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Printing black and white (basic question about directions to printer)

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mike in brazil

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Sorry for asking something that may have been discussed at length already. I will search for the answer, but as i am in direct correspondence with a printer right now, I am hoping to resolve this asap.

My question is this. I have prepared my digital images using Photoshop and Silver Efex Pro plugin. I thought I had them exactly where I wanted to to be in terms of tonality and such.

Then i sent them to be printed for the first time to a friend who has a professional printer (even though she does not do this for a living she has experience printing for established professional artists.

She asked me what tonality I wanted to print them with, referring to the advanced Black and White configuration on the Epson printer set up.

I was confused because I thought I had already made all those choices when editing the images with Silver Efex and that her job was to just reproduce the image as well as possible. Unfortunately I am not able to go and watch the printing and observe the effects and evaluate the options in person at this time.

So my question is whether she is doing the right thing in attempting to use the Epson B&W advanced options or whether there is an easier way for her to simply print what i have already provided her "as is".

I am still trying to understand the way in which the printer options will override the digital file. Taking an extreme example Suppose I used Silver Efex to produce a sepia image. If I pass that sepia image to a printer, do they have to futz with the Black and White advanced options or should they just print it as a color image and let the printer reproduce the sepia that I supplied automatically? Hypothetically, if i send a sepia image and the printer chooses Black and White advanced settings tonality "neutral" does that blow away my sepia completely or does "neutral" in that case mean "print to match the file"?

thanks in advance.
 
The Epson driver has a special feature to print out B/W photos. It uses less color ink to for the blacks and grays and will give you a darker black point. I had an Epson 3880 which had this feature and I regularly used the ABW feature to print monochrome images. All toning that you might want to do is done through the driver which can be customized in a number of ways. One can also refine it using the QTR software to help linearize the print response.

If you choose to do your toning in Photoshop then you need to have the printing done through the normal Epson print pathway.

If you want more information you probably can download the appropriate Epson printer manual and read how the B/W driver works and what the settings are.
 
If your friend does a decent job for professional artists, just confirm that she has an ICC profile for her printer and the paper you two agreed on. Then have her print the images as usual. Maybe one as a test before all of them.

Epson Advanced B&W is nice but not crucial. It has its own controls for tone curve and color cast. It is counterproductive for the two of you not both at the printer to try to set the controls.
 
thank you for the reply
 
thanks Charles
 
Alan Goldhammer said:
The Epson driver has a special feature to print out B/W photos. It uses less color ink to for the blacks and grays and will give you a darker black point. I had an Epson 3880 which had this feature and I regularly used the ABW feature to print monochrome images. All toning that you might want to do is done through the driver which can be customized in a number of ways. One can also refine it using the QTR software to help linearize the print response.

If you choose to do your toning in Photoshop then you need to have the printing done through the normal Epson print pathway.

If you want more information you probably can download the appropriate Epson printer manual and read how the B/W driver works and what the settings are.
Click to expand...
I understand that you are a fan of the B/W driver. Can you clarify one thing though. In your workflow, are you referring to having printed monochrome versions of color images (which is the scenario where I can see the B/W driver being very useful). Or are you ALSO referring to printing of images that you had already converted and edited as black in white with your photo editing software (which is the specific scenario i am referring to).
 
mike in brazil said:
Or are you ALSO referring to printing of images that you had already converted and edited as black in white with your photo editing software (which is the specific scenario i am referring to).
Click to expand...
Advanced B&W requires that the input file be strictly gray (R=G=B at every pixel).
 
Charles2 said:
mike in brazil said:
Or are you ALSO referring to printing of images that you had already converted and edited as black in white with your photo editing software (which is the specific scenario i am referring to).
Click to expand...
Advanced B&W requires that the input file be strictly gray (R=G=B at every pixel).
Click to expand...
sorry, i do not understand that completely. Did you write that to correct my assumption that the Adv B&W can be used to print color originals as B&W? Or did you mean to imply that my already edited (Photoshop/Silver Efex) b/w images are themselves inappropriate for the Epson Adv B^W path? Apologies for my ignorance.
 
Even though I no longer own an Epson printer, it behooves me to correct something about the ABW driver. It's not a total black box, at least under Windows OS. I routine used QTR to prepare profiles that could be used for soft proofing and printing. I got very fine monochrome prints using this workflow. These would have to be prepared for specific settings and if those settings in the driver were changed (toning, B/W gradient) the profile would not apply. Adobe engineer, Eric Chan wrote a nice summary of this on his website some years ago and he would create B/W profiles for users of the Epson 3800 and 3880. Along the way (maybe 2013) Apple changed the way that their OS interfaced with the the printer and at least for Apple OS, these profiles no longer worked.

As someone else already pointed out, Mark Segal did a nice comparison between the ABW and normal Epson print driver. I believe he prints his B/W prints from the normal driver. One can also add a series of B/W step patches when profiling a printer/paper combination. this will also help address any issues when printing monochrome. I routinely do this when I create profiles. Since I now print on a Canon Pro-1000, all my work is done using normal profiles that are 'enhanced' with extra patches.

To answer the OP's main question, the best approach is for the person printing his B/W images is to use the normal print driver with the respective icc profile for that paper. ABW printing can involve trial and error unless one has a soft proof capability.
 
Alan Goldhammer said:
As someone else already pointed out, Mark Segal did a nice comparison between the ABW and normal Epson print driver. I believe he prints his B/W prints from the normal driver. One can also add a series of B/W step patches when profiling a printer/paper combination. this will also help address any issues when printing monochrome. I routinely do this when I create profiles. Since I now print on a Canon Pro-1000, all my work is done using normal profiles that are 'enhanced' with extra patches.
Click to expand...
There is probably a historical element at play here, too. Since Epson first brought out Advanced B&W, more enthusiasts attend to color management, and ICC profiles, both from paper vendors and the custom-made ones, have improved, including along the white-black axis. The problem of color cast that ABW addressed has largely gone away.
 
We all go through this when dealing with third-party printing service bureaus. The solution for me was to invest in a very high-quality printer. It is the only way I can maintain total control while reveiving instantaneous feedback. I can make test-strip prints until I am satisfied then make a final print and commit the settings so the results can be reproduced in the future.

I know that's not what you asked, but after going through frustration and disappointment, this is what works for me. Hope you get it all working to your satisfaction.
 
I ansfer you like owner of print shop .if you bring ready to print file and especially sepia, your Printer should print your file using entire inks set,NOT B&W advance setting. WHY??? Simply because this will affect tonality of the image you already edited and adjust, if you ask your printer to change color or tonality, this is different story
 
I am curious if you were able to get a satisfactory print from this person, and if so, which route did she take.

Printing "black and white" is tough. As others have mentioned, these prints routinely suffer from color casts or metameric failure based on the interplay between light, ink and the substrate or print material.

My knowledge of NIk's Silver Efx Pro is limited, but isn't it just a photopshop plug-in that "simulates" a variety of different "black and white" processes, i.e., like a glorified Instagram filter you can tweak using their sliders?

If so, the resulting, "black and white" image will probably not be grayscale or true black and white, but rather some kind of quasi-simulation in RGB with muted colors, purposely flat blacks (or rich blacks), grain, etc...

If that is, indeed the case, I would think the ABW feature would essentially alter the look Nik's software added, in an attempt to output the image using the limited inks and settings which are key for ABW.

Since this image is really not a standard generic black and white, but rather a B/W simulation (probably in RGB), I would suggest the printer simply output a couple samples, both using ABW and her most stable ICC profile she thinks will best reproduce the original look and feel of the image.

Ultimately, it sounds like this is a one-off print for you and not a file you will need to strictly color manage over years, or maintain color consistency over a run of 1000 units. With that in mind, this is really just an exercise of the printer outputting a print that you are happy with and best represents what you envisioned and see on screen. However, there isn't a magic button or profile for this, and neutral/gray scale images tend to behave the worst on press. See if she will run out a scatter proof with you picking the one you like best.

Good luck and let us know what happened.
 
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