B&W Printing and Colour Profiles

I've had my 2200 for a couple of days now. I'm very pleased with the printer. I've heard mention that the best way to print B&W photos with the 2200 is through the use of a colour profile. When I tried this, the person in my photo ended up looking like the Incredible Hulk... Green! I called Monaco Systems, and they told me that colour profiles are not intended for use with B&W printing. Can any of the experts chime in here and give me a little direction?

By the way, I made a print without applying a custom input profile to the picture (I used the embedded sRGB profile) and the automatic settings in the Epson driver. This produced much more pleasing reasults. I'm sure there is a better way of doing this, but I'm not sure what it is. Any ideas?

Thanks!

DigiMon

Here is my workflow for printing B&W on the 2200, using Epson Archival Matte paper with the Matte Black ink. I use a Mac (OS X) and PS 7. If you are starting with a color image use the channel mixer or any other method you prefer to produce a monochrome image but do NOT convert to greyscale mode - keep it in RGB mode. If the image is initially in greyscale mode convert to RGB and your preferred color working space (I use ColorMatch, but Adobe 98 is also fine). Select Print with preview and use the settings shown in the first screen grab below:



Next click Print and select Print Settings with the settings shown for media type and quality:



Finally, select Color Management with the following settings and print:

DigiMon said:

I've had my 2200 for a couple of days now. I'm very pleased with
the printer. I've heard mention that the best way to print B&W
photos with the 2200 is through the use of a colour profile. When
I tried this, the person in my photo ended up looking like the
Incredible Hulk... Green! I called Monaco Systems, and they told
me that colour profiles are not intended for use with B&W printing.
Can any of the experts chime in here and give me a little direction?

Click to expand...

I've made custom profiles that produce nice neutral prints. So you can do this. You need of course to use your favorite desatuate technique so you still have an RGB file, send it through the profile and that's it. But if the profile isn't great an gray balance (in your case, it sounds like color is decent but grays go green), doing this will produce a green print. A really well made profile should produce a nice gray balance although getting 100% dead nuts neutral in all areas of the tonal scale is almost impossible with a color printer. You're on the right track. Is the profile a good one?
--
Andrew Rodney
http://www.digitaldog.net

Anyone out there who can give advice if you DON'T print through Photoshop? I use Qimage for all printing so what profile should I use for B&W (without having the advantage of the Gray Balancer)?? Or, how to avoid green or magenta B&W prints? K.

Carl Schofield said:

Here is my workflow for printing B&W on the 2200, using Epson
Archival Matte paper with the Matte Black ink. I use a Mac (OS X)
and PS 7. If you are starting with a color image use the channel
mixer or any other method you prefer to produce a monochrome image
but do NOT convert to greyscale mode - keep it in RGB mode. If the
image is initially in greyscale mode convert to RGB and your
preferred color working space (I use ColorMatch, but Adobe 98 is
also fine). Select Print with preview and use the settings shown
in the first screen grab below:



Next click Print and select Print Settings with the settings shown
for media type and quality:



Finally, select Color Management with the following settings and
print:

Click to expand...

Carl - I tried your settings on my 1270 with the exceptions: (1) Source Space Document = Adobe RGB 1998; (2) Print Space Profile = Epson 1270. The result was a beautiful print, but Very warm, tending toward sepia. Is this tone consistent with your results? If not, any suggestions for moving the tone more toward neutral? Also, Is there a particular reason that you do not set "Use Black Point Compensation" in Print Space?
Thanks for any info...Bob Jones

Carl Schofield said:

Here is my workflow for printing B&W on the 2200, using Epson
Archival Matte paper with the Matte Black ink. I use a Mac (OS X)
and PS 7. If you are starting with a color image use the channel
mixer or any other method you prefer to produce a monochrome image
but do NOT convert to greyscale mode - keep it in RGB mode. If the
image is initially in greyscale mode convert to RGB and your
preferred color working space (I use ColorMatch, but Adobe 98 is
also fine). Select Print with preview and use the settings shown
in the first screen grab below:



Next click Print and select Print Settings with the settings shown
for media type and quality:



Finally, select Color Management with the following settings and
print:

Click to expand...

--
Robert Jones

Carl,

Thank you so much for the great explanation! You put a lot of work into that! I'm sure there will be others that will benefit from it.

I'm going to try your method in just a second. I'm using a PC, so I hope things turn out as well as they do for you.

Thanks again!

DigiMon

Carl Schofield said:

Here is my workflow for printing B&W on the 2200, using Epson
Archival Matte paper with the Matte Black ink. I use a Mac (OS X)
and PS 7. If you are starting with a color image use the channel
mixer or any other method you prefer to produce a monochrome image
but do NOT convert to greyscale mode - keep it in RGB mode. If the
image is initially in greyscale mode convert to RGB and your
preferred color working space (I use ColorMatch, but Adobe 98 is
also fine). Select Print with preview and use the settings shown
in the first screen grab below:



Next click Print and select Print Settings with the settings shown
for media type and quality:



Finally, select Color Management with the following settings and
print:

Click to expand...

Andrew,

The profile I have is about as good as it probably gets with EZColor. I might try making a few changes to the profile to see if I can influence it to somehow print more neutral greys. Any suggestions?

Would you be willing to create a profile for me? If so, what do you charge?

I have to admit (I know this is a touchy subject with you) that I really wish I had the GB software today. If there's a way to get my profile accurate for greys, I would obviously prefer that route. However, I was getting pretty frustrated today. I hate throwing away ink and paper.

Thanks!

DigiMon

Andrew Rodney said:

DigiMon said:

I've had my 2200 for a couple of days now. I'm very pleased with
the printer. I've heard mention that the best way to print B&W
photos with the 2200 is through the use of a colour profile. When
I tried this, the person in my photo ended up looking like the
Incredible Hulk... Green! I called Monaco Systems, and they told
me that colour profiles are not intended for use with B&W printing.
Can any of the experts chime in here and give me a little direction?

Click to expand...

I've made custom profiles that produce nice neutral prints. So you
can do this. You need of course to use your favorite desatuate
technique so you still have an RGB file, send it through the
profile and that's it. But if the profile isn't great an gray
balance (in your case, it sounds like color is decent but grays go
green), doing this will produce a green print. A really well made
profile should produce a nice gray balance although getting 100%
dead nuts neutral in all areas of the tonal scale is almost
impossible with a color printer. You're on the right track. Is the
profile a good one?
--
Andrew Rodney
http://www.digitaldog.net

Click to expand...

I just recreated my profiles for both PGPP and the PSGPP papers. I tried something a little different when I scanned. I turned on descreen in the Epson scanner driver. I heard Joe mention that this had made a difference in creating better profiles with PP. I thought I'd try it with Monaco EZColor.

Well, I first printed on the PGPP... Perfect! It turned out perfect! Even my wife was impressed. I thought maybe that little tweak had made a difference. Please understand, I hadn't tried printing B&W on PGPP before. This was my first time. Next, I tried printing with the PSGPP profile... Not so good. I ended up with the same green looking person staring back at me. Either my scanner doesn't like the PSGPP, or EZColor doesn't know how to handle creating the proper profile for it. I'm sure there's an explanation for this sort of thing, but it doesn't make much sense to me. I'm open to any suggestions at this point. I prefer using the PSGPP, and I'd really like to get this profile tweaked so that it will print neutral greys.

DigiMon

DigiMon said:

The profile I have is about as good as it probably gets with
EZColor. I might try making a few changes to the profile to see if
I can influence it to somehow print more neutral greys. Any
suggestions?

Would you be willing to create a profile for me? If so, what do
you charge?

I have to admit (I know this is a touchy subject with you) that I
really wish I had the GB software today. If there's a way to get
my profile accurate for greys, I would obviously prefer that route.
However, I was getting pretty frustrated today. I hate throwing
away ink and paper.

Thanks!

DigiMon

Andrew Rodney said:

DigiMon said:

I've had my 2200 for a couple of days now. I'm very pleased with
the printer. I've heard mention that the best way to print B&W
photos with the 2200 is through the use of a colour profile. When
I tried this, the person in my photo ended up looking like the
Incredible Hulk... Green! I called Monaco Systems, and they told
me that colour profiles are not intended for use with B&W printing.
Can any of the experts chime in here and give me a little direction?

Click to expand...

I've made custom profiles that produce nice neutral prints. So you
can do this. You need of course to use your favorite desatuate
technique so you still have an RGB file, send it through the
profile and that's it. But if the profile isn't great an gray
balance (in your case, it sounds like color is decent but grays go
green), doing this will produce a green print. A really well made
profile should produce a nice gray balance although getting 100%
dead nuts neutral in all areas of the tonal scale is almost
impossible with a color printer. You're on the right track. Is the
profile a good one?
--
Andrew Rodney
http://www.digitaldog.net

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Carl,

I assigned the photo to the Adobe 98 working space. Because I don't have a postscript driver for the 2200, I decided to try the Epson provided profile for the PSGPP paper with the relative colorimetric intent. All other settings were the same as yours. I went from the Incredible Hulk to the Human Torch. The print now has an awful magenta cast to it.

The best result I've had with B&W printing on the PSGPP has been when I open the photo in the sRGB color space and print using Epson's automatic setting.

Did I mention how much I love wasting paper and ink? Oh well, I guess I'm doing it for science.

DigiMon

Carl Schofield said:

Here is my workflow for printing B&W on the 2200, using Epson
Archival Matte paper with the Matte Black ink. I use a Mac (OS X)
and PS 7. If you are starting with a color image use the channel
mixer or any other method you prefer to produce a monochrome image
but do NOT convert to greyscale mode - keep it in RGB mode. If the
image is initially in greyscale mode convert to RGB and your
preferred color working space (I use ColorMatch, but Adobe 98 is
also fine). Select Print with preview and use the settings shown
in the first screen grab below:



Next click Print and select Print Settings with the settings shown
for media type and quality:



Finally, select Color Management with the following settings and
print:

Click to expand...

DigiMon said:

Andrew,

The profile I have is about as good as it probably gets with
EZColor. I might try making a few changes to the profile to see if
I can influence it to somehow print more neutral greys. Any
suggestions?

Click to expand...

EZ color is hit or miss with ink jets, especially with pigmented inks (despite the special settings). A scanner simply can't create a profile like a spectrophotometer can in such situations.

Obi-Wan said:

Would you be willing to create a profile for me?

Click to expand...

Check the URL below.

Obi-Wan said:

really wish I had the GB software today.

Click to expand...

If you had GB, you wouldn't be using profiles! The two don't work together. The profiles were made with the driver set to "No Color Adjustment" which is raw data going to the printer. If you had a decent image that needed tweaking, tweaking with gray balancer would hose the profile since it's expecting a vastly different setting in the driver.
-
Andrew Rodney
http://www.digitaldog.net

DigiMon said:

The best result I've had with B&W printing on the PSGPP has been
when I open the photo in the sRGB color space and print using
Epson's automatic setting.

Click to expand...

Try Apple RGB!

You guys are not using profiles. Anytime you have Automatic settings, the profile isn't being used properly (if at al).

You need to have Source set to the files colorspace and destination set to the profile. But the driver MUST be set as the profile was originally made (and that wasn't using Auto but No Color Adjustments).

--
Andrew Rodney
http://www.digitaldog.net

Andrew Rodney said:

You guys are not using profiles. Anytime you have Automatic
settings, the profile isn't being used properly (if at al).

You need to have Source set to the files colorspace and destination
set to the profile. But the driver MUST be set as the profile was
originally made (and that wasn't using Auto but No Color
Adjustments).

--
Andrew Rodney
http://www.digitaldog.net

Click to expand...

Andrew - I tried that approach and although the greyscale prints were relatively neutral (slightly warm), the shadows tended to block up. A 21 step greyscale wedge showed no density difference in the 95-100% region. This was with the canned profile for enhanced matte using mattte black ink on archival matte paper. I got much better results using the workflow I outlined above. I assume that a custom profile would do even better.

Robert Jones said:

Carl - I tried your settings on my 1270 with the exceptions: (1)
Source Space Document = Adobe RGB 1998; (2) Print Space Profile =
Epson 1270. The result was a beautiful print, but Very warm,
tending toward sepia. Is this tone consistent with your results? If
not, any suggestions for moving the tone more toward neutral? Also,
Is there a particular reason that you do not set "Use Black Point
Compensation" in Print Space?
Thanks for any info...Bob Jones

Click to expand...

Robert - The workflow I outlined was specific to the 2200 with ultrachrome inks. The best I was able to do with B&W on my 1270 with the Epson color dye inks was using ColorLife paper with the ColorLife profile that is available for download on the Epson support site. My 1270 is now dedicated to B&W printing using the MIS VM hextone inkset.

DigiMon said:

Carl,

I assigned the photo to the Adobe 98 working space. Because I
don't have a postscript driver for the 2200, I decided to try the
Epson provided profile for the PSGPP paper with the relative
colorimetric intent. All other settings were the same as yours. I
went from the Incredible Hulk to the Human Torch. The print now
has an awful magenta cast to it.

The best result I've had with B&W printing on the PSGPP has been
when I open the photo in the sRGB color space and print using
Epson's automatic setting.

Did I mention how much I love wasting paper and ink? Oh well, I
guess I'm doing it for science.

Click to expand...

DigiMon,

First, don't "assign" the Adobe workspace when you open the sRGB tagged image, but rather "convert" it to your Adobe workspace. Second you should select "Printer Color Management" (the PC equivalent of "Postscript color management" on the Mac) in the print space popup. Then use the rest of the settings as I outlined.

Andrew,

I tried printing with automatic and converting to profiles with the "no color management" setting.

BUT, I just figured out that my profile for PSGPP was messed up. I tried printing a color picture in PS and everything looked like @#$! What??? My color prints are starting to look green??? Why was this happening all of the sudden? This didn't make sense to me because I had printed several pictures the night before that looked great. I then tried printing the same picture in Qimage Pro... It looked great. OK, so what was the problem? Well, I happen to remember that I had changed one little setting in the printer driver when I printed in PS. All along, I thought I had profiled the printer with the "no color management setting", but I had profiled using the "ICM" setting. It took me a while to figure this out. I'm not sure why I didn't notice this before. Qimage Pro had remembed my original setting, so it printed fine. I then went back and looked at the original target I had printed. The colors looked nothing like the target I had printed on the PGPP paper. As a matter of fact, the greens looked very pale. Ah ha! I went back and made sure that I had the settings the way I wanted in the driver and re-printed the target. I just got done profiling and printing out the same pics. Problem solved! It was my fault! Actually, I feel very bad that I wasted everyone's time with this. I'm sorry.

The prints look wonderful! The B&W print looks very neutral to me.

Maybe it was because I was up to 4am the night before... Playing with my 2200.

DigiMon

Andrew Rodney said:

DigiMon said:

The best result I've had with B&W printing on the PSGPP has been
when I open the photo in the sRGB color space and print using
Epson's automatic setting.

Click to expand...

Try Apple RGB!

You guys are not using profiles. Anytime you have Automatic
settings, the profile isn't being used properly (if at al).

You need to have Source set to the files colorspace and destination
set to the profile. But the driver MUST be set as the profile was
originally made (and that wasn't using Auto but No Color
Adjustments).

--
Andrew Rodney
http://www.digitaldog.net

Click to expand...

Carl Schofield said:

Andrew - I tried that approach and although the greyscale prints
were relatively neutral (slightly warm), the shadows tended to
block up. A 21 step greyscale wedge showed no density difference
in the 95-100% region.

Click to expand...

yes, this is because of the No Color Adjustment settings that were used to produce the CANNED Epson profiles. However, when I profile for people who want B&W, I have them set the driver to Photo Realistic or Automatic plus 1 (save the settings) and then print out the target to profile. I get much more range in the daker area of the output. The downside is that the color gamut is reduced. This of course isn't an issue when your itent is to print out B&W! You get much better tonal range in that area you saw. So with the canned profiles, you're stuck. You end up with those blocked up shadow areas. This is the fault of the driver when set to NCA not being linear at all (for fun, take a file and print it out using this setting to see how AWFUL the driver handles this raw data). I've pleaded with Epson Japan to re-write the driver so NCA is linear. They would have to remake all their profiles of course. But for those of us who make profiles, we'd have the gamut AND the best ink delivery in a raw mode.

--
Andrew Rodney
http://www.digitaldog.net

Thanks! I just created my own profile that has helped a lot, but I wouldn't mind trying your method again (the correct way) to see if it is an improvement.

I really hope Epson re-writes the driver so that I can use the same profile and get the best of both worlds.

DigiMon

Carl Schofield said:

DigiMon said:

Carl,

I assigned the photo to the Adobe 98 working space. Because I
don't have a postscript driver for the 2200, I decided to try the
Epson provided profile for the PSGPP paper with the relative
colorimetric intent. All other settings were the same as yours. I
went from the Incredible Hulk to the Human Torch. The print now
has an awful magenta cast to it.

The best result I've had with B&W printing on the PSGPP has been
when I open the photo in the sRGB color space and print using
Epson's automatic setting.

Did I mention how much I love wasting paper and ink? Oh well, I
guess I'm doing it for science.

Click to expand...

DigiMon,
First, don't "assign" the Adobe workspace when you open the sRGB
tagged image, but rather "convert" it to your Adobe workspace.
Second you should select "Printer Color Management" (the PC
equivalent of "Postscript color management" on the Mac) in the
print space popup. Then use the rest of the settings as I outlined.

Click to expand...

Andrew Rodney said:

Carl Schofield said:

Andrew - I tried that approach and although the greyscale prints
were relatively neutral (slightly warm), the shadows tended to
block up. A 21 step greyscale wedge showed no density difference
in the 95-100% region.

Click to expand...

yes, this is because of the No Color Adjustment settings that were
used to produce the CANNED Epson profiles. However, when I profile
for people who want B&W, I have them set the driver to Photo
Realistic or Automatic plus 1 (save the settings) and then print
out the target to profile. I get much more range in the daker area
of the output. The downside is that the color gamut is reduced.
This of course isn't an issue when your itent is to print out B&W!
You get much better tonal range in that area you saw. So with the
canned profiles, you're stuck. You end up with those blocked up
shadow areas. This is the fault of the driver when set to NCA not
being linear at all (for fun, take a file and print it out using
this setting to see how AWFUL the driver handles this raw data).
I've pleaded with Epson Japan to re-write the driver so NCA is
linear. They would have to remake all their profiles of course. But
for those of us who make profiles, we'd have the gamut AND the best
ink delivery in a raw mode.

--
Andrew Rodney
http://www.digitaldog.net

Click to expand...

Thanks for the clarification Andrew. So that is why I was able to get a better step wedge using the photorealistic setting as opposed to the NCA method.

Andrew Rodney said:

DigiMon said:

Andrew,

The profile I have is about as good as it probably gets with
EZColor. I might try making a few changes to the profile to see if
I can influence it to somehow print more neutral greys. Any
suggestions?

Click to expand...

EZ color is hit or miss with ink jets, especially with pigmented
inks (despite the special settings). A scanner simply can't create
a profile like a spectrophotometer can in such situations.

Click to expand...

Then why did the US product manager decide to include a special offer for EZ Color with every 2200 sold? Should I be printing out my targets using the 2000p setting in EZ Color? Do you know the answer?

Andrew Rodney said:

Andrew Rodney said:

Would you be willing to create a profile for me?

Click to expand...

Check the URL below.

Click to expand...

I will.

Andrew Rodney said:

Andrew Rodney said:

really wish I had the GB software today.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Read my other post... It was all my fault.

Andrew Rodney said:

If you had GB, you wouldn't be using profiles! The two don't work
together. The profiles were made with the driver set to "No Color
Adjustment" which is raw data going to the printer. If you had a
decent image that needed tweaking, tweaking with gray balancer
would hose the profile since it's expecting a vastly different
setting in the driver.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I know.

Thanks!

DigiMon

Could someone explain this - I printed (PS7) B&W photo on Archival Matte using the SP2200 Enchanced Matte_PK profile (No Color Adjustment in driver) with good result – warm and natural grey.

I tried the same on Premium Luster with SP2000 Premium Luster_PK profile (No Color Adjustment in driver) and the result was magenta cast.

Why is that and how can I correct that.

Thanks

DigiMon said:

Andrew Rodney said:

DigiMon said:

Andrew,

The profile I have is about as good as it probably gets with
EZColor. I might try making a few changes to the profile to see if
I can influence it to somehow print more neutral greys. Any
suggestions?

Click to expand...

EZ color is hit or miss with ink jets, especially with pigmented
inks (despite the special settings). A scanner simply can't create
a profile like a spectrophotometer can in such situations.

Click to expand...

Then why did the US product manager decide to include a special
offer for EZ Color with every 2200 sold? Should I be printing out
my targets using the 2000p setting in EZ Color? Do you know the
answer?

Obi-Wan said:

Obi-Wan said:

Would you be willing to create a profile for me?

Click to expand...

Check the URL below.

Click to expand...

I will.

Obi-Wan said:

Obi-Wan said:

really wish I had the GB software today.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Read my other post... It was all my fault.

Obi-Wan said:

If you had GB, you wouldn't be using profiles! The two don't work
together. The profiles were made with the driver set to "No Color
Adjustment" which is raw data going to the printer. If you had a
decent image that needed tweaking, tweaking with gray balancer
would hose the profile since it's expecting a vastly different
setting in the driver.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I know.

Thanks!

DigiMon

Click to expand...