Black only on photo-paper

Hi
try printing a "Nozzle check" to confirm that both your black cartridges are working ok. One cartridge - the smaller (photo) one is used for printing photos on glossy paper. The second - bigger cartridge is used on plain (copy) paper. Sounds to me like your smaller (photo) black cartridge is not working. It's either empty or may need "Cleaning" or "Deep cleaning". In case you don't know...Nozzle check, Cleaning etc utilities can be found on "Maintenance" page in "Printer properties".
good luck

Lumir
www.inkbank.com.au

the pixma printers use the large black tank in most modes like text and standard (default) or fast photo printing .. thats most economical when you are using just plain paper .... it will switch to the small black tank only if you select "High" quality mode .. that black matches the nature of the color inks much better and results in really good color pictures if you are using Gloss or Matt high quality photo paper .. you can select the quality level by the following ... when you start to print, a window comes up where you can select which printer you want ... at the right of this window is "preferences" .. click that .. now select the type of paper and "High" quality mode .... now the printer will slow down but will provide really nice results and it will use the small tank black ink instead of the large tank ....the small tank is only used for "high" quality photo prints which is only needed for high quality photo paper .. if you havent tried that yet you might want to get some glossy photo paper (either Canons or Costco has great stuff if you want a lot, like 150 sheets) but most glossy paper will work except colors might need tweeking for some ... print a nice photo in the high quality mode and you should be really impressed .. and you will be using your small black ink tank .. you might want to make the first few pictures small (2x3 inch) untill you are sure everything is the way you want it .. i usually print in the top left corner first .. then reinsert the same paper and try again right next to that .. i do that until i get the colors perfect .. then i print big .. 5x7 or even 8x10 on a new sheet... the high quality mode can be selected for just plain paper and it will use the special black ink but it doesnt result in a better picture .. so no point in doing that unless you want to experiment .. if you never print high quality photos then you will never use the small tank black ink .. it will still be used up eventually because of normal head cleaning the machine does automatically .. ...
grey scaling does not select the special ink unless you select "High" for the quality setting .. then yes you can print using that small tank black ..again it will buy you a lot if you are using High quality photo paper ... almost nothing for plain paper but at least it will allow you to use that ink .. ..

your black print cartridges has been dried, these need to replace.

Change your setting to plain paper and normal quality.
This printer uses the small black for photos and high qau;ity papers.
Do this and you should be good to go.

Your printhead is plugged and needs cleaning. If you remove the inks and then the printhead, you can wet and fold a paper towel and just dab the printhead gently on the wet towel. When you see a solid black line on the paper towel your printing should be improved.

dont mix colored with photo. we had the same problem and i bought black and color and it worked fine after that

Few questions, are you running true Canon Inks and refills are always a off black not a true canon black!

Have you tried doing nozzel check, does the top black squares all come out ok? if so it could be down to the paper and the inks!
if you use 80gsm paper does it print ok?

Hope this helps

Perhaps the CMY color heads need alignment. If you have not already done so, run a head alignment from the driver maintenance section. It will print out a page containing several lines and text, and request you select the closest-aligned images. After this is done, do another image print to check for improvements.
Normally, the printer uses the black cartridge for text and the CMY inks for images (even for black on photo and specialty paper). So when you are printing normal text pages on plain paper, only the black ink is used. A good check for this would be to print a normal text page, but select photo paper in the driver to trick the printer into using the CMY inks to make a substitute black text page. If this looks ok, then you are having issues other than cartridge alignment.

printer need head cleaning , after cleaning check nozzle , if solid color appear w/out space on black color it means good and clean nozzle.

The paper you print on is not relevant. What happens is the green tint is the actual printer delivering all the colours to give a 'composite' black. On shiny photo paper this is emphasized where as on plain paper the colour is absorbed and shows as intended. So what can you do? Move away from black and go for a tint such as sepia.