it for text printing because it was made to always use the Photo Black for text and even use some of the colors to blend with the black to make it stand out. Why anybody would need this when just printing shipping labels and things like that I don't know.
Any who, The only solution for this problem is,,,, junk the printer and get a different brand & model of printer. Research it before buying to find out how much ink it wants to waste and if it will still print black text if it only has a black cartridge in it. I was going to get rid of mine by giving it to a friend since they don't have a printer. But since I want to keep him as a friend I decided not to give it to him. Since it cant be traded in for a different one even though it still works, Its going to the target shooting range the next time I go out shooting. Maybe I'll take a few video's clips of it getting blasted to pieces with a Ruger 10-22 .22 cal. rifle with 25 shot clips, a Ruger Mini-14 Ranch Rifle shooting .223 cal with a 30 shot clip, a Chinese SKS 7.62 with a 30 shot clip. And maybe use my Ruger P89 9mm pistol and put a couple 15 round clips of 9mm in it. If there's anything left I'll finish it off with a few 3" magnum loads of #2 steel shot with my 20 gauge shotgun. Then I think I'll do the same thing to my Westinghouse 46" flat screen HDTV that just died.
Then maybe I'll come back and post the video's of my "solution to this printers problem". It may not fix the problem, but it will be an entertaining way of getting rid of the problem.

What's the point of buying a 364XL black cartridge?

I'm just curious. Since last fall, the 364XL black cartridges (V1) contain less ink than before and are rated at a yield of 550 pages instead of 750* pages, but everywhere I look (in Sweden) they still cost the same.
One of the stores I went to had both the old 364XL (warranty date July 2012) and the new V1 (warranty date October 2012), at the same price of course. I was shocked to see the difference in page yields between the two. I didn't think the difference would be that big.
The thing is... I could get three standard 364 black cartridges for the price of one 364XL black cartridge. Before last fall, that would make the 364XL completely moot for value. Now that the latter contains less ink than before but costs the same, I'd be paying more for less, and the standard cartridge is the best value. That's funny.
In addition to the somewhat... unclear indication on the Photo black cartridges of their compatibility, I find this move very peculiar. HP wants me to buy HP ink, no? The official HP cartridges already contain only a spitful** of ink, so I think this way of conducting business is strange and confusing.
Edits:
* I realized that I was wrong about the yield for the older 364XL black cartridges; the page yield was not rated 750 pages in the old cartridges at all. It was rated 800 pages.
** After posting this, I actually spat in a medicine cup and it turned out to be only 2ml, whereas a standard 364 black cartridge is rumored to contain 6ml. So I have to correct myself; it contains three spitfuls of ink.

doesn't look like anyone from HP are willing to say anything on this. My old fountain pen held more ink than one of these cartridges

Two black cartridges 7520 one full other empty but not printing black

My black photo is empty (not sure why, don't use photo) the larger one on the right hand side is almost full but it is not printing anything black. colors are fine. I tried playing with the setting but am at a loss.
Please help. Thanks!
This question was solved.
View Solution.

groll
Welcome to the HP Community Forum.
This is just one of those things -- you have to have all five cartridges to print with this printer.
The Photo Black is not just for Photos -- this type of black is "jet black" and is used for particular kinds of "black-black" printing needs that are not only present in Photo Images.
Regular black prints gray-black, gray, mixes with other colors and prints some of the blackish fonts.
If I describe it further, I might misrepresent it and no doubt someone will jump on me. I may have already muffed it.
You bought into this concept when you purchased this printer -- maybe not deliberately, but just so. The extra "Photo Black" cartridge is one of the reasons this printer is capable of reproducing truly excellent color photographic Images.
If you like, you can buy HP genuine ink from HP:
HP SureSupply
The shipping is Free -- and the shipping is super fast, at least here in the USA.
Reference:
HP Photosmart 7520 e-All-in-One Printer Full Feature Software and Drivers
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Dragon-Fur

Barely used 564 color cartridges show all same low level. 564 XL black cartridge shows 3/4 full

Two months ago, I purchased and installed 564 XL Black and 3 color cartridges in my Photosmart 309a. I've printed approximately 100 black and white documents and no color documents. My black ink level is 2/3 full but the color cartridges are all showing the exact same level--just above empty. I also just installed a photo black cartridge, which is showing 1/2 full.
Black copies are great. Color copies are streaked and faded. I've contacted HP tech support on the phone and was given the same answers over and over for almost 20 minutes. After asked his supervisor to help, he quickly came back and gave me almost 10 more minutes of the same explanation as before. No answers, options or solutions--just run-around. And now, I'm out $52 without even printing a single color copy?

Hi,
Looks like your setup is to use quality Grayscale. As you know mixing all prime colors together at a right amounts will give you millions of colors from black to white. To print BLACK INK ONLY, please try:
(a) Double click printer icon,
(b) Click Set preferences
(c) Click Advanced,
(d) Select "Black ink only" under Grayscale
(e) Click Apply/OK ...
Note: As mentioned in my previous reply, printer STILL needs and USES color inks during warming up process and few other processes to keep itself in good health.
Regards.
BH
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Cant load photo black ink cartridge into HP 5520 printer

Hi there,
Cant load photo black ink cartridge into HP 5520 printer.

Hi,
The Photo ink cartridge is not intended for the Photosmart 5520, the printer uses Black, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow ink cartridges as listed below as an example (The same applies for the US with the 564 ink cartridges):
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c03340400&tmp_task=prodinfoCategory&cc=uk&dlc=en...
As you may find below as an example, the Photo Ink Cartridge only intended for printers which use 5 ink cartridges:
ONLY for 5-cartridge printers which use Black, Photo, Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow inks
Does NOT replace Black ink cartridge
http://store.hp.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/PDPStdView?catalogId=10051&productId=502407&storeId=10...
Please let me know if I may misunderstood your intention,
Shlomi
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Photo black cartridge life too short

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