Digital BW, The Print

Thank you Sandy for posting your workflow.

Although I'm running XP, I was able to translate your settings, and the
result is a substantial improvement over my previous results.

The prints exhibit a very smooth progression across the 21-step wedge, and
have a finer dither pattern than ImagePrint, but they appear very warm in
tone.  It really would be a stretch to call them neutral.  These are
straight off the printer and haven't cured though.  If there is a
significant change in tone after curing, I will repost, but I doubt they
will cool that much.

There are two major differences between Sandy's workflow and the settings I
was using previously.  1) I was using the default RGB profile (EW-Adobe) in
PServer / Color Manager.  2) In Photoshop's "Print with Preview," I had the
Print Space Profile set to "Postscript Color Management."

If I understand Sandy's workflow correctly, here is what is happening:
Photoshop is converting the document from its working profile (Gray
Gamma...) to Adobe RGB.  The Epson RIP (PServer) settings tell it to expect
Adobe RGB and convert to the appropriately set paper profile.  Setting
grayscale control to "Image" tells the RIP to use only the black and light
black inks (set in a completely different place to "Matte BK + Light BK")
when printing gray which results in the warm tone.  If that is the case, I
expect that the prints will be free from metamerism -- I'll check this
tomorrow.

I just confirmed that setting Photoshop back to "Postscript Color
Management" is what caused the horrible red cast in the images.

One mystery solved... now, how do you get the Epson RIP to print neutral
rather than warm?

--Tom

>a substantial improvement over my previous results...

Hey, glad to hear it, Tom. My prints are warm too, I call them "warm-
neutral" and are of very similar appearance to Piezotone Selenium 
inks. Personally I like the tone but it would be nice if we could 
tone how we want. I tried using the RIP to print duotone but results 
were unacceptable. I have a feeling metamerism might be a factor if I 
start throwing in color. Still experimenting.

I tried editing a couple of the profiles that are part of the RIP and 
found that they were CMYK profiles, not RGB. Hmmm. My next plan is to 
print color profile targets thru the RIP to make some custom profiles 
and then mess around with those to see if I can't get an acceptable 
duotone.

Has anyone found where/how where to find the "Tone Curve Dialogue Box"? It is mentioned along with its graphic on page 45 of the instruction manual. Also, I have been wondering what the Calibration box function is. I printed it out and very four "pretty" rows of color squares are printed along with a nozzle check pattern. 

The tone curve box may be the answer to changing the warm tonality of the prints to a more neutral tone. That is, once all the color/curve variables are fed to a Cray computer. :-)

Peter Palmieri


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

In PServer's Color Manager dialog, if you select something for CMYK (such as
EPSON_SWOP) then it enables the button next to "Color Adjust".

Clicking this button opens the dialog "Tone Curve..."
It looks like just a cruder version of Photoshop's Curve tool, but only
available for CMYK.

BTW Peter, I just tried the settings you emailed me and the result looks
identical to Sandy Cornelius' settings:  Very smooth, nice shadow
separation, warm in tone.

--Tom

----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Palmieri" <pcpalmieri@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, February 24, 2003 10:56 PM
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Epson 2200 RIP - basic workflow


> Has anyone found where/how where to find the "Tone Curve Dialogue Box"? It
is mentioned along with its graphic on page 45 of the instruction manual.
Also, I have been wondering what the Calibration box function is. I printed
it out and very four "pretty" rows of color squares are printed along with a
nozzle check pattern.
>
> The tone curve box may be the answer to changing the warm tonality of the
prints to a more neutral tone. That is, once all the color/curve variables
are fed to a Cray computer. :-)
>
> Peter Palmieri
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
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