Digital BW, The Print

Hi folks,
  I'm getting washed-out looking mid-tones when printing BO with Eboni
on HPR.  I've played around with curves and levels and whatnot, but I
haven't found any really good solution.  Anyone have a nice "rule of
thumb" or curve I could use?

FWIW, my workflow is:

o ACR
o channel mixer
o levels
o print

Very, very simple.

-- 
 Ben Rosengart                                          ben@...
       "Young people should be seen and not heard, because they're
        good-looking but not too bright.  We're pretty bright now,
        but we're ugly." -- Grace Slick on the '60s youth movement

On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 02:11:55PM -0400, Ben Rosengart wrote:
> Hi folks,
>   I'm getting washed-out looking mid-tones when printing BO with Eboni
> on HPR.  I've played around with curves and levels and whatnot, but I
> haven't found any really good solution.  Anyone have a nice "rule of
> thumb" or curve I could use?

On second thought, even better would be some kind of profile so I
could tell Photoshop about BO's odd curve.  That way, what's on my
screen would bear some resemblance to what prints.

I'm not looking for a perfect match, just trying to get close.

Clayton, do any of your articles address this question?

-- 
 Ben Rosengart                                          ben@...
       "Young people should be seen and not heard, because they're
        good-looking but not too bright.  We're pretty bright now,
        but we're ugly." -- Grace Slick on the '60s youth movement

Folks, I'm sorry.  Please ignore the previous messages.  I found
Clayton Jones's article on this.  For anyone else who may be
wondering:

  http://www.cjcom.net/articles/digiprn3b.htm

Again, apologies for the wasted time and bandwidth.

-- 
 Ben Rosengart                                          ben@...
       "Young people should be seen and not heard, because they're
        good-looking but not too bright.  We're pretty bright now,
        but we're ugly." -- Grace Slick on the '60s youth movement

Hello Ben,

>I'm getting washed-out looking mid-tones when printing BO with 
>Eboni on HPR.  I've played around with curves and levels and 
>whatnot, but I haven't found any really good solution.  Anyone 
>have a nice "rule of thumb" or curve I could use?
>I'm not looking for a perfect match, just trying to get close.

It's hard to answer because of not enough information (what printer
and settings), and also I don't know what you mean by "washed out". 
BO's weakness shows up in the midtones in smooth areas (without lots
of small detail), but it's because of the more apparent graininess,
not something I would describe as washed out.

That term to me suggests lack of density or contrast, but my
experience with BO printing is that it is very strong in these areas,
giving a very accurate rendering of the screen image (when using the
settings I suggest for good WYSIWYG) with excellent contrast and tonal
separation.  So I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to suggest, other
than experiment with adjustment curves and other papers.

Each paper has its own contrast curve and I've found that this can
make a huge difference to an image.  After a proof is worked up on EEM
I usually try prints on 4 to 6 different papers to find the one that
looks best (the A-List in the "Great Paper Chase" article).


> Clayton, do any of your articles address this question?

The BO articles (#3 and #4) give a general description and
instructions, but nothing that specifically addresses "washed out mid
tones".


>On second thought, even better would be some kind of profile so 
>I could tell Photoshop about BO's odd curve.  That way, what's 
>on my screen would bear some resemblance to what prints.

I'm not sure what you mean by "BO's odd curve", but one of BO's
strengths is that profiles are not needed.  IMO pursuing this would be
an excersise in frustration and a waste of time.  If you aren't
getting good WYSIWYG then you might try the approach described in
those articles.  It works great for me and many others who have
reported good results.  

Regardless of what you mean by "washed out", it may be that the image
simply doesn't work well in BO.  I have a number of images that didn't
and I used UT7 for them (now am using K3/2400). 

I hope this is helpful.

Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm

On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 07:36:00PM -0000, Clayton Jones wrote:
> 
> It's hard to answer because of not enough information (what printer
> and settings),

Epson 1280, matte paper-heavyweight, print quality "photo".

> and also I don't know what you mean by "washed out". 

The dark grays are not dark enough.

> BO's weakness shows up in the midtones in smooth areas (without lots
> of small detail), but it's because of the more apparent graininess,
> not something I would describe as washed out.

I don't think this is a weakness in BO -- I think I'm not using it
right.  In the past, when I've gotten the settings right in BO through
trial and error, the results have been more than satisfactory.

> That term to me suggests lack of density or contrast, but my
> experience with BO printing is that it is very strong in these areas,
> giving a very accurate rendering of the screen image (when using the
> settings I suggest for good WYSIWYG) with excellent contrast and tonal
> separation. 

I prefer to work in RGB space, so I can have a channel mixer layer --
so I couldn't quite follow your cookbook.  However, even when I did
convert to grayscale, I found the results to be *exactly* what I was
getting to beging with.  That is, changing the display profile didn't
change the on-screen appearance, and since I was using "same as
source" for the printer profile, in the end nothing was changed.

> So I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to suggest, other
> than experiment with adjustment curves and other papers.

I played around with Paul's step wedge, as you suggested, and found
that it was as I thought -- dark grays were too light.  So I decided
to set my monitor profile to an RGB profile that I made with Apple's
Display Profiler Assistant (by eye), and play with the printer
profiles.  The one that seems to produce a reasonable ramp is Gamma
1.8.

> The BO articles (#3 and #4) give a general description and
> instructions, but nothing that specifically addresses "washed out mid
> tones".

They did help me figure out what to play with, though, and they
refreshed my memory of how print spaces work -- so they were helpful.

> >On second thought, even better would be some kind of profile so 
> >I could tell Photoshop about BO's odd curve.  That way, what's 
> >on my screen would bear some resemblance to what prints.
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean by "BO's odd curve", but one of BO's
> strengths is that profiles are not needed.  IMO pursuing this would be
> an excersise in frustration and a waste of time. 

Sorry-- what I meant was a print color space.

> Regardless of what you mean by "washed out", it may be that the image
> simply doesn't work well in BO.  I have a number of images that didn't
> and I used UT7 for them (now am using K3/2400). 

I use UT2 for those.  Though, if the approach I'm playing with now
gets me more consistently WYSIWYG results, I might re-try some images
I'd given up on.

-- 
 Ben Rosengart                                          ben@...
       "Young people should be seen and not heard, because they're
        good-looking but not too bright.  We're pretty bright now,
        but we're ugly." -- Grace Slick on the '60s youth movement

Ben:

Is your printer color space the same as your working color space in
PS? If so, that is probably your problem. You need the dot gain to
compensate for the lightness. 

Clayton's method is excellent. But for a short cut: set your working
space to Gray Gamma 2.2 and your printer color space to Dot Gain 20%
and see if that helps. 

Sorry I can't help you if you do b&w in RGB. 

Bob Michaels

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Ben Rosengart
<yahoo.com@n...> wrote:

>
> On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 07:36:00PM -0000, Clayton Jones wrote:
> > 
> > It's hard to answer because of not enough information (what printer
> > and settings),
> 
> Epson 1280, matte paper-heavyweight, print quality "photo".
> 
> > and also I don't know what you mean by "washed out". 
> 
> The dark grays are not dark enough.
> 
> > BO's weakness shows up in the midtones in smooth areas (without lots
> > of small detail), but it's because of the more apparent graininess,
> > not something I would describe as washed out.
> 
> I don't think this is a weakness in BO -- I think I'm not using it
> right.  In the past, when I've gotten the settings right in BO through
> trial and error, the results have been more than satisfactory.
> 
> > That term to me suggests lack of density or contrast, but my
> > experience with BO printing is that it is very strong in these areas,
> > giving a very accurate rendering of the screen image (when using the
> > settings I suggest for good WYSIWYG) with excellent contrast and tonal
> > separation. 
> 
> I prefer to work in RGB space, so I can have a channel mixer layer --
> so I couldn't quite follow your cookbook.  However, even when I did
> convert to grayscale, I found the results to be *exactly* what I was
> getting to beging with.  That is, changing the display profile didn't
> change the on-screen appearance, and since I was using "same as
> source" for the printer profile, in the end nothing was changed.
> 
> > So I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to suggest, other
> > than experiment with adjustment curves and other papers.
> 
> I played around with Paul's step wedge, as you suggested, and found
> that it was as I thought -- dark grays were too light.  So I decided
> to set my monitor profile to an RGB profile that I made with Apple's
> Display Profiler Assistant (by eye), and play with the printer
> profiles.  The one that seems to produce a reasonable ramp is Gamma
> 1.8.
> 
> > The BO articles (#3 and #4) give a general description and
> > instructions, but nothing that specifically addresses "washed out mid
> > tones".
> 
> They did help me figure out what to play with, though, and they
> refreshed my memory of how print spaces work -- so they were helpful.
> 
> > >On second thought, even better would be some kind of profile so 
> > >I could tell Photoshop about BO's odd curve.  That way, what's 
> > >on my screen would bear some resemblance to what prints.
> > 
> > I'm not sure what you mean by "BO's odd curve", but one of BO's
> > strengths is that profiles are not needed.  IMO pursuing this would be
> > an excersise in frustration and a waste of time. 
> 
> Sorry-- what I meant was a print color space.
> 
> > Regardless of what you mean by "washed out", it may be that the image
> > simply doesn't work well in BO.  I have a number of images that didn't
> > and I used UT7 for them (now am using K3/2400). 
> 
> I use UT2 for those.  Though, if the approach I'm playing with now
> gets me more consistently WYSIWYG results, I might re-try some images
> I'd given up on.
> 
> -- 
>  Ben Rosengart                                          ben@n...
>        "Young people should be seen and not heard, because they're
>         good-looking but not too bright.  We're pretty bright now,
>         but we're ugly." -- Grace Slick on the '60s youth movement
>

Have you experienced this issue with more than one image and is it
consistenty a problem?
 Richard

 On 10/8/05, Ben Rosengart <yahoo.com@...> wrote:
>
> Hi folks,
> I'm getting washed-out looking mid-tones when printing BO with Eboni
> on HPR. I've played around with curves and levels and whatnot, but I
> haven't found any really good solution. Anyone have a nice "rule of
> thumb" or curve I could use?
>
>


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

On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 08:06:56PM -0700, Richard Sintchak wrote:
> Have you experienced this issue with more than one image and is it
> consistenty a problem?

Yes and yes.

-- 
 Ben Rosengart                                          ben@...
       "Young people should be seen and not heard, because they're
        good-looking but not too bright.  We're pretty bright now,
        but we're ugly." -- Grace Slick on the '60s youth movement