Digital BW, The Print

In a message dated 11/30/07 6:17:54 AM, j.h.j.h@... writes:


> I take the liberty to bump this one. No opinions this whatsoever? C.
> David Tobie, I'd expect you will have some first-hand insight in this.
> 

I've answered this one recently, but apparently not here. This has to to with 
specialty B&W inksets, which are typically used with a specialty B&W RIP, 
most commonly QTR. The typical workflow would be to build custom curves for QTR 
using PrintFIX PRO or Spyder3Print to take the measurements and export them to 
QTR or its CreateICC Utility. 

The other option is to build an RGB driver profile totally inside PFP or 
S3Print. That works for me, in what testing I've done, to produce a neutral 
profile, if the combination actually can reach neutral. But the complexity comes in 
with how to tune such a profile for non-neutral printing. Since the gamut is 
tiny, the adjustments the the PFP/S3Print sliders can make are similarly tiny. 
I suspect the best solution, if one choses this rather unusual route, is to 
have the neutral image in RGB in Photoshop, and to use the neutral profile to 
softproof, then to carefully adjust the RGB curves to tint the image. Once you 
get a print with the tonality you want (if you can, so to speak, get there from 
here) that RGB curve set can be imported into PFP/S3Print to make it part of 
the profile. 

All of this is pretty far of the radar in terms of typical PFP/S3Print usage. 
Personally I'd recommend getting a "two grays" printer, leaving the standard 
inkset in it, and printing color as well as B&W from it, using our profiles 
for both, with your choice of printing via the color mode for B&W and tinted B&
W, or the driver's B&W mode, with one of our profiles in either case, though 
the tint is controlled by the driver settings, if you use the driver B&W mode, 
and PFP/S3Print is only used for density control and softproof capablities.

C. David Tobie
Product Technology Manager
Digital Imaging & Home Theater
Datacolor
CDTobie@...
www.datacolor.com/Spyder3


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