Digital BW, The Print

Hi Enrst,

There's basically two camps that I see.   One is that B&W is just a low-gamut
color process.   In theory its just color printing but there's more attention paid
to the near gray region rather than the high chroma areas.  This is what David
Tobie is concentrating on now.  The other camp is that B&W is a grayscale
process where hue/tone can be introduced as desired.  I've mostly worked in
this camp.  It has advantages and disadvantages.  You've seen one of the
disadvantages because of the proliferation of profiles -- both QTR and ICC.
Unfortunately the ICC profiles have no concept of blending so whatever is done
in PS and softproofing based on ICC profiles can't have any variable tone.
But on the other side I think having the toning separate from the image data
matches more of what B&W toning has always been.   I tend to do series where
I like all the same toning so having it separate fits my desires.

But in any case I'd be interested in your views about various workflows and
evolution of B&W printing.

Roy


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Ernst Dinkla <E.Dinkla@...> 
wrote:
>
> I don't think we are at the end of improvements in drivers. 
> Hardware is now close to ideal, the machines we dreamed about 
> five years ago. Drivers are not there yet, not in combining 
> flexibility, color control and ease of use. I doubt that many 
> printshops take the time to pinpoint their B&W results like 
> some of the members on this list do so there's some margin 
> left for quality that isn't in the subjective area like 
> photographer's intent. I have some ideas about what could be 
> improved on the driver side of B&W printing that isn't found 
> in OEM B&W drivers, the  RIPs or David Tobie's approach right 
> now. While the OEM drivers lack the precision, the other 
> approaches lack the flexibility in use. Next week is Photokina 
> though so I could be surprised.
> 
> David's idea of using the RGB color management and add real 
> B&W profiling to it is the right road. I have asked for 
> something like that on the Colorsync list maybe 3 years ago 
> and repeated that question when the first K3 printers came 
> along. I thought that an extra B&W rendering on normal color 
> ICC profiles could be a solution and I still think that that 
> isn't a bad idea. Limits the amount of profiles a lot that 
> way. The problem with profile creation for B&W solutions will 
> be in the profile management and flexible use of the profiles. 
> I am almost at the end of a cycle of QTR profile creations 
> that had to do with canvas printing. While I had uncoated 
> canvas ready, 3 linearisations + profiles: carbon, cool, warm, 
> I had to add varnish mat and now varnish gloss. That still 
> doesn't cover profiles for the slider steps in between say 
> 50/50 on QTR's choices. And this is only one canvas quality. 
> At least the QTR sliders give you some flexibility in printing 
> but only on one axis and softproofing remains fixed with just 
> two or three profiles along the way.  I think David's solution 
> isn't better on this aspect. It would be better if a B&W 
> profile plug-in on Photoshop gave the ability to balance the 
> print result and the corresponding soft proof between say 3 
> profiles made so you get a gliding scale on several axis in 
> that system but still profiled.
> 
> QTR is very density based in its applications and that will 
> become a bottleneck with the new NgreyNcolor printers. With 
> fixed grey inksets: 4,5,6,7K neutral, cool, warm, it is 
> fulfilling most needs but it will not  take care of paper 
> white compensation. But at least the consistency of the hue 
> and saturation is baked in the ink already. With normal color, 
> quad toners and NgreyNcolor printers you will always need a 
> manual control of saturation and hue in curves to get 
> consistency in color tone along the greyscale. I think QTR 
> will need a color engine one way or another to get this 
> solved. On top of that the same plug-in for Photoshop that I 
> suggested for David's solution. Either that or a stand alone 
> program that has an interface like Epson's ABW but with some 
> exact profiling beacons to navigate between.
> 
> David's approach doesn't solve the linearising of odd inksets, 
> some third party papers, individual printers. He is right that 
> OEM drivers should have some extra paper settings that are not 
> fixed on the manufacturer's supply of papers. (last time that 
> happened is I think on the 10000 printer driver that I have). 
> David's approach still is an "RGB" profiling solution. Used 
> with QTR part of the linearising can be filled in but with the 
> QTR color control limitations I sketched before. At least it 
> gives you the best Dmax possible on that paper (with or 
> without mat or gloss varnish :-) + the perceptual grey tone 
> separation along the ramp.
> 
> So I don't think we are in B&W driver Nirvana yet. Simply 
> adding dedicated profiles for every B&W hue tone possible 
> isn't a flexible solution. For the NgreyNcolor printers now 
> introduced on a wider scale and in my opinion the best 
> solution for the printshop we will need more advanced B&W 
> color management but with flexibility and ease of use like 
> sketched above. ICC profile management will still be needed 
> too. Love to see B&W profiling added as a rendering to ICC 
> color profiles. For that you need a five to ten year lobby at 
> the higher color management institutes. It would be a shame 
> all that doesn't run on Qimage :-)  And before I forget it 
> make a QTR based Windows driver that communicates through 
> Windows API with Qimage.
> 
> I doubt when that is done there's only photographer's intent 
> we can compete on for the best B&W Print. What did we see in 
> analogue B&W printing after Adams made the first good analogue 
> B&W prints: new films, new papers, archival development, 
> multi-grade paper and enlargers,  etc etc. Right now the best 
> analogue prints are made, with and without the right 
> photographer's intent, it will not be different with digital 
> prints even when B&W digital prints are replaced for 90% by 
> B&W flatscreens on the wall.
> 
> Ernst
>                     --
>            Ernst Dinkla
> 
> 
> www.pigment-print.com
> (         unvollendet         )
>