Digital BW, The Print

In a message dated 11/7/06 1:32:18 PM, deanwork2003@... writes:


> Fact is any "workspace" that Amadou had tagged the file with was going
> to show variation on many of the different machines,inks, and rips.
> 
Not necessarily. When I print the same tagged image from the latest "two 
gray" Canon, Epson, and HP inkjets via PrintFIX PRO 2 profiles, the results are 
virtually indistinguishable. There was some difference of understanding about 
what a "raw" print meant, but if you had linearization, CreateICC profiles, or 
curves specific to the paper, ink, and printer, they certainly should have been 
part of the "A" print process.

C. David Tobie
Product Technology Manager
ColorVision Business Unit
Datacolor Inc.
CDTobie@...
www.colorvision.com


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

David wrote,

.., but if you had linearization, CreateICC profiles, or 
curves specific to the paper, ink, and printer, they certainly should have
been 
part of the "A" print process

 

Yes, that would define ones normal workflow

 

 

 

Eric Neilsen Photography

4101 Commerce Street, Suite 9

Dallas, TX 75226

214-827-8301

http://ericneilsenphotography.com

 

Skype : ejprinter



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

Maybe I did misunderstand. Here is the instruction sheet: 


-------------
"Version A has been edited, converted to 8-bit mode, sharpened for
output and tagged with a custom gamma working space. This is the
"control" sample to see how various printer, driver and ink
combinations respond to identical input. DO NOT ALTER THIS FILE!
Preserve the embedded space and print without any adjustments......".
---------------

I took "preserve the embedded space and print Without Any Adjustments"
to mean, - don't apply your QTR ICC Create linearized curve, but send
to the printer totally unmanaged, which is easy enough out of QTR, you
just send the tagged workspace over there and let it do all the tonal
management, "raw" and unmanaged tonally. Anyway, I guess I screwed up
on A and mine will remain dark.

Also related to this, the older Epson printers like the 7000's I'm
using for PiezoTone, vary widely and didn't have the tight production
tolerances that the new printers have so, a "custom" linearization is
totally necessary to keep things in line in my experience.

John 






 There was some difference of understanding about 
> what a "raw" print meant, but if you had linearization, CreateICC
profiles, or 
> curves specific to the paper, ink, and printer, they certainly
should have been 

> part of the "A" print process.
> 
> C. David Tobie
> Product Technology Manager
> ColorVision Business Unit
> Datacolor Inc.
> CDTobie@...
> www.colorvision.com
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

I would be interested in seeing what everyone gets when they print  
the A file from a Gamma 2.2 or Dot Density 20 workspace . . . . . . .

A big cheer for Amadou on setting this up!  It was wonderful to meet  
everyone and see the work.

And a thank-you goes out to David for the wonderful dinner.

take care all, Walker

I guess since I'm to blame for all of this <G> I should post a quick reply. It was of course 
great to meet everybody. TO see that many prints at once in a small room was 
overwhelming but the biggest thing I took away was this:
We are indeed at a point where the average user as well as those who print for a living can 
produce very high quality prints. I think it was evident that the vast majority of even the 
"A" prints could stand on their own. My curiosity was to see how the different inks, drivers 
and printers responded to the same pixel data. We saw a fairly wide variation. I would have 
been extremely depressed if they all looked the same.
Now that does bring up David's point about the lack of a universal ICC workflow for 
grayscale imaging. And that's part of the reason I'm so excited about what I've seen from 
HP's Z3100. PrintFix v2 is going to address this as well, from what I understand. 
So we've got a number of high quality output devices that we have all learned to 
manipulate in the service of our creative vision, as evidenced in the "B" samples. This year 
really seems to mark the beginning of mainstream color management tools for us bw 
printers. No more second class citizen status.I do want to point out that Roy Harrington 
deserves a lot of credit for developing QTR and the create ICC app in particular.This really 
is an invaluable step along the road to grayscale management.
So now the big boys are poised to bring neutral bw and color controlto OEM solutions. In 
my view that can only mean more and better options for all of us. It will be very hard to 
give up third party quads and sevens if it comes to that, but it feels like that train is about 
to leave the station. 
My idea for the print-off was really in the spirit of seeing where we are in terms of 
process, rather than a critique of image editing or media. So I do hope the discussion 
doesn't devolve into "Your print sucked". But again, thanks to everyone for coming out. I'm 
up to my eyeballs in work right now but I do have the "A" samples here and when things 
calm down, I'll give them a good look and if I have anything remotely intelligent to say, I'l 
pass it on. OK, back to work for me.
amadou diallo

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Walker Blackwell
<wblackwell@...> wrote:
>
> I would be interested in seeing what everyone gets when they print  
> the A file from a Gamma 2.2 or Dot Density 20 workspace . . . . . . .
> 
> A big cheer for Amadou on setting this up!  It was wonderful to meet  
> everyone and see the work.

Amadou is a scholar and a gentleman.

> 
> And a thank-you goes out to David for the wonderful dinner.

What!?! Well see, I'm all cranky because I missed that!
Tyler

In a message dated 11/7/06 3:48:36 PM, amadiallo2001@... writes:


> I do want to point out that Roy Harrington
> deserves a lot of credit for developing QTR and the create ICC app in 
> particular.This really
> is an invaluable step along the road to grayscale management.
> 
Yes, and sort of... that is to say, QTR has certainly brought specialty black 
and white down to a new price point. And CreateICC is a good tool for QTR. 
But it has caused a fair amount of confusion, in that CreateICC profiles are not 
  actual ICC profiles, not in the usual meaning of the term. They are curve 
sets sandwiched around a null profile core, as a convenient way to apply 
curves, and a clever way to preview images. I point this out as users are now 
confused about the ICC profiles that PrintFIX PRO 2.0 creates, which are entirely 
different from the CreateICC ones. PrintFIX PRO proiles are actual color ICC 
profiles, with full data in the color look up tables, that have been augmented in 
the gray and near gray zones with large amounts of data, to make them more 
precise for printing black and white and near black and white images.

> So now the big boys are poised to bring neutral bw and color controlto OEM 
> solutions.
> 
I don't think of ColorVision as being amoung the big boys, so I'll assume you 
mean the printer companies. Haven't seen much sign of them offering ICC 
process for B&W, though printing B&W through the HP Z 3100 custom internal profiles 
offers the closest thing to an OEM solution for that which I've seen to date.

>  In
> my view that can only mean more and better options for all of us.
> 
Thats certainly true...

>  It will be very hard to
> give up third party quads and sevens if it comes to that, but it feels like 
> that train is about
> to leave the station.
> 
As I noted some time ago, I don't expect the Tyler Boley's of the world to 
stop using the systems they have mastered, I'm just looking to add alternatives 
that are more direct, flexible, and transparent for the more typical user. It 
will be interesting to see where it all leads. But yes, the year of ICC for B&
W will definately be 2007.

C. David Tobie
Product Technology Manager
ColorVision Business Unit
Datacolor Inc.
CDTobie@...
www.colorvision.com


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

-But yes, the year of ICC for B&
W will definately be 2007.

C. David Tobie
Product Technology Manager
ColorVision Business Unit
Datacolor Inc.
CDTobie@...
www.colorvision.com



ICC rgb set ups for black and white have been around for a long time.
I used it for a couple of years with the Lyson Small Gamut inkset. The
big difference now is the 8-12 channel printers with all these ink
combination possibilities and the high quality carbon black dilutions
(that Cone discoverd long ago). Hell, if you can't achieve a decent
black and white print with all those inks something is wrong anyway.

john