Trouble plotting aerial photo in Black and White

[sreelfs]

I am having trouble plotting plan sheets with a color aerial photo to black and white. We are using an HP 1050C plotter, and have it set to grayscale, but the photo keeps coming out in full color, while the linework does come out in black and white. The image we are working with is a huge SID file. Does anyone know how to get the photo to plot in black and white?

[mjfarrell]

Yes edit or create a NEW CTB that is set to greyscale,
and or alter the printer properties by toggleing the
Properties button during a page setup, and go to the
graphics option and set it to greyscale there, thus
making autocad believe that the printer is only cabable of
plotting in black and white.

[Mike.Perry]

Hi

Check out the following Technical Documents on the Autodesk web site under the Knowledge Base section -

ID: TS38402 - Monochrome and grayscale plot style tables do not affect raster image output

ID: TS31570 - Plot drawings in black and white

ID: TS18255 - Plot drawings in black and white

Have a good one, Mike

[mom of 3]

ok, so if I don't have access to change the pen tables, nor do we have the monochrome pen table, nor do we have the greyscale option under the graphics in the page set ups, what other suggestions are there? I've tried the grayscale in both the plot styles & on the plotter itself, but it continues to plot in color.

[mjfarrell]

You will have to acquire access to edit the CTB, as even the support
articles posted by the esteemed Mr. Perry will require you to perform
the exact same functions as in my post.

[mom of 3]

thank you! we will work on that access in hopes that we can get these plotted!

[cholmes]

Ok, so in the .CTB file, we have all of the colors set to black. The greyscale for each color is turned off. Do all of these need to be turned on? How will this effect other plots using this .ctb file? We would rather not have multiple .ctb's, but if we need to we can.

Thanks,
Chris

[mjfarrell]

Chris
You will want grey scale enabled.
For most costomer sites I like to
set them up one CTB for color
and line weight, and then copy it
and set it to black and white.
Then for any speacial plotting needs
that CTB will be saved with the drawing
in the project folder. This will keep your
plotting options much cleaner.

[cholmes]

Alright, I made a copy of the .ctb and set all of the colors to "use object color" and then turned on the check box for all of them for grayscale.
Tried a test plot and the previes still shows the raster in color, and all of the other linework in the drawing is not right, as it is now grayscaled.

This has been a pretty confusing situation, and it doesn't seem to make sense to me. I understand the concept of changing the .ctb to grayscale, but would this only affect actual autocad entities, such as line work? The raster image itself doesn't inherit any kind of pen settings, except maybe the frame. And if you do change all the colors to grayscale, then that affects all the linework in the drawing, which is not what we want to happen.

The setting on the plotter itself is also set to grayscale, which make it even more confusing.

Thanks!
Chris