Digital BW, The Print

daschkenas@... wrote:

>  Keep in mind when switching to a pigment ink set, things change
> dramatically.  Even with a professional profile, I don't believe that you will
> ever get a print to look like that of a dye ink set.  I switched from epson
> oem carts to a CIS with MIS pigs, color inkset, and never got what I consider
> to be a satisfying b&w print.  Either abrupt tonal gradations of
> posterization, there was always a problem.  I wasted a couple hundred sheets
> of paper trying to make it work, but was unable.  I switched back to MIS color
> dyes with the CIS, and have been printing beautiful b&w images without any
> disapointment.
> So I'm just warning you. once you go to pigs, everything changes.  As CDTobie
> said to me when he made my profiles, some pigment ink & paper combinations can
> only do so much, don't expect it to look like the oem carts with dyes.
> Just my 2 cents.
> David

David,
We currently use the OEM pigment inks for our 2000P (our 7000 is on order, which
we will use with Indelible pigment inks) and have absolutely no problem printing
out smooth b&w images with occasional *very* minor crossovers.  Adding a
'selenium toned' look to the prints should reduce that even further as you are
taking the image away from a pure neutral.

Anyone who was in either of the last 2 print exchanges should be able to vouch
for what I am claiming regarding the smoothness and neutrality..

The way we get our grayscale* out of the 6 color in Photoshop:
Mode>grayscale>Mode>rgb

*I just learned of a 'correction' for the color crossovers that can
occur...after converting to rgb, add a 'levels' Adjustment Layer, and set the
the levels (on each color) at the following: R - 1.00, G - 0.95, B- 0.95

If you want to add a selenium toned look:
After conversion to RGB, add an 'Adjustment Layer' for Hue/Saturation', click on
'Colorize' under 'Hue' the number is between 277 and 300 (depending on your
personal taste, or the paper/developer/selenium concentration combo), and set
the 'Saturation' anywhere from -8 to -15.  You can further fine tune that by
changing the opacity of the adjustment layer.

One could also do the same using 'curves', but I suspect is would be more
difficult.

The other way is when still in grayscale, go Mode>duotone (you can then select
from duotone to quadrotone), and select appropriate colors and curves.  (I am
not well versed at this aspect, and I use a lot of trial and error).  But once
you have a combo that works for you, you can 'save' it, and 'load' it on other
images.

Harvey Ferdschneider
partner, SKID Photography, NYC




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