Digital BW, The Print

In a message dated 11-02-05 00:16  ellery@... wrote:

> Toti 
> The HP's have a good rep for printing in black and white. Perhaps a call to HP
> to check with them on this. Are you printing with all color inks or black ink
> only ? 
> QTR is a 3rd party rip that seems to be getting many good words from users. I
> do not know if it supports you HP printer.
> ciao.

Hi Ellery,
thanks for the hint; I'll take a look to QTR's web site soon, to learn more
about printers compatibility.
At first I tried the black ink only option, but the range was so tight that
I gave up after few attempts (consider I'm using pigmented inks); the CMYK
option takes the biscuit with regard to dynamic range, of course, but
results in a strong magenta cast: working with the curves could *sometimes*
produce nice results, but it requires LOTS of attempts (read waste of money
and time, you know), and anyway when an (almost) neutral range is achieved,
it works with THAT picture, and the same settings won't produce good results
with another, making life a more complex thing than it already is, ah!
I'll look forward for more hints from this experienced bunch of experts, as
regards the chance to set up a profile giving repeatable results.
Thanks again.

-- 
Toti Calò (possibly in English)
http://www.thgpictures.com
http://www.grafichehorizon.it
mailto: tical@...

First off, I just downloaded QTR for my Epson 9600's and it works great, 
but it is not available for the HP :(

I have an HP5000ps and have been trying for years get a good B+W out of it.

I would reccomend buying profiling software as it's going to give you 
the best results. I am just really beginning to profile my media with 
this printer and it is working great so far for color images , and what 
little I have printed in B+W seems pretty good, although they are still 
on the warm side.

I am using the built in PS RIP so there are still limitations ... one of 
these days I will have a real RIP and may be able to get further along. 
Until then the profiling will have to do.

I have tried, like you, to print with just the black head, but the image 
quality is terrible (not far from a dot matrix printer to be honest), 
the HP black ink is also very warm on its own.

My most success has been to print a grayscale tiff from within Quark, 
tinting the tiff in Quark with a process color, which seems to give me a 
bit more control over the final tint than using curves on an rgb file in 
photoshop.

In a message dated 11-02-05 00:16  stuart@i... wrote:

Hi Stuart,
your experience mirrors mine quite well.

>I would reccomend buying profiling software as it's going to give you
>the best results. 
What are you using? A warm picture is anyway preferable to Hell-HOT one!

>My most success has been to print a grayscale tiff from within Quark,
>tinting the tiff in Quark with a process color, which seems to give me a
>bit more control over the final tint than using curves on an rgb file in
>photoshop.
Interesting! Do you mean Quark XPress? It has a really good print driver (at
least with my image setter works great): if I'm understanding your point,
you tint the GS Tiff with a neutral Pantone Process (CYMK), such as a
process black, changing the percent of each coloured channel (CMY)
accordingly to the dominant cast you see in the print, right?
Hmmmm... I'll give it a go!
Cheers.

-- 
Toti Calò (possibly in English)
http://www.thgpictures.com
http://www.grafichehorizon.it
mailto: tical@...

> Hi Stuart,
> your experience mirrors mine quite well.

we are not alone  :]
 
> >I would reccomend buying profiling software as it's going to give
you the best results. 
> What are you using? A warm picture is anyway preferable to Hell-HOT one!

hehheh. I use Xrite PULSE ColorElite - rgb + cmyk profiling software.
It is very reasonable cost wise (about 2300 dollars US) and incredibly
user friendly, and so far I've had great results with my photo papers
and other media.
I think there's a discussion going on right now on the
apple.colorsync.users list about the difference between this and
MonacoPROOF which is a similar price range, so you may want to do a
bit of research (although they are both made by the same company now
i'm not sure there's much difference)

> Interesting! Do you mean Quark XPress? 

Yes.

>It has a really good print driver (at least with my image setter
works great): if I'm understanding your point, you tint the GS Tiff
with a neutral Pantone Process (CYMK), such as a process black,
changing the percent of each coloured channel (CMY) accordingly to the
dominant cast you see in the print, right?

Yes Toti. I would make a new color using between 90 and 100% K.
Then fool around with combinations of CMY. 
What seems nice about this method is that it is consistant from print
to print.

>Hmmmm... I'll give it a go!

good luck :]

if you discover another method, I would love to know :D

stuart