Digital BW, The Print

Your reasoning is not flawed.  You don't have to work in GG2.2 if you are
doing a conversion to a grey printer profile as the document exits PS on its
way to the printer driver.  But a few things have moved along since the note
you are quoting.  The QTR-Gray Matte Paper and QTR-Gray Photo Paper profiles
were very generic profiles and are now a little dated (but better than
nothing).  You can, if you have an Eye-One Photo device, create your own
grey printer profile so that you are converting the luminance of your
document to match the ACTUAL profile of YOUR printer.


> From: joshhackney <joshhackney@...>
> Reply-To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@...m>
> Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 14:19:36 -0000
> To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: [Digital BW] Re: B/W on the 9600
> 
> A recent post from John Dean started my brain spinning.  Could someone help
> calm my 
> thinking?! 
> 
> John Dean wrote:
> 
> "And he would probably get much better results printing out of greyscale 2.2
> with QTR 
> rather than trying to use RGB and the Epson print driver by itself."
> 
> Considering that I am using a completely digital workflow, including digital
> capture, is it 
> still necessary to convert to graygamma 2.2?  My images are captured RAW and
> then 
> created in ProPhoto from ACR.  Color to B&W conversion is performed with a
> channels 
> layer.  In a zip file that I downloaded from the qtr download site called
> "grayspaceXYZv2.zip" there is a document titled "gray-readme.rtf", and it
> says,
> 
> 
> "In the past when printing to QuadToneRIP in the Print with Preview dialog the
> Print Space 
> was always Same as Source.  This disabled the Photoshop color management
> system 
> during output to QuadToneRIP and the printer.  With soft-proofing it was
> possible to 
> preview what the output would look like.  However you would still have to edit
> your file to 
> take into account the different between the look of profile attached to the
> image and the 
> soft-proof profile.  Which basically means you are editing to a particular
> paper/ink setup. 
> Most of the time this is OK but if you'd like to try a different type of paper
> such as photo 
> paper rather than matte paper you would need to re-edit the image for the new
> paper.
> 
> With the two new generic print profiles the color management system of
> Photoshop can be 
> used the automatically convert between the look on the display, matte paper
> and photo 
> paper.  In other words you just edit to a generic working space profile.  The
> Photoshop 
> color management system converts the data for display and will also now
> convert for the 
> print using perceptual intent and black point compensation ­all seamlessly
> without having 
> to even use soft-proofing.  Since QuadToneRIP already has builtin linearized
> profiles we 
> can use two generic ICC profiles to handle both matte and photo papers.
> 
> To use this simply, in Print with Preview select a Print Space Profile either
> Gray Matte Paper 
> or Gray Photo Paper rather than Same as Source when you print.   You should
> also have 
> Intent: Perceptual and Black Point Compensation selected."
> 
> 
> The document I just quoted uses the expression "Generic working space
> profile".  
> Considering this information, my thinking is that is shouldn't matter if I use
> a generic 
> working space profile that is RGB or gray gamma 2.2.  What difference does it
> make if I 
> manually convert from RGB to graygamma 2.2, or if PS does it for me when it
> converts 
> from RGB to this gray matte paper print space.
> 
> Is my reasoning flawed?
> 
> It certainly would be easy to change my workflow and convert to graygamma 2.2
> after 
> doing my color to black and white conversion.  It's not that I want to
> eliminate this step.
> I'm just trying to understand what's going on so that I can do or not do the
> conversion 
> because it is needed, not because I am following a recipe like a robot.
> 
> Thanks for any insights.
> 
> Best.
> 
> Josh