Digital BW, The Print

Thought some of you may be interested in knowing that a full working demo of IP 5.6 for either Mac or PC is now available for download from Calumet Photographic's website at:

http://www.calumetphoto.com/syrinx/pr.jsp?p=dnp&t=e175&US=1

Scroll down about halfway on the left-hand side and you'll find the links. The evaluation version does print "Demo" in large letters across the print, but I still think it's useful enough to form a few opinions and to be able to properly judge whether this software will fit your needs. During installation, one thing that I found rather confusing at first is that the output profiles are not there even though I selected the 2200 checkbox for profile installation. I guess it assumes that you're installing from a CD where all the profiles would be readily available. Anyway, this issue is easily resolved by going to the ColorByte website and downloading the profiles you're interested in. Copy them to the "Color" folder in IP (typically, C:\Program Files\ImagePrint\Color if on a PC), restart IP, and, viola, the profiles are all there for output selection. I also had to move my monitor ICC profile to the "Color" folder even though the IP manual indicates that it will look into the platform-specific folder, as needed.

So far, I haven't printed enough to really form any opinions of my own. But, I can tell you that grayscale images (when using tint 50,50) appear to be absolutely neutral. I printed the same image that I had printed before using my Epson 1160 (UT inks - Paul's latest curves) and using the Epson 2200 with the Epson driver (applying everything that I knew of, to date, for printing grayscale on this printer.) I know it's not reasonable to draw any conclusions from one print, but, so far, I've found the following:

1. In natural indirect daylight (my living room) the Epson driver print has a sickly green cast and looks relatively flat (i.e., not 3-dimensional) when compared to the IP print.

2. In the same light as #1, the 1160/UT/Paul's curves print looks MUCH warmer (I did print it with the Medium Warm curve) and more 3-dimensional then the print from #1 when compared to the IP print, but... This is where objectivity takes a back seat...the IP print just seems to glow! I believe it's Ron Harris who feels that this particular characteristic is due to the way IP prints the high values; that is, the actual paper base is allowed to show through in the high value areas beyond its rendering capability. Sounds like a reasonable explanation to me...dunno...but, it's clearly visible!

Comparing the prints in tungsten light reveals more consistent "color" between the prints, but, again, the IP print seems to stand out a little more. I've read on this list that IP dumps shadow values below 92%...that may be true, but in the print I made the IP example shows better shadow separation than the other two. I plan to print one of Paul's grayscale ramps where the upper and lower values are separated in 1% increments. This will be compared directly to the same "image" printed on my standard quadtone setup (1160/UT/Roark curves). Should be interesting..........

FWIW, I've also found that IP separates whites in color prints better than the Epson driver and they, too, seem to have that same high value "glow" as the B&W prints. The IP profiles seem to render color images cooler than the Epson driver, but this is easily resolved if a match to an Epson print is the desired output.

Am I ready to spend $495, yet? Hmm...not yet, but my initial trials have been very encouraging. At least an evaluation version is readily obtainable now.

Regards,
Alan Huntley

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