Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Carl Schofield <
scho@m...> wrote:
> 
> On Sunday, June 29, 2003, at 06:36  AM, kiwikale wrote:
> > So far I have just run 3 test prints using the settings 
> > suggested/corrected in
> > earlier postings (now print space in PS "same as source", 1440x720 
> > Highest
> > Quality etc): Roy's QTR (2200) neutral and warm and then a straight 
> > Gimp
> > 4.2.5.
> >
> > In the 2 QTR prints I found I lost a lot of detail in the shadows vs 
> > using the
> > Epson driver (defining the print space in PS as the ICC profile for 
> > watercolor
> > paper with the matt black and no further "color" mgt).  The prints 
> > were as if
> > there was a loss of about 1/2 - 3/4 stop exposure.  However, the Epson 
> > driver
> > tends to be plagued by a degree of metamerism as we all know.  Tough 
> > trade
> > off as in the test print I did the metamerism was not that bad and the 
> > loss of
> > shadow detail in QTR was.  I guess this is because with QTR the use of 
> > color
> > is restricted to govern metamerism and hence tonal range is reduced?
> 
> I was able to reproduce your problem with poor shadow detail and it 
> appears to be due to the Dot Gain15 gray working space you were using 
> in Photoshop.  I suggest that you use gray gamma 2.2 instead to 
> eliminate this problem and if your file has the Dot Gain 15 profile 
> imbedded make sure it is converted to gamma 2.2 in Photoshop before 
> printing.  You should then be able to get good shadow detail with the 
> 2200 profiles.

Hmmm..... I tried this but to little avail.  I also tried Gray Gamma 1.8 which I 
note PS says is the default gamma for Mac OS computers like mine.  All three 
prints are, as best as I can tell, identical.  

I am wondering if the effect that I am witnessing is simply the Epson driver 
"pushing" the exposure a tad.

At any rate, I am getting even more puzzled by a "same as source" workflow.  I 
went through the videos on the piezography website today.  Their path of 
establishing an ICC profile for a particular ink, paper, printer combination 
makes intuitive sense to me.  You can proof setup and, theoretically at least, 
what you see is what you get.  That is, the mapping of colour or grayscale 
reproduction (as I understand it)  is done within PS at the proof or print with 
preview stage and not by the print driver.  In a same as source workflow any 
mapping is (as I understand it) done outside of PS and so changing the 
workspace in PS should not affect the output (assuming the print driver is 
equally adept at mapping all of the various PS workspaces).  Therefore I am 
somewhat comforted to find that it did not affect things today else my general 
understanding of all this stuff would have been really screwed up.

When Gimp or others say they have tuned matt black and watercolor paper for 
the Epson 2100/2200, are they in part saying that (a) the driver can recognise 
automatically whether matt is loaded and (b) therefore when you select 
watercolor paper it loads and uses a profile for that printer, matt ink, 
watercolor paper combo?

Confused....