Digital BW, The Print

Clayton et al.,
Yes, Convert to B&W Pro does in fact maintain RGB mode.

If AB&W on the Epson driver is going to wash the tone out, that will be very
unfortunate.

So the downside to printing in color is lightfastness, perhaps more
metamerism/bronzing?

Would Quadtone RIP make a difference?

There may not be a satisfactory answer, but I really like CtB&W a LOT.



On 9/13/06 9:10 AM, "Clayton Jones" <cj@...> wrote:

>  
>  
>  
> 
> Hello Frank,
> 
>> >I use ConverttoB&W Pro for all my B&W conversions in Photoshop. I
>> >love the interface and the output. It really shines with toned
>> >images. I¹m so new to B&W and not having a film background I¹m
>> >still trying to wrap my mind about the different ³classical² toning
>> >effects and how I can reproduce it with ConverttoB&W.
> 
>> >My question is what settings should I have in ABW mode to maintain
>> >the toned look I¹ve so carefully built in PS? Should it be
>> >considered a neutral print?
> 
> I don't have experience with that software but am assuming that it's a
> color image if you can see toning effects.  The ABW mode assumes it's
> dealing with a BW image, and you have to "dial in" whatever tone you
> want with the controls.  Even though the image is RGB, I think the
> driver will do some sort of BW conversion (probably desaturation) and
> then start from there as if it was a BW image.  So your toning will be
> lost and you'll probably have less control over the result (some of
> the grayscale values may change) than if you converted the image to
> grayscale yourself and do the toning with the ABW controls.
> 
> The alternative is to not use ABW mode, but print it as a color image.
>  In that case you'll have to deal with color management and all that
> goes with it in order to make the print look like what you see on
> screen.  This can be done but is more difficult and time consuming,
> and loses the advantages of ease and simplicity that are outlined in
> the article.  Plus, the print will likely have much more color ink in
> it, where the ABW print will have more of the 3 blacks and less color ink.
> 
> Either way can result in beautiful prints, but they are two very
> different paths.
> 
> Regards,
> Clayton
> 
> Info on black and white digital printing at
> http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm
> 
>  
>     


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