Digital BW, The Print

Paul Whiting wrote:
> Greetings,
> 
> Just acquired an Epson 1280, with two sets of Piezograpy BW ICC carts,
> the CD, all for $100. Didn't think I should pass that up. The
> printer's hardly been used and the carts are in their sealed plastic
> envelopes.
> 
> Now what.. I see in the docs I'm supposed to use the Color Settings in
> Photoshop, but I have Elements and its Color Settings are very
> spartan. The docs tell me I can use other imaging software by studying
> the settings for Photoshop and using their equivalents in those
> applications. I do have QImage... I looked at its menus and I see some
> parallels. But I could use some help here... has anyone used Qimage
> for this particular Piezography?
> 
> I would still use Elements for its other features, cropping, sizing,
> etc. but then I would think I could print the PSD files in QImage,
> using its color settings instead.
> 
> I'm a newbie... lots to learn. Thank you all in advance!

Several things to think off.

Greyscale images is no option in that Elements>Qimage 
workflow. But neutral RGB is.

Elements uses AdobeRGB when best CM is chosen in color 
preferences. It gives you a choice to assign sRGB or 
AdobeRGB to an image that has no profile assigned when 
opened but doesn't give that choice when the image has a 
profile assigned. It will save that file again with the 
profile it originally had or got when opened. Elements is 8 
bit color RGB only which shouldn't be  a problem with Qimage 
as it is 8 bit color RGB only. I do not know what color 
space is recommended for Piezography, AdobeRGB = 2.2 Gamma, 
sRGB = 1.8 Gamma. You better save as a Tiff and not as PSD 
as Qimage isn't that reliable with PSD (for example size 
issues).

Qimage may have a problem with the Piezography profile if 
perceptual rendering + BPC is chosen. At least it has that 
problem with the QTR profiles but I do not know whether they 
are alike on that aspect. If there are issues with low Dmax 
and shades not fitting properly then try some alternatives 
like BPC off and Relative Colormetric with and without BPC. 
For the rest it is as usual: driver CM control off and 
Qimage CM control on.
Be aware that if you do not have an embedded profile in the 
image Qimage will look for EXIF data to make a good guess 
what profile it should be and if no EXIF data is available 
it will assign a profile automatically. sRGB by default but 
that preference can be changed in the color management settings.


-- 
Met vriendelijke groeten,  Ernst


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