Digital BW, The Print

I've never sent a color file with profile because I don't have any!  
I have no idea about the ABW conversion, but I assume the conversion 
in PS would allow more versatility.  On the screen match, that's all 
you need.  My approach is a peculiar one and one that many would say 
shouldn't work.  My Soft Proof "profile" was made from 
experimentation and seems to match highlights, shadows and the 
intermediate grayscale surprisingly well for the two papers I am 
using (EEM and EVFA), particularly the VFA.  Ultimately though, I do 
a print or two (or occasionally three) on the VFA for very tiny 
tweaks to the curves to get it just right on the paper.  The screen 
never looks like a paper print.  As for "out of the box," my screen 
looked nothing like the print--the screen was contrastier and 
lighter.  I do profile the screen to 2.2/5000K, which does nothing 
more than make the screen display consistent and repeatable.  I would 
add, though this is not much discussed here, that we are talking 
about a level of precision that wasn't even dreamed of in wet 
printing--we had four grades of paper, some crude dodging and burning 
tools and, if you were being really fancy, heated Dektol applied 
locally with a cotton ball and some cardboard dodging and burning 
tools.  So, I am amazed at the prints from this printer, though I 
never made a print in any manner that I didn't think I could improve 
upon after "sleeping" on it.


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Douglas meeuwsen 
<lipshurt@m...> wrote:
> Interesting.......have you tried sending a color file thru the ABW? 
Do 
> you think that it does a different conversion than greyscale? I 
have 
> not done comparisons yet, but I like the way the ABW converts color 
to 
> BW. I had lots of trouble getting conversions in photoshop that I 
> liked. I may be may out in the ozone there, so I may do some 
> comparisons right now......
> If my mac screen matches well with my prints, both in color and BW, 
is 
> there any reason to use softproofing? Last year when I was having 
big 
> problems with my 1200, and (to a much lesser degree) my 1280, I 
tried 
> to set up softproofing, but it did not really get me anywhere, I 
> assumed because my system was not calibrated correctly. This system 
> (powerbook 15 inch, PSCS, epson 2400, epson and kirkland papers) 
seems 
> to be all dialed in right out of the box........DM
> 
> 
> On Jul 21, 2005, at 2:02 PM, wwodets wrote:
> 
> > Douglas--
> >  I have found the the "darker" setting matches the screen very
> >  accurately with a Soft Proof view set to "Preseve Numbers" and a 
dot
> >  gain of 25-30%.  So this would be one reason to use it.
> >
> >  On sending an RGB file through with a profile, my experience 
with the
> >  2400 is that color management from PS does not work with the ABW
> >  driver.  Photoshop is, of course, adjusting the numbers it 
sends, but
> >  not in a way useful to the ABW mode.  Or so I think.  Epson 
tells me
> >  that supplied profiles *are* for use with ABW, but they don't 
say how
> >  (don't appear to really understand any of it) and I haven't 
figured
> >  out a useful flow using them.
> >
> >  I continue to be interested in others' experience with this 
printer.
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]