Epson ABW greyscale printing

[tim atherton]

As anyone who's using the K3 Epsons (2400, 3800 etc) for printing b&w knows, the documentation on using the ABW (Advanced Black and White) mode is sparse to say the least...

I recently came across this (there are several sections)

http://www.outbackphoto.com/printinginsights/pi045/essay.html#20070103

Although it's for the 3800, a lot of it seems to apply to the other printers too.

Stacks of technical info and measurements, but some useful conclusions too. A few pointers:

Don't print through ABW using RGB files with "colour" in them. Use greyscale.

Printing with ABW is generally better then using RGB files printed via one of the standard colour profiles - ABW is much more linear than most of the profiles, gives a blacker black and also seems to use less yellow (though doesn't seem to do away with it altogether)

"Dark" is the best standard setting under ABW (and he explains what some of the other settings do)

[Jack Flesher]

Tim:

FWIW, I get dead neutral B&W using my own custom COLOR paper profiles. (Yes, the printer and K3 inks are that good.) In this fashion, the ABW driver is rendered obsolete since you can get essentially WYSIWYG B&W, including any toning or split toning you might want to add :)

[tim atherton]

which is fine if you are set up to produce your own custom colour profiles...

[Jack Flesher]

Okay... FWIW, the CANNED Epson profiles are quite good themselves, at least worth a try, and you can always buy custom profiles pretty reasonably :)

[tim atherton]

Okay... FWIW, the CANNED Epson profiles are quite good themselves, at least worth a try, and you can always buy custom profiles pretty reasonably :)

Jack, As far as I can understand it, that was the point of a lot of the testing he did with the ABW driver. He found it to be more linear for greyscale/rgb grey images than the canned profiles. It also gave a much deeper black (as well as used less of the problematic yellow - although it didn't eliminate it like the Quadtone RIP does for example)

[Greg Lockrey]

Up to today, you have to use 4800 profiles in the 3800. I'm with Jack on the canned profiles. Lot less guessing as to what the print will look like once the sliders are set....at least for me.

[tim atherton]

I'd have to say that my experience with the canned epson and other third party profiles is that although it's a touch more fiddly (or at least not quite so intuitive), I've generally got better results with the ABW.

This is especially so with paper like Silver Rag which allow for some of the darkest blacks along with giving incredible shadow detail. I'm just not getting those two to quite the same extent with the rgb profiles as with the ABW

That said, I don't produce my own profiles

(BTW - are you saying all these 4800 profiles on the Epson at work?

Pro38 PGPP.icc
Pro38 SWMP.icc
Pro38 PSPP.icc
Pro38 EMP.icc
Pro38 WCRW.icc
Pro3800 3800C 3850 Standard.icc
Pro38 SWMP_LD.icc
Pro38 VFAP.icc
Pro38 PPSmC.icc
Pro38 ARMP.icc
Pro38 PQIJP_MK.icc
Pro38 USFAP.icc
Pro38 PLPP.icc )

[Greg Lockrey]

Not sure...but they do come up in the "Printer Model" window. They wouldn't unless they would work I would think. The curves you can select from are Epson Enhanced Matte, Hammamule Photo Rag, PmJet Alpha (???) and PmJetOmega (???). They seem to work on the Enhanced Matte, I haven't tried any other though. Personnaly I would like to see specific profiles for the 3800 so I can make a comparison. The canned ones are nice, however.

[Brian Ellis]

QTR is now available for the 3800. It's worked like a charm for my 2200, for the first time I was actually able to make neutral (i.e. no color tint) black and white prints using UC inks, before that used MIS inks for b&w. While you can use QTR to make your own profiles (assuming you have the right equipment), it also contains it's own generic profiles that have worked well for me using Epson Heavyweight Matte and Entrada Natural Fine Art papers (never used a gloss or semi-gloss paper so I don't know how well the generic for Photo Black works). I plan to buy a 3800 when the dust settles but I'll be surprised (not for the first time) if ABW works better than QTR. For $50 QTR is hard to beat.

[tim atherton]

I like QTR a lot - I've used it on the 2200 and 2400, but not on the 3800 (which isn't actually my machine...).

It's especially good with the matte papers. But it had real problems on the 2400 with Silver Rag and the couple of other similar papers (and a very limited set of canned QTR profiles). Banding that was impossible to get rid of. It really needed a custom QTR profile, and I don't have the measuring devices need to make those. In addition on these papers it couldn't give as sharp/crisp a print as the 2400 Epson driver seemed able to - it was quite noticeable.

Which is in part why I've ended up working with the Epson ABW... which I actually find works just fine. I used to print a lot more on the likes of Crane Museo Max and used QTR a lot for that with the 2200. But when I got a 2400, I found I could get equal - and at times better - results with the ABW set-up (and with the 2400, for some reason the spool times for QTR became insane - never did manage to find a fix for that despite a lot of back and forth)

[Jeffrey Sipress]

I've had incredibly great results printing B&W on the 4800 from the very first sheet, using the standard profiles and ABW. What Jack said is true, I'm sure. I don't know what advantage there is to spending money (up to $500 for some) on RIP's when the output looks just like it should now.

[Tom Jones]

I talked with Mark Radogna, who is the Group Product Manager for Professional Imaging at Epson America, at the LA Epson Print Academy recently. I asked about the differences between printing BW with RGB profiles and ABW mode. I have been getting better results with my 2400 using RGB, and wanted to know what I was missing.

Mark told me the only real difference is that the ABW mode uses substantially less yellow ink. Since yellow fades faster than other inks, the print permanence is better with ABW.

[Kerik Kouklis]

I've had a 3800 for a couple of weeks. I've been getting mixed results printing 'toned' BW prints in RGB mode, both with and without the ABW printing option. Some looked great and some had weird color transitions between shadow and midtone areas. After reading Tim's post, I tried ABW again last night except with grayscale images and the results are fantastic. Much better than what I had been getting and no hint of weird tonal transitions. Thanks for the tip! The 3800 is a great machine both for prints and digital negatives...

[Greg Lockrey]

QTR is now available for the 3800. It's worked like a charm for my 2200, for the first time I was actually able to make neutral (i.e. no color tint) black and white prints using UC inks, before that used MIS inks for b&w. While you can use QTR to make your own profiles (assuming you have the right equipment), it also contains it's own generic profiles that have worked well for me using Epson Heavyweight Matte and Entrada Natural Fine Art papers (never used a gloss or semi-gloss paper so I don't know how well the generic for Photo Black works). I plan to buy a 3800 when the dust settles but I'll be surprised (not for the first time) if ABW works better than QTR. For $50 QTR is hard to beat.

Brian,
Where are you finding the curves for the 3800? I just downloaded the latest 2.5.0.9 and it says in the curves window that "3800 curves are not available". When I toggled the Quad 4800, then I have a curve selection. Any thoughts as to what I'm not doing?

[Jack Flesher]

Jack, As far as I can understand it, that was the point of a lot of the testing he did with the ABW driver. He found it to be more linear for greyscale/rgb grey images than the canned profiles. It also gave a much deeper black (as well as used less of the problematic yellow - although it didn't eliminate it like the Quadtone RIP does for example)

I know that's what the claim is, but I get a maximum black and very linear grayscale with my profile (same in color or B&W). I can't speak to the yellow issue conclusively, but have not noticed any issues using my profiles (generally, the yellow has the most metal in it and is what exaggerates the "bronzing" in the prints -- and I do not see any of that in my prints.)

To be clear, I am talking only about Epson printers using the K3 inks. And FWIW, several other K3 users I know are in absolute agreement with me on this -- but we are all using custom profiles. (Uwe Steinmueller, the owner of the site with the article you linked to, is one of them...)

And don't get me wrong, if ABW is working you, fine. Personally, I can't stand that it doesn't let me preview the result with any accuracy onscreen...

Cheers,

[tim atherton]

I can't speak to the yellow issue conclusively, but have not noticed any issues using my profiles (generally, the yellow has the most metal in it and is what exaggerates the "bronzing" in the prints -- and I do not see any of that in my prints.),

it also tends to be the most fugutive of all the colours, which was also one reason some RIP's try not to use it for greyscale printing

[bdeacon]

From a Cone rep at last year's View Camera conference in Rockford I learned that Epson's ABW mode only prints at 720ppi. This may provide some justification for using the standard driver and a custom profile to achieve a higher resolution.

[tim atherton]

From a Cone rep at last year's View Camera conference in Rockford I learned that Epson's ABW mode only prints at 720ppi. This may provide some justification for using the standard driver and a custom profile to achieve a higher resolution.

simply incorrect (or misunderstood)

the native resolution of the printer is 720ppi but if you look at the dot and dither pattern it's quite easy to see that ABW also utlizes the same large/small and small/small droplets in 1440 and 2880 respectively as the regular RGB printing