Digital BW, The Print

> From: daniel [mailto:dnjbackup@...]
>
> yes, i realize that quadtoning in this way is only 'pseudo
> quadtoning'. the purpose is not to
> get neutral tones, but to simulate the effect, eg, of selenium toning.
>
> > What settings are you using in the Print with Preview dialog?
> What settings
> > are you using in the Epson driver?
>
> i've experimented with most of these.
>
> original color space is adobe RGB
> printer color space is epson's 1440 dpi profile for enhanced matte
> relative colorimetric (tried others too)
> blackpoint compensation on (and tried off)
>
> in the driver, under print settings:
> advanced settings, 1440dpi (tried 2880 too), not high speed,
> enhanced matte paper
> under color settings:
> no color management

You're doing the right things. I usually use Rel Col with BPC checked.

> i've also tried advice from luminous landscape -- color controls
> set to photorealistic to get
> better shadow details.
>
> none of this seems to help.

I think if you want to do this, you have to have a profile built with these
settings.

> i should say that this effect is quite subtle: its only
> noticeable on some prints, and only in
> certain areas.

If it's subtle, then it's probably "normal". Even the new profiles from
Epson aren't perfect. I built a profile with the same gear (Eye-One Pro
spectro) and got something that looked identical to Epson's profile, without
tweaking. It looks to me like what it would take to get rid of the faint
color casts that appear at certain gray levels would be some manual profile
editing, and I assume Epson didn't do that either.

Whether a custom profile would solve the problem depends upon whether the
profiling service is willing to do a "closed loop", where you send back a
print made with the first profile, and have them tweak the profile. Open
loop profiling on the 2200 just doesn't seem to quite nail the grayscale.

ImagePrint is a good alternative, if you can afford it. It prints B&W with
mostly black and light black ink, only mixing in the minimum amount of color
ink needed to pull the tone to neutral (or to whatever you set it for). It
produces much more neutral results, at the cost of a little more bronzing.
There's also Black Only printing, but the dots are bigger and the prints
have a distinct brown cast.

--

Ciao,               Paul D. DeRocco
Paul                mailto:pderocco@...