Digital BW, The Print

Cynthia,

>I may have missed something key, here.  After doing my BW conversion 
>in Photoshop and all other adjustments, should I be saving a 
>grayscale version of the file by going to Image, mode, grayscale and 
>send a grayscale image to the printer?

It's not a matter of "should", there are lots of ways to do BW
printing.  But my entire workflow is based upon using grayscale files.
 What is key in this approach (because it is not a calibrated
workflow) is the idea that the screen image is adjusted to match the
print in order to get good WYSIWYG (with a calibrated approach, the
output is adjusted, via icc profiles, etc, to match the screen image).
 The idea here is that the image has certain values which are sent to
the printer.  If the print doesn't match the screen version, the
screen version is adjusted to better match the print.  This adjustment
can be fine tuned, if needed, via the canned grayscale image profiles
(dot gain and gray gamma of various fixed values) and the ability to
easily create custom dot gain profiles if one of these is not accurate
enough (for example, I use DG 18%, because 20 was a tad too dark and
15% was too light).  

This approach requires that a printer gamma setting (the Tone setting
in ABW) be chosen which is a good match to the image profile.  As
mentioned earlier, some people use GG2.2/Darker, but I find that
DG20(or DG18)/Light has more open shadows.  So there is a balance
between these two opposing forces that must be struck.  The ability to
make custom DG curves is great because what actually works best can
vary depending on the monitor and/or video card (and who knows what
else).  A custom DG curve allows us to really fine tune the system,
and is why I was emphasizing that these settings not be changed (this
is all really very simple, it sounds complex to write about it).

So, if the file is kept in RGB mode, these grayscale profiles are not
in effect.  It's a completely different system and doesn't have the
same kind of controls.  So it's quite possible that these recommended
driver settings will not produce the best results (I can't say for
certain because I don't work in RGB, so don't have any good
experience).  Some people like working in RGB because they can do
visible toning of the image (such as gold toning or split toning). 
This is, in effect, color printing.  I don't care for that kind of
toning, so I work in grayscale mode and use ABW to do the print
toning.  Another advantage of grayscale is the files are 1/3 the size
of RGB.  I'm not saying grayscale is better, it's just a matter of
what kind of results you want and how you want to get there.  Another
requirement of this approach is setting the driver to No Color
Management.  If that is turned off, what is the need for an RGB image?

So, again, I'm not saying grayscale is better.  This workflow is just
a very good, easy, efficient system that produces gorgeous results and
avoids having to deal with calibration and color management stuff. 
It's about as easy and straightforward as it gets.

If you'd like to give it a try, all of the above is explained in
detail in articles #3 and #4.  While they are focused on BO printing,
what's in there forms the foundation of the whole approach.  It takes
longer to read it than it takes to do it.  Basically you go into Color
Settings and make sure the Grayscale setting is Dot Gain 20%.  Then,
any image converted to grayscale will have the DG20 image profile. 
After you work up the image, send it to the printer with Tone at
Light, Ink Config at -5%, paper type a VFA, Best Photo, and see what
happens.  That's the essence of the whole approach.

Got to go now.  Let us know what happens.

Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm
















 
> Have been doing lots of experimentation.  Feels like my house is 
> being overrun by 4x6 B&W printouts!