Digital BW, The Print

Hello All,

Here are some tips for Black-Only printing on EAM and PhotoRag papers.
These comments about the profile settings are distilled from the
latest experiments by Steve K. and are subject to change.   We are
still learning.  While they may not be the last word, these techniques
have given a finer degree of control than before, so others may find
them helpful.

My basic technique is to use EAM for proofing and PR for final prints.
I stated before that I could print on EAM and PR without changing
anything.  That was true, but I realized the other day that I hadn't
printed any high key images on PR.  When I printed the acolyte
portrait (large area of pure white robe) on PR the light area looked
wimpy.  I had to adjust the image a tad to keep it looking as good as
the EAM version.  Same thing happened when I printed a snowscape on
PR for the first time last night.  My theory is that it's because PR
is brighter than EAM, and because BO lets bare paper show through the
dots it "brightens" the high areas.  I just never noticed it on my
other PR prints with relatively small hilite areas.

Steve's experiments with PS7 settings has given us a way to handle
this without needing two separate images, or separate final pre-print
adjustments to the image.  

1) In the print preview window (menu item Files/Print With Preview...)
there is a picklist with two choices, "Output" and "Color Management".
When you choose Output, the printer driver makes no adjustments to the
printer output.  Basically this means color management (CM) is off.

2) The image imbedded profile (Dot Gain 20%, Gamma 2.2, etc) affects
primarily how the image looks on the screen, and not the printed
output (as long as CM is off).  Using DG 20% gives us real close to
WYSIWYG with BO.  Steve and I refer to this imbedded profile as the
"front end".  When you switch to a higher number (such as DG 25%) the
visual image gets darker (and vice versa).  But since the goal here is
WYSIWYG there is no reason to use anything but DG 20.

3) If you turn CM on, the bottom of the Print Preview window changes
and gives you a picklist of all the profiles.  These will alter the
printed output.  We refer to this as the "back end".  If you choose DG
20% it will be the same as the front end and the printed result will
be the same.  For whatever reason, the numbers have the opposite
effect - a lower number in the back end (DG 10%) darkens the print.  

When printing the snowscape on PR last night, the snow, which is
really sensitive to slight changes, looked weak.  I found that by
turning on CM and choosing DG 15% it darkened the image to look almost
exactly like the EAM version.  I say "almost" because it seems to
darken the lows a tad more than the highs, so there is a slight
difference in overall contrast.  So it isn't perfect, but is a good
tool to help in having a single image that can be printed on different
papers.

So the best BO workflow would seem to be to imbed DG 20 into a newly
scanned image, turn on CM at DG 20, and work up the image with EAM.
Then adjust the back end to fit other papers.

I hope this is helpful.

Regards, - cj