Digital BW, The Print

After many trial prints using many settings' combinations with the Epson RIP for the 2200, I have been able to produce some decent B&W's using Matte Black Ink and Epson Enhanced Matte paper. The prints are not as neutral as I would like but still the prints are not bad. I am using Qimage and Photoshop 7 with Win XP. The Imaging Factory PS plug-in is used for conversion from color to b&w. Using the same ink/paper combination, I have also tried several settings' combinations using both Qimage and PS, including "Black only", and Carl Schofield's "Photorealistic" workflow, which produces a nice b&w but it is on the "cool" side in my opinion. Maybe that workflow works better with the Mac than with Windows. That is just a guess.

When leaving PS out of the workflow and just using Qimage when printing with the Epson RIP, the prints seem to be a bit better in the quality of the print itself and marginally better B&W tonality. I have been opening the print in Qimage then selecting "Run Photo Editor" for editing in PS (except sizing and USM) and finally printing that image with Qimage. 

The other day while making color profiles using Profile Prism and Qimage, the gray scale on the printed target looked good to me so I tried printing a b&w photograph and a couple of calibration prints. The resulting prints looked better than the ones printed with the Epson RIP! These still look good to me after a few days without viewing them. There was no profile used and only "color controls" were checked in the Epson driver. Then I used the same settings but with Premium Luster/photo black ink and Hahnemuhle Photo Rag/matte black ink to print the same calibration target. The premium luster print looked good looking at it straight-on but it had a whole lot of metamerism when viewed on the bias and under different light. The HPR print was very good. 

The better of the calibration prints show smooth gradations up the gray scale and good separation. The 1-5% blocks shows good separation but no separation from 95-100% blocks.

No doubt I will keep trying for the ideal B&W workflow but right now I am waiting for a supply of paper. 

Peter Palmieri



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