Digital BW, The Print

I have recently purchased 2 Epson 2000P printers from e-bay, and MIS
UTFSN and UTFS inksets along with Photo Black and Eboni. Now, i'm not
sure how to proceed. Any suggestions would be appreciated. My color
printing with the 2000P was very satisfactory, but whi I tried B&W
with the other (which I am dedicating to B&W only) left something to
desire. There was an image, which I had converted to grayscale, of the
lighthouse I had photographed, but the whole thing was a washed out
gray, although there were several different values of gray. As I said,
any help or direction on where to go would be appreciated.

Gary Clark

Gary,
 
> I have recently purchased 2 Epson 2000P printers from e-bay, and MIS
> UTFSN and UTFS inksets along with Photo Black and Eboni. Now, i'm not
> sure how to proceed. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

My Readme file on the subject may be of interest.  
See http://home1.gte.net/res09aij/2000P-FS-Readme.htm

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com

Hello all,

My name is Pierre and I am new to this group. In the past I dabbled in
B&W photography and wet development. As of late (2 years or so) I got
started in digital color photography and am getting interested in B&W
again.

My current workflow is:

CaptureOne LE > PSCS2 > Qimage > Epson 2200 (with canned ICC profiles)

I intend on profiling with Color Vision's PrintFIX Pro Suite and will
probably go with the following workflow:

CaptureOne LE > PSCS2 > Qimage > QuadToneRIP > Epson 2200 (custom ICC
profiles)

Right now I basically have no experience with QuadToneRIP and only a
little with Qimage but I have been using a color managed workflow for
a year or so now.

For piece of mind I would like to minimize the paper/ink combinations
and wish to be able to switch between Color/B&W prints on the fly so
dedicated inks is out of the question.

I currently use Epson Ultra Chrome (w/ PK) inks with Ilford Gallery
Smooth Pearl paper.

I am looking for paper recommendations to use with Epson Ultra Chrome
(w/ MK) inks that would provide the same kind of pleasing outputs that
I get now for Color prints. BTW I am partial to selenium toned prints.
 :o)

I would also appreciate finding out how you guys convert color images
to B&W.

I currently know of the following ways:

 - Desaturate (Pretty bad results)
 - Channel Mixer (This seems to give the best results)
 - ConvertToB&W PS Plugin (I have not tried it)

I am not really looking to buy more software so I guess home recipes
along the line of the Channel Mixer would do the trick.

Thanks,
Pierre

Hello Pierre,

>I would also appreciate finding out how you guys convert color images
>to B&W.
>I am not really looking to buy more software so I guess home recipes
>along the line of the Channel Mixer would do the trick.

I use a routine that combines ChMx with a Hue/sat layer, and is very
effective while remaining relatively simple.  It is described in
detail in article #9 at the link below.  Look for a link called
"Convert Color To BW" at the top of the article.

Regards,
Clayton


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

Clayton,

I found a number of articles on your site yesterday and I am now at
article #5. I will continue reading them in order.

Thanks for taking time to respond to my post and mostly for making the
effort to provide such information for all of us to benefit from! :)

Cheers,
Pierre

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Clayton Jones"
<cj@...> wrote:

>
> Hello Pierre,
> 
> >I would also appreciate finding out how you guys convert color images
> >to B&W.
> >I am not really looking to buy more software so I guess home recipes
> >along the line of the Channel Mixer would do the trick.
> 
> I use a routine that combines ChMx with a Hue/sat layer, and is very
> effective while remaining relatively simple.  It is described in
> detail in article #9 at the link below.  Look for a link called
> "Convert Color To BW" at the top of the article.
> 
> Regards,
> Clayton
> 
> 
> Info on black and white digital printing at    
> http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm
>

Pierre,

>I found a number of articles on your site yesterday and I am now at
>article #5. I will continue reading them in order.

In #6 you'll find a short form of the conversion technique.  The more
complete version is in #9.


Regards,
Clayton


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