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Thread: Epson ABW greyscale printing

  1. #1
    tim atherton's Avatar
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    Epson ABW greyscale printing

    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/printing....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)
    You'd be amazed how small the demand is for pictures of trees... - Fred Astaire to Audrey Hepburn

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  2. #2
    Jack Flesher's Avatar
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    Re: Epson ABW greyscale printing

    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
    Jack Flesher

    www.getdpi.com

  3. #3
    tim atherton's Avatar
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    Re: Epson ABW greyscale printing

    which is fine if you are set up to produce your own custom colour profiles...
    You'd be amazed how small the demand is for pictures of trees... - Fred Astaire to Audrey Hepburn

    www.photo-muse.blogspot.com blog

  4. #4
    Jack Flesher's Avatar
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    Re: Epson ABW greyscale printing

    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 Flesher

    www.getdpi.com

  5. #5
    tim atherton's Avatar
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    Re: Epson ABW greyscale printing

    Quote Originally Posted by Jack Flesher View Post
    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)
    You'd be amazed how small the demand is for pictures of trees... - Fred Astaire to Audrey Hepburn

    www.photo-muse.blogspot.com blog

  6. #6
    Greg Lockrey's Avatar
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    Re: Epson ABW greyscale printing

    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.
    Greg Lockrey

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  7. #7
    tim atherton's Avatar
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    Re: Epson ABW greyscale printing

    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 )
    You'd be amazed how small the demand is for pictures of trees... - Fred Astaire to Audrey Hepburn

    www.photo-muse.blogspot.com blog

  8. #8
    Greg Lockrey's Avatar
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    Re: Epson ABW greyscale printing

    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.
    Greg Lockrey

    Wealth is a state of mind.
    Money is just a tool.
    Happiness is pedaling +25mph on a smooth road.



  9. #9

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    Re: Epson ABW greyscale printing

    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 Ellis
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    a mile away and you'll have their shoes.

  10. #10
    tim atherton's Avatar
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    Re: Epson ABW greyscale printing

    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)
    You'd be amazed how small the demand is for pictures of trees... - Fred Astaire to Audrey Hepburn

    www.photo-muse.blogspot.com blog

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