Digital BW, The Print

After spending the whole night installing Red-Hat linux on a virtual 
machine (I normally use windows) and compiling various packages to 
get Gimp-Print to work I finally got to try how it would do BW 
printing on the 2100.

The good news is that it uses both the regular and the light black, 
so results are _much_ smoother than normal BO printing with the Epson 
driver. The bad news is that I get some microbanding, and the 
transitions between the two inks are less than perfect, but it's 
encouraging to discover new possibilities with this printer.

What I would like to do now is to somehow get Gimp-Print to print 
using only the two blacks, but tint the image with one additional 
colour. The Epson blacks are pretty warm, so I'd like to add a small 
amount of cyan to get a more neutral image. I would be grateful if 
someone with more experience with Gimp-Print could guide me in the 
right direction on how to do this.

On 1/1/03 8:43 PM, "danielstaver <daniel@...>"
<daniel@...> wrote:

> After spending the whole night installing Red-Hat linux on a virtual
> machine (I normally use windows) and compiling various packages to
> get Gimp-Print to work I finally got to try how it would do BW
> printing on the 2100.

Wow, that's dedication!  I'm curious -- is the virtual machine a commercial
product, or something that's free?

Exactly how are you getting the image to gimp-print?  Through Gimp itself?

> What I would like to do now is to somehow get Gimp-Print to print
> using only the two blacks, but tint the image with one additional
> colour. The Epson blacks are pretty warm, so I'd like to add a small
> amount of cyan to get a more neutral image. I would be grateful if
> someone with more experience with Gimp-Print could guide me in the
> right direction on how to do this.

You might be able to do this by sending a CMYK file to gimp-print.  If you
use the "Raw CMYK" output mode, you can control each of the main ink colors
separately.  Note that gimp-print still handles the light-regular crossover,
so it's not truly a raw mode, but it's closer than sending RGB.

Anyway, if you set up a Photoshop file to be CMYK, but have your main image
as grayscale on the K channel, and the "toning" on the C channel, you might
be able to make this work.

Try this:

    - open your grayscale file (and do a Save As just in case!)

    - convert to multichannel mode

    - go to the Channels palette

    - duplicate the "Black" channel three times

    - convert to CMYK mode

    - select each of the M and Y channels in turn, and erase their contents
(I use command-backspace on my Mac)

    - tune the C channel as desired (using Levels or Curves)

    - print, making sure you specify "Raw CMYK" in the gimp-print settings

-- 
John Labovitz
johnl@...
www.johnlabovitz.com

I'm using Vmware Workstation on Windows XP. It's a commercial product 
and sets up a virtual computer that acts like a regular computer in 
every way. It's very stable and I have no problem running Redhat 
Linux in a window on my desktop, it acts like a separate computer on 
the network with it's own IP address and everything.

I allocated the USB port in my 2100 to VMware while Windows uses the 
Firewire port so I can print using both operating systems without any 
further changes.

Currently I'm using GIMP itself, but realize that it doesn't support 
CMYK files, so I was planning to try outputting postscript directly 
from photoshop to a file and printing from that.

Unfortunately I'm not yet familiar with the command-line syntax for 
CUPS and Gimp-Print, and there's no good examples in the 
documentation, so I expect to struggle a little bit before figuring 
everything out.

The method you're describing sounds very useful for what I'm trying 
to achieve, thanks! I'll let you know when I get it to work...

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, John Labovitz 
<johnl@j...> wrote:
> On 1/1/03 8:43 PM, "danielstaver <daniel@p...>"
> <daniel@p...> wrote:
> 
> > After spending the whole night installing Red-Hat linux on a 
virtual
> > machine (I normally use windows) and compiling various packages to
> > get Gimp-Print to work I finally got to try how it would do BW
> > printing on the 2100.
> 
> Wow, that's dedication!  I'm curious -- is the virtual machine a 
commercial
> product, or something that's free?
> 
> Exactly how are you getting the image to gimp-print?  Through Gimp 
itself?
> 
> > What I would like to do now is to somehow get Gimp-Print to print
> > using only the two blacks, but tint the image with one additional
> > colour. The Epson blacks are pretty warm, so I'd like to add a 
small
> > amount of cyan to get a more neutral image. I would be grateful if
> > someone with more experience with Gimp-Print could guide me in the
> > right direction on how to do this.
> 
> You might be able to do this by sending a CMYK file to gimp-print.  
If you
> use the "Raw CMYK" output mode, you can control each of the main 
ink colors
> separately.  Note that gimp-print still handles the light-regular 
crossover,
> so it's not truly a raw mode, but it's closer than sending RGB.
> 
> Anyway, if you set up a Photoshop file to be CMYK, but have your 
main image
> as grayscale on the K channel, and the "toning" on the C channel, 
you might
> be able to make this work.
> 
> Try this:
> 
>     - open your grayscale file (and do a Save As just in case!)
> 
>     - convert to multichannel mode
> 
>     - go to the Channels palette
> 
>     - duplicate the "Black" channel three times
> 
>     - convert to CMYK mode
> 
>     - select each of the M and Y channels in turn, and erase their 
contents
> (I use command-backspace on my Mac)
> 
>     - tune the C channel as desired (using Levels or Curves)
> 
>     - print, making sure you specify "Raw CMYK" in the gimp-print 
settings

> 
> -- 
> John Labovitz
> johnl@j...
> www.johnlabovitz.com