Digital BW, The Print

Steve, I too apologize for my snotty over-reaction.
And I agree with you: neither do I wish to reignite
the "Aesthetic vs Technical" fire - mostly as
Shakespeare said and Faulkner echoed: "full of the
sound and the fury and signifying nothing..."

Once I got past our sticking points, I found your
explanation interesting and helpful.  Again, I'm sorry
and Thank you...

Michael

--- Steve Kale <stevekale@...> wrote:

> To all those that think I jumped down Clayton's
> throat too aggressively and
> that it was a personal attack I apologise.  But I
> was reacting in particular
> to his leading statements (repeated below).  As I
> noted, this was not at all
> what I was saying. Any thoughtful, measured reading
> of what I wrote would
> not lead one to that conclusion.  Nonetheless I
> should not have been quite
> so aggressive.
> 
> (If you can't be bothered reading this long post but
> print from DG20 or any
> workspace that isn't GG2.2 and are trying Epson Adv
> B&W then at least jump
> to the last two paragraphs.)
> 
> For those who seem to use any such post as a chance
> to jump on the aesthetic
> vs technical bandwagon you are gravely mistaken. 
> Technical knowledge does
> not in any way displace aesthetics in making art
> (although not everyone
> printing B&W need be an "artist").  Technical skill
> does, however, help one
> to express their creative mind.  With greater
> technical skill you are much
> more likely to achieve your artistic expression to
> your satisfaction.
> Measurements also allow us to communicate with each
> other without ambiguity.
> They say nothing about "art" or "artistic ability"
> and do not hinder them
> either.  This isn't about who is smarter.  (I'm sure
> Michael is far smarter
> than me - he can _read_ Aristotle.)  The concepts
> here aren't even very
> difficult.  It's about taking the time to understand
> them and to then
> benefit from that understanding.
> 
> It is helpful to know what it means to work in one
> workspace vs another.
> The colour associated with, say, 90% K changes
> according to the workspace
> that gives it meaning.  Look at a step wedge on your
> display - at the 90%
> patch.  Assign GG2.2 to it.  Then assign GG1.8 or
> DG20.  The colours change
> because those same numbers are being given a new
> meaning, a new colour space
> for interpretation.  In all cases 90% K stays 90% K.
> (If you "convert"
> rather than assign then the number changes so that
> the colour remains the
> same.) Printers only react to numbers - they have no
> knowledge of human
> vision and perception.  We work visually (at least
> most of us do most of the
> time - an eye on the info palette is very helpful
> and people working in
> areas where exact colour matching is more important,
> eg advertising, are
> going to be more inclined to work with the numbers
> on more occasions).  But
> we send numbers to the printer. Understanding, even
> at the most basic level,
> that we need to send the right number to the printer
> to get the right colour
> is helpful.
> 
> The reaction of Epson's Adv B&W to, say, 90% K for
> any given workspace is
> not up to you. Epson programmed the printer to print
> a shade of grey for
> each possible 8 bit input value.  It has a response
> to each possible input
> number and that is it.  It's useful to understand
> what that response is.
> Epson did provide some controls for tweaking the
> response of the printer to
> each number but those controls are relatively crude
> compared with the
> controls we have in an image editor like PS.  In
> general you are likely
> better off editing the image in the editor and
> gaining more precise control.
> 
> Which parts of your image you decide to place at 90%
> K or any other % K in
> your chosen workspace is entirely up to your
> artistic desire (or where
> you're told to put it if you are working in an
> environment which doesn't
> provide that freedom - a corporate logo may
> prescribe the shade of grey
> used, for example).
> 
> Colour management helps us a lot by providing a
> translation mechanism so
> that we need not worry about the numbers as much. 
> Whatever parts of our
> GG2.2 image that we have subjectively placed at 90%
> K (as defined by GG2.2)
> can be converted to the right colour when we change
> colour space.  Colour
> management also has protocols for dealing with the
> many situations when a
> colour or shade of grey can't be rendered in space
> to which we would like to
> convert so that results are still pleasing.  Colour
> management is a general
> case transformation tool - it's intended to be able
> to handle any and all
> colour spaces.  Epson's Adv B&W doesn't use colour
> management but there is
> nothing to say that Epson didn't think about (the
> narrow case and) the
> reaction of their printer to each possible input for
> ONE given workspace.
> In fact it is the far more intelligent thing to do
> than making it linear to
> L* (for example).  They could have, as I suggested,
> decided that the most
> common colour space in use out there today is Adobe
> RGB and then by default
> the most common grey space is likely GG2.2.  The
> logical thing to do then is
> to tailor the response of the printer (which they
> can do with a remarkable
> degree of accuracy for their inks and papers) to
> produce visually pleasing
> results (say, by using the same greyscale axis
> transforms they use in their
> perceptual colour profiles) for all those many
> people working in the most
> popular workspace today.  If they did so, one would
> expect 95% K to be
> printed very close to 100% K (or if you don't like
> the absolute black then
> think 94 and 99) because it's meant to be that way
> for someone working in
> Adobe RGB/GG2.2.
> 
> The point of this conversation was to say don't
> judge whether the printer is
> bunching shadows by printing a step wedge and
> looking at the results.  If
> Epson Adv B&W's default settings have been
> "calibrated" for Adobe RGB/GG 2.2
> then you'd expect the 90, 95 and 100 patches to be a
> lot closer together
> than if it had been calibrated for DG20.
> 
> As I said above, Epson Adv B&W does not use colour
> management and its
> response is quite likely calibrated for one
> workspace.  (It may be or may
> not be but I'll bet that the thought of DG20 was
> never entertained for a
> nanosecond if at all.)  QTR Create ICC does, though,
> allow us to plug this
> missing gap in Epson's B&W solution.  It allows us
> to profile the Adv B&W
> response (or any other workflow) and to put a
> general case translation
> device between our workspace and the response of the
> printer (the print
> space).  When we use an ICC profile the numbers are
> converted or changed so
> that the printer gets the right number to produce
> the right colours.  This
> is very helpful because it allows separation between
> us and the numbers.  We
> need focus less on what colour is generated by Adv
> B&W for the 8 bit
> equivalent of 90% K because colour management will
> translate the GG2.2 or
> DG20 number to the right number in the print space. 
> If you can use QTR
> Create ICC I highly recommend it.  Roy has made it
> very flexible with
> respect to data input and you need only have a
> densitometer. (A
> spectrophotometer will give you the added ability to
> soft proof hue.)  If
> you can't use QTR Create ICC then it's likely good
> advice to ensure that you
> work in Adobe RGB/GG 2.2 when using Epson Adv B&W.
> 
> Of course you can still decide that you don't like
> the default "Darker"
> setting - that's entirely up to you.  But make that
> judgement not by looking
> at a printed step wedge (in which case one would
> likely expect the black
> patches to be bunched at the end) but rather from
> the results of prints
> printed from the GG2.2 workspace - the workspace for
> which Adv B&W was most
> likely calibrated.  (Remember if you are not using
> colour management your
> choice of workspace is very very important.)
> 
> If you use a workspace like DG20 (without colour
> management) then it is not
> at all surprising that you wouldn't like the
> response of Epson's Adv B&W
> default settings.  The reason is obvious with a
> little technical knowledge.
> Look at a step wedge on your display.  Assign DG20
> to it.  Then assign
> GG2.2.  Those same numbers produce much darker 80-95
> patches, for example,
> in GG2.2 than in DG20.  The numbers are what go to
> the printer not the
> colours you see. (Without colour management there is
> no translator to
> convert the numbers so that the colours don't
> change.)  Of course the prints
> will come out a lot darker than on your display and
> your shadows will look
> blocked up.  But the reason is your lack of use of
> colour management (now
> available via QTR Create ICC) and, given that, your
> poor choice of a
> workspace which doesn't align well with how Epson
> likely calibrated the
> response of the printer!  The table below is useful
> in making this point
> clearer.  It is the lightness (as measured by CIE
> Lab's L*) ascribed to 80,
> 85, 90, 95 and 100 K for each of DG20, GG1.8 and GG
> 2.2:
> 
> Workspace   80    85    90    95    100
> DG20        30    23    15    5     0
> GG1.8       28    21    13    4     0
> GG2.2       20    13     6    1     0
> 
> So if you look at a patch (or part of your image)
> that's 85 K in DG20 but
> print it with something "calibrated" to Adobe
> RGB/GG2.2 you can see it's
> going to print a lot darker than it looks on screen
> and furthermore the gap
> between it and a 95K patch will be a lot closer than
> you expect.  There's
> nothing wrong with the printer - it's just reacting
> to the same number.  You
> just need to take the time to understand why there's
> a difference between
> what you see on screen and what you see in print and
> amend your practice to
> suit.  Anyone with an image tagged with DG20 (or any
> other non GG 2.2 space)
> now looking to use Epson Adv B&W would likely be
> well advised to convert
> that image file to GG 2.2 prior to printing it
> (firstly with the default
> settings).  That's a far more sensible first step
> than trying to tweak the
> driver settings.
> 
> 
> > From: Clayton Jones <cj@...>
> 
> > 
> > So according to what you are saying, photographers
> who now do digital
> > printing aren't supposed to bring their personal
> aesthetic judgments
> > to the work any more.  Instead we're supposed to
> plug in the numbers
> > and accept what comes out because someone somwhere
> decided that GG2.2
> > is what we're supposed to use and that dark values
> are supposed to be
> > bunched up.  Hogwash!  
> 
> 
> 



	
		
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