Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, CDTobie@... wrote:
>
> 
> In a message dated 11/30/06 3:46:58 PM, roy@... writes:
> 
> 
> > ABW is only non-ICC in that Epson does not supply any grayscale ICC 
> > profiles
> > and none of the "biggies" in color management support grayscale profiling.
> > 
> ColorVision chose to use full 3D Look UpTable profiling instead, as it offers 
> so much more control. You could run PrintFIX PRO through the AWB mode, I 
> suppose, but all you'd get is linearization. Thats all you can really do to AWB: 
> linearize it, and take a snapshot of the result.

Sure, a grayscale workflow is fundamentally different than a color workflow.
I don't know whether or not PFP can do a grayscale workflow -- early on I used
some Eye-One's  i1Match software and it only sort of worked with grayscale data.

> > 
> > However the QTR-Create-ICC tool does all of that -- creates grayscale ICC
> > profile for use in softproofing and ICC printing to match the embedded 
> > profile
> > and the printer device.   This raises the ABW workflow to a complete ICC 
> > workflow.
> > 
> There would seem to be some rather large gaps there. Tonal control is 
> missing, that still has to be done via the dartboard in AWB. 

That's a characteristic of grayscale -- there's no color in the image file.

Preview; does that cover 
> tonalities, and by way of what tonal measurements? Wouldn't you have to 
> profile every single tone of interest, and create a preview profile for each one, 
> rather than having a 3D LUT profile that contains all possible tints and 
> cross-tints in one profile? 

That's true with all profiling -- if you change driver settings you must redo any 
profiles (or the correlary:  you can only use a profile for the same driver settings).


On the topic of cross-tints: I have found no method of 
> creating them effectively in AWB. 

Yes, AWB just doesn't support that.  It could but they chose not to.

And tools for tinting and ramping? Again, I 
> suspect this is being left to the dartboard. Gamut warnings? Not relevant. To 
> me a complete ICC workflow also means I can match output on another media, or 
> another printer, which is possible with 3D LUT profiles. I don't really see how 
> this happens via AWB. So if a client loves a particular cross-tint, opps, no 
> cross-tints... if they love a particular tint, how can I get that on another 
> device or media, if its only available as an AWB value, which varies per media, 
> and is only available on AWB-based devices?

If you want color functionality then yes you should use a color workflow.

But I think there's a very fundamental difference in using a grayscale workflow
versus a color workflow with reduced gamut.   I recently did a show of 20 or so
images.  As a show I wanted the all the images with the same split-tone hue.
I much prefer that all my image files are grayscale -- the split tone for me is a
printing issue not a source image file issue.    The notion of converting all the
files to RGB and trying to match the color tones isn't at all appealing.
Since the files are all grayscale I can print with any number of printers and/or inks
and get the same fundamental image -- be it neutral gray, sepia, split-tone etc.
This is much more akin to what B&W photography has always been.

Roy

> 
> C. David Tobie
> Product Technology Manager
> ColorVision Business Unit
> Datacolor Inc.
> CDTobie@...
> www.colorvision.com
> 
> 
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>