Digital BW, The Print

Dear Forum Members:
Some weeks ago on another thread I expressed my great satisfaction 
with the B&W profiles created for me, gratis, by Ethan, at DryCreek 
when he made my color profile on my Epson 4800, K3 inks and Ilford 
Smooth Pearl Paper. I have also tried these B&W profiles(neutral, 
platinum, sepia, browntone and cool tone) on Silver Rag with similar 
good, metamerism free results. Actually the results are stunning and 
the toning options, in particular the platinum, are restrained and 
quite beautiful. I realize this CM approach to B&W printing is not 
everyone's cup of tea but to others like me than want to print B&W in 
the same easy wysiwyg method as color images, these B&W Profiles 
would be a boon to anyone with a K3 printer. I wrote to Ethan and 
asked him if he would be offering these B&W profiles free along with 
his color profiles as a matter of normal procedure. With his 
permission I have included his reply below: The short answer is YES  
for forum members but depending on your setup your milage may vary. 
Realize you may not geat great results with every inkset on every 
printer. But if you have a newer K3 printer this is great added value 
to an already excellent color profiling service. Just let Ethan know 
you are a forum member when you order and that you want the extra 
profiles. I don't work for DryCreek and I have heard different 
opinions about them, however my experience with them has been and 
coninues to be very satisfing. Happy printing to all.

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/

Lou Meluso  

Lou,
 
I started this email last week, ran into a time crunch, and let it 
languish in the drafts folder. I'll try to pick up my train of 
thought...
 
We have debated offering B&W profiles for over a year. I spent far 
too long in late 2004 developing the technique for creating these 
profiles. In most cases, the process works well. Nonetheless, trying 
to eliminate unwanted color casts - all too easy to spot in a B&W 
print! - is not a sure bet.
 
There are cases where a B&W profile will not be perfectly neutral 
over a certain tonal range. Fixing the problem is simple if one has 
the offending printer at hand. Make a print, evaluate, edit the 
profile or re-measure, print again. It usually takes one or two 
iterations to dial in a recalcitrant printer. In our case, however, 
the printer is anything but readily available. Doing remote edits 
based on a description or relying on snail mail to shuttle prints 
back and forth is a time consuming process. Our thoughts were that 
this would require both pricing the B&W profiles at an unreasonable 
level and spending more time than any of us desire tweaking and 
editing output.
 
Further confounding the process is the ugly fact of metamerism. While 
we can make a profile that gives neutral output under a particular 
lighting condition, this does not necessarily hold true for all light 
sources. For example, the original Epson UltraChrome inks shifted 
between a green and magenta cast depending on the lighting. The 
primary culprit in the metamerism was the yellow ink. Various RIP 
vendors make specialized B&W printing modes that disable the 
offending yellow ink, however this requires control over the 
individual inks. A profile is not a printer driver, so it can not do 
this. The moral is that metamerism can not be eliminated by a profile.
 
Our dilemma is that we have a methodology that works well in most 
instances, but we can not guarantee it. Some printers and inks are 
simply unsuited for B&W printing unless the output is viewed under 
carefully controlled lighting conditions. The toning options are 
based on measurements of a bunch of my own prints as well as those of 
my colleagues. We use the rendering intents as a means of giving 
different strengths, but we do not want to make individual 
adjustments based on each photographers preference -- back to a sane 
pricing model once again.
 
So far, we have offered the B&W profiles to customers who mentioned a 
preference for B&W work or sounded more savvy than average. We have 
yet to charge for the B&W profiles - it's been solely a gratis 
program. I do not want to include this for all our general customers, 
as many will not use them enough to justify the extra time and effort 
on our end. If you want, I could make the following offer to the 
Digital B&W group members:
 
Purchase a regular color profile from us and we will throw in the set 
of B&W profiles at no extra charge. Include a note to my attention 
along with which archive format to put the profiles in: WinZip or 
Stuffit. The B&W profiles come with neither guarantee nor support. If 
they do not work satisfactorily, we would like to hear why not, but 
are not going to commit to rounds of edits and tweaks. For folks with 
earlier Epson pigment printers - those with the original UltraChrome 
inks or their third party equivalents - please do not order the B&W 
profiles unless your prints will be viewed only under high quality 
D50 lighting. Ill-behaved printers really require a RIP for B&W work.
 
Feel free to post the above to the Digital B&W group. I have no 
problem providing the B&W options as long as people know their 
mileage may vary.
 
Cheers,
Ethan