Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "meeshieck" <michal@...> wrote:
>
> hi,
> 
> I have question that's not directly related to that subject, but the title fits, so what the hell, maybe somebody will be able to help me out.
> I have an issue with Monaco and B&W prints. I can manage a pretty decent B&W on matte papers (I used to think it's great, but then I saw K7 inkset can do and things changed a bit ;). anyway, when I try to do B&W on glossy papers, it always comes out a little greenish for my taste. I usually print patches from colorport (2989) and I noticed that there aren't that many neutral greys in the layout. that is when I got the idea to maybe make custom patches, designed specifically to profile for B&W. only thing stopping me is the fact that I haven't got a clue how to go about this. anyone can point me in the right direction?
> 
> thanks,
> m.
>

Are you talking about Monaco Profiler specifically?  I am assuming a standard color inkset?  RGB profiles with a driver, or CMYK profiles through a a RIP? 

First, Monaco Profiler is only compatible with certain targets, at least to the best of my knowledge.  It seems to choke on non-standard profiling targets.  Generally, most RGB profiles using the driver leave something to be desired for B&W work (though I can get surprisingly good B&W on matte and glossy papers with my Canon iPF6100 and custom RGB profiles).  A good CMYK RIP, such as StudioPrint, will do fine if properly set up.  The above assumes a color inkset.  

Dedicated B&W inksets require a RIP (QTR, StudioPrint, etc) or something like Paul Roark's approach using the driver, curves, etc.  

ColorPort will allow you to build custom targets, but they say you have to use one of the "X-Rite" compatible charts as a starting point.  Not sure if you can modify them or not and still use Profiler.  

You can download Bill Atkinson's 1728 patch RGB profiling target which has quite a few neutral and near-neutral patches.  It can be made to work with Monaco Profiler if you use a little conversion script written by Eric Chan.  It reformats the data and feeds it to Profiler in a format it expects.  Works great.  I don't think Eric wrote a script for any other targets.  Here's the link.  

http://people.csail.mit.edu/ericchan/dp/i1ConvertToMonacoLAB/index.html

I've been doing a lot of work and experimenting with Profiler lately.  Send me an email offline if I can be of any help.  
(Lou at LouDina dot com)

Lou