Digital BW, The Print

Ernst,

With the development effort that went into the Pro 4000 Epson put a lot of
effort toward refining gray balance functioning that would assure neutral
gray prints using the color Ultrachrome inks. I believe the feedback
response may be similar to my own in a sufficient degree they may  have to
seriously reconsider that gray balance is a less serious detriment than
metamerism. We¹ll see. I don¹t think Epson will leave any stone unturned. It
is just that their perspective on photography has been limited, which is
evident by the particular photographers who have been chosen by Epson to
provide advise and consultation.

I agree with you about the Epson R-800. However, from my tests I don¹t think
the Light Black ink is in play when Black only is selected in the driver to
print grayscale images. In fact the Light Black ink is a very warm black ink
if you paint some of the ink on a paper sample. But it is an interesting
possibility if a very fine droplet size and enough nozzles with variable
droplet technology were applied to making a B&W printer. The ³simple
elegance² of such a solution could be revolutionary ­ why not have just one
ink for black and white printing?????

I think if you look into the color management plans for ³longhorn² that have
been published on the Microsoft web site you might want to reconsider.
Redmond is up to their old tricks assuming they can dictate international
standards. 800 pound gorilla¹s don¹t do much but damage when let loose in a
china shop.

Regards, David B. Brooks
Shutterbug Magazine
E-mail: fotografx@...




On 10/17/04 4:43 AM, "Ernst Dinkla" <E.Dinkla@chello.nl> wrote:

> David B. Brooks wrote:
> 
>> > Tyler,
>> > 
>> > Thanks for filling me in on StudioPrint RIP. I had sent e-mail to Robert
>> > Eversole asking for documentation, but never obtained a response. I
>> > appreciate your perspectives.
>> > 
>> > I keep pretty close tabs on what is happening in color management and I
>> > don¹t think the companies are being obstructionist at all, they just have
>> > their plates full to meet the demand for color solutions and try to get a
>> > leg up on the competition.
>> > 
>> > Unfortunately I do not see the B&W RIP solutions as being particularly
>> > viable for the prosumer market, at least as they are presently configured.
>> > Nor do I see  what a RIP supports as a viable solution to extending CM
>> > capabilities to cover B&W printing. That¹s not because I don¹t believe what
>> > you say about how it can be done. It has more to do with inherent
>> > limitations which inhibit growth to a critical mass of consumers that would
>> > allow a price structure that won¹t inhibit sales growth.
>> > 
>> > I also have a bit of personal inhibition, considering StudioPrint only
>> > supports Windoze. I was exclusively Windows for almost 10 years myself,
>> even
>> > was founding editor of PC Graphics & Video magazine which was produced on
>> > Windows in a publishing house with 13 other magazines all produced on Macs!
>> > After Redmond released Windows 2000 without the planned ICM 3.0 upgrade I
>> > soon became so frustrated I bought my first Mac.  My shop now has just one
>> > lone, seldom used IBM graphics system and five Macs.
> 
> 
> It is unlikely that Epson will bring a dedicated B&W solution. On
> the other hand Epson did improve the B&W quality of the printers
> over the last 3-4 years both in consumer and pro models. The
> smaller droplet sizes, the extra grey ink, more nozzles for
> better weaving, the better longevity of the prints which is even
> more expressed in the B&W prints than in the color prints.
> 
> ICC solutions are available for more neutral B&W prints but the
> RGB profiling of the Epson driver limits the use of those
> solutions. For consistency it is nice to have the linearising of
> ink channels possible in most RIPs, the ink limitation settings
> per channel gives another advantage not found in the Epson driver
> yet.  That could change if someone at Epson would add some extra
> paper settings in the printer menus that are not there to
> increase the gamut as usual but to get consistency in B&W
> printing with the color inkset. A longer black generation, ink
> limitation that increases Dmax for black but limits the yellow
> for less metamerism, grey ink addition to black for boost and
> evenness.  On that a generic RGB B&W profile could be added that
> the prosumer can replace with a custom profile. I don't think
> that an addition like that would make costs much higher on a
> prosumer color inkjet printer. (5 extra paper settings in the
> driver are available for the 10000CF printer that are not made
> for specific papers but were made in view of unspecified papers
> and textiles that would appear on the market one day). There's a
> much larger market for B&W + Color inkjet printers than for B&W
> printers only. R800 technique with the 1.5 droplet but 1 extra
> grey ink will be good enough in hardware for the best B&W prints.
> Three main printer menu choices: color, black and white, black
> only. Not a B&W RIP but like the Epson color driver it could be
> as functional as a RIP in most cases.
> 
> QTR on the Mac isn't an ICC solution but its basics are almost
> exactly the same as the B&W ICC solutions on more expensive RIPs.
> I see no reason why one should implement ICC profiles in that
> case as the overhead of colour engine links doesn't improve the
> B&W printing itself and makes custom linearising + profiling more
> complicated and expensive and generic profiles not better.  ICC
> profiling could be used with P2P in Photoshop on the images
> before QTR takes it over but I have tried similar approaches with
> a RIP and do not see the advantage.
> 
> RIP solutions for Macs have been limited till OSX appeared, since
> then it has changed somewhat. PCs had a lousy color engine
> implementation not so long ago, that was possibly one of the
> reasons that RIPs with a better color management were made for
> that platform, there were other reasons too. Your inhibition with
> PCs may have been triggered by bad experience in the past, it now
> deprives you of some nice print solutions like Qimage. I do not
> share your view on Vuescan either.  As cheap as Qimage, both
> programs are very capable pieces of software that may differ in
> concept from the expensive ones but on many aspects are equal or
> even better. This based on experience with both, some experience
> with Silverfast and having the Wasatch SoftRip. My requests for
> better B&W solutions for that RIP were ignored by Wasatch Inc, it
> looks like they prefer to make yet another screen pattern for
> silkscreen films, wonder which of the two will be a growing
> market :-)
> 
> Ernst
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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