Digital BW, The Print

There are many tutorials on duotones in PS.

A nice one for photographers can be found at
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/duotone.shtml

Using this article as a starting point, I have made several nice  
quadtone color schemes - exactly as I like them, rather than as 
purchased. Each print can get its own "best" or appropriate color 
scheme, without a change in inks. the same printer can be used for 
B&W and color. For example, I have been able to replicate 
the "bronze" look of Paul Strand's prints, which were gold-toned and 
varnished.

One trick I have discovered is to use the black tone to "tweak" the
settings, such that a 10-step step-wedge ends up going from 0% to 100%
brightness in 10% increments. The result is a quadtone that can be 
aplied to a greyscale image without a need to re-adjust the bightness 
curves.

- Ken Lee


> I am not ready to go back to the darkroom (yet) but using the 
> various quad inksets that are available seem a little like the 
> fellow that was hitting his head on the wall because it felt so 
good 
> when he stopped.
> 
> Just for fun I tried printing some tritones and quadtones using 
> photoshop, a Canon S9000, fotonic inks and Lyson photomatte. The 
> reasult were not all that displeasing. What I rapidly found out is 
> than my knowledge of using and manipulating duotones is at best 
> rudimentary and I would be greatful for any suggestions on a 
> reference(s) for using them in photoshop.
> 
> If these experiments work as well as I hope then I think the next 
> step will be an Epson 2200 or perhaps a C80 with their longer lived 
> pigmented inks. That seems to me to be a reasonable solution / 
> workaround until someone comes up with a montotone inkset that is 
> less problematic in terms of longevity and printer plugging.
> 
> Roger