Digital BW, The Print

Hi to all,
does the R2400 use all the three graytones K,LK and LLK in
the graymodus?
Thanks for respones!
Jack

Hello Jack,

>does the R2400 use all the three graytones K,LK and LLK in
>the graymodus?

What is graymodus? 


Regards,
Clayton


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

I assume you mean the ABW (Advanced B&W Photo) mode. If this is the
case, the answer is: when color toning is disabled (e.g., Horizontal
and Vertical are set to zero), the printer uses K (either MK or PK),
LK, LLK, LC, LM, and Y. The inks not used are C and M. C and M may be
used if color toning is enabled.

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Clayton Jones"
<cj@...> wrote:
>
> Hello Jack,
> 
> >does the R2400 use all the three graytones K,LK and LLK in
> >the graymodus?
> 
> What is graymodus? 
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Clayton
> 
> 
> Info on black and white digital printing at    
> http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm
>
Hello Clayton,
thanks a lot for your response - I appreciate your great work!
I have a R2400 with a European printer driver which offers
printing in "Grayscale Mode" like Black Only BO.
Is the printer in this case using K, LK and LLK or only the 
black ink K?
Best regards
Jack

Jack, in Black Only mode, the printer is only use the K ink. This mode
is only intended for printing text, not photographs.

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Eric Chan"
<madmanchan2000@...> wrote:
>
> I assume you mean the ABW (Advanced B&W Photo) mode. If this is the
> case, the answer is: when color toning is disabled (e.g., Horizontal
> and Vertical are set to zero), the printer uses K (either MK or PK),
> LK, LLK, LC, LM, and Y. The inks not used are C and M. C and M may be
> used if color toning is enabled.
>
Hi Eric,
thank you for response! My experience is that the ABW mode in every
case produces results with color toning. To avoid this I printed
with my European driver setting "GraySteps". The results are pretty good
and really neutral without any tone or hue!
Is in this case the printer using K, LK and LLK 
in the way of BO with three Blacks? Or does it use only Black K?
Best regards
Jack

>> My experience is that the ABW mode in every
case produces results with color toning. To avoid this I printed
with my European driver setting "GraySteps". The results are pretty good
and really neutral without any tone or hue!

Whether the non-ABW grayscale mode is neutral or not depends on a 
number of factors, such as the neutrality of the media you are printing 
on, and the media setting used. The AWB mode attempts to neutralize the 
ink/media combination by using a minimum of color ink to balance the 
gray inks at each level on the media in question. PrintFIX PRO extended 
gray profiles do a similar thing by measuring results at many levels, 
and producing an ICC profile that neutralizes at each level by using 
the necessary amount of color inks; the difference being it actually 
measures your output at each level, so its providing a custom blend to 
neutralize output.

C. David Tobie
Product Technology Manager
ColorVision, Inc.
CDTobie@...
www.colorvision.com
________________________________________________________________________
AOL now offers free email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free 
from AOL at AOL.com.

Hello Jack,

>My experience is that the ABW mode in every
>case produces results with color toning. To avoid this I printed
>with my European driver setting "GraySteps". The results are pretty
>good and really neutral without any tone or hue!
>Is in this case the printer using K, LK and LLK in the way of BO with
>three Blacks? Or does it use only Black K?

The 3 K's alone produce a sort of yellowish greenish turkey vomit
color, so if you're getting truly nice neutral tone then I suspect
there's some colors in there somewhere.  Do you have a 6x or stronger
loupe?  With that you can see what colors are being used.

It is possible with careful experimenting in ABW mode to find settings
for each paper that look photographically convincing and don't look
colorized.  But if you're happy with the graysteps mode then just
stick with that, whatever it is.  

Regards,
Clayton


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

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Clayton Jones"
<cj@...> wrote:
>
> Hello Jack,
> 
> >My experience is that the ABW mode in every
> >case produces results with color toning. To avoid this I printed
> >with my European driver setting "GraySteps". The results are pretty
> >good and really neutral without any tone or hue!
> >Is in this case the printer using K, LK and LLK in the way of BO with
> >three Blacks? Or does it use only Black K?
> 
> The 3 K's alone produce a sort of yellowish greenish turkey vomit
> color, so if you're getting truly nice neutral tone then I suspect
> there's some colors in there somewhere.  Do you have a 6x or stronger
> loupe?  With that you can see what colors are being used.
> 
> It is possible with careful experimenting in ABW mode to find settings
> for each paper that look photographically convincing and don't look
> colorized.  But if you're happy with the graysteps mode then just
> stick with that, whatever it is.  
> 
> Regards,
> Clayton
> 
> 
> Info on black and white digital printing at    
> http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm
>


Hi to all,

just now I received a statement of an Epson employee:
The German printer driver for the R2400 offers printing in the
"Grayscale-Mode" with the three Blacks K, LK and LLK,
so its real BO with three K-Inks without tone or hue.

Thanks for help, especially to
Clayton for his most valuable advice in BO printing!
Jack

Hello Jack,

>just now I received a statement of an Epson employee:
>The German printer driver for the R2400 offers printing in the
>"Grayscale-Mode" with the three Blacks K, LK and LLK,
>so its real BO with three K-Inks without tone or hue.

I just downloaded and installed the latest European driver 6.5c dated
April '07 for Vista/XP/W2K.  It does indeed have a Grayscale check box
and I just ran a print.  

Sorry to say, it is _not_ K-Only.  It is a very blueish cold tone (on
EEM), and under a 6x loupe I can see loads of either C or LC dots,
plus a small amount of either M or LM and some Y.  This is just a
dumbed down arbitrary grayscale tone for (I guess) people who don't
want to fiddle with ABW settings.  As I said before, when you print
using K-Only you get an ugly sickish yellow green tone.

OF COURSE, in Epson's infinite wisdom, installing a new driver erased
all my custom settings and user defined paper sizes...SIGH.  You'd
think Epson would be intelligent enough to know that people actually
use their custom settings and store these in a separate folder so that
updating a driver wouldn't erase them.  But I guess that's too much to
ask. 

To add insult to injury, it now has a very large and in-your-face
bright white printing popup dialog that is obnoxious compared to the
small gray discreet one in the original driver.

To add Co$t to the injury and insult, the new driver triggered a full
blown cleaning cycle.   GRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

I am now going to try and restore back to the original driver.  What a
royal pain.

IF IT AIN'T BROKE DON'T FIX IT!

Regards,
Clayton


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

Here's an update:

- Tried to reinstall the original driver from a download file.  Seemed
to work ok but printer still uses new driver.  Tried turning printer
off/on, no luck.

- tried again with a reboot, same result.

- uninstalled printer, then tried to reinstall printer from scratch
using original install disk.  Got part way through and failed - can't
find some DLL.  Now am really stuck.  Can't go back or forward.  How nice.

- Used System Restore, selecting last restore point, rebooted, printer
still sees new driver.  Darn!  Worse than a worm.

- Did system restore again with last night's restore point, rebooted,
this time the 2400 is there and properties shows the original driver.
 However, any program trying to print to the 2400 causes a runtime error.

- uninstalled the 2400 again, tried to install again from original
disk.  This time it worked.  Printer shows original driver and can
make test print.  Bet you think this drama is finally over,
huh...guess again.

- Now I open photoshop CS and it says I need to reactivate because the
system has changed.  Clicked the reactivate button, it goes on line
and gets rejected - pops up window showing serial# and activation #
and says I need to activate by phone.  Called in and got the auto
system that says to enter the numbers.  Acceps serial#, rejects the
activation # (twice - says it has too many digits).  Finally after the
usual rigamarole I get a real person on the phone who sounds like he's
in India and I can hardly understand him.  After my explanation he
puts me on hold for awhile.  then comes back and asks for the two
numbers, then on hold again.  then he says it was rejected because it
has already been activated twice, and wants an explanation.  I explain
that a few months ago I installed a new MB and CPU, which required an
activation.  He accepts that and gives me an authorization code, it works.

- Finally.  am back in business with original driver and everything
seems to be ok.  Total time for this fun little exercise is about 3.5
hours.  Half a day wasted.  What joy.

- Moral of the story - don't update the driver unless you are _REALLY_
sure you want it.


Regards,
Clayton


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