Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: teddillard on October 21, 2011, 04:34:43 pm

Title: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: teddillard on October 21, 2011, 04:34:43 pm
File this under stoopid simple stuff that'll drive you crazy.   ;D

Just had a client call up having no success getting the Advanced BW option to go active.  The solution was the "Color Matching" pulldown in the driver...  it used to default to however you had Photoshop set- not any more.  Make sure you have it set lika dis:
(http://www.parrotcolor.com/store/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Picture-2.jpg)

He was running OSX 10.6, CS5 on a 9800...

...more here:
http://www.parrotcolor.com/store/blog/?p=883
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: jeff_singer on October 28, 2011, 10:51:02 am
And what do you do when that's greyed out as well?
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: jeff_singer on October 28, 2011, 11:16:27 am
Ok, I've figured out that in order for the "Epson Controls Colors" to not be greyed out I need to set "printer manages colors" in Photoshop.  I then have access to the ABW option.  But, that's not what I want... I've always used "photoshop manages colors" so I can specify which printer profile to use.

How do I get ABW working with "photoshop manages colors"?

And yes, I am using the Epson driver version 8.64 and not the generic driver.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: DeanChriss on October 28, 2011, 01:23:14 pm
How do I get ABW working with "photoshop manages colors"?

As far as I know, normal paper/printer color profiles are useless when printing in ABW mode, and it would be pointless to specify one even if you could. You can have special grey scale profiles made, but they're only to allow soft proofing of the output. In ABW the printer uses a different "mix" of black and colored inks than it does in normal color mode, making the normal color profiles meaningless.

If someone knows more than I do about this, which is very possible, please jump in and correct me.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: digitaldog on October 28, 2011, 03:32:55 pm
Ok, I've figured out that in order for the "Epson Controls Colors" to not be greyed out I need to set "printer manages colors" in Photoshop.  I then have access to the ABW option.  But, that's not what I want... I've always used "photoshop manages colors" so I can specify which printer profile to use.

Not with ABW however. It doesn’t use profiles (its a black box).
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on October 28, 2011, 05:00:28 pm
No, ABW profiles are extremely useful in getting linear response out of the ABW driver so that you get better tonal separation.  You can also use them for softproofing as well if there are things that need to be tweaked.  You can either prepare your own profiles using Roy Harrington's QTR program or have forum member Eric Chan prepare them using his software.  There are subtle differences when you do use the profiles.

Alan
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: digitaldog on October 28, 2011, 07:24:21 pm
No, ABW profiles are extremely useful in getting linear response out of the ABW driver so that you get better tonal separation.  You can also use them for softproofing as well if there are things that need to be tweaked.  You can either prepare your own profiles using Roy Harrington's QTR program or have forum member Eric Chan prepare them using his software.  There are subtle differences when you do use the profiles.

No. ABW as designed by Epson was never intended to be used with profiles and the new driver behavior reflects this. You can soft proof if you wish, that has no bearing over the driver design. And when Roy lands on the Epson driver team, perhaps the use of profiles will change. Until then, the drivers under discussion are intended to be used with Printer Manages Color.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: fdisilvestro on October 28, 2011, 08:33:54 pm
Interesting, I hope Eric Chan sees this thread. He specifically states, in his Epson 3800 / 3880 resources page, to select "Photoshop manages colors" and to select one of the specific ABW profiles (if available) when printing with the ABW driver


Look for "How to print B&W images with the ABW driver (with ABW profiles)" in this page (http://people.csail.mit.edu/ericchan/dp/Epson3800/printworkflow.html#abw_no_gray_curve)

Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Farmer on October 28, 2011, 11:01:16 pm
Eric's page was written several years ago.  The paradigm with both Apple and Microsoft colour workflow has changed.  Apple enforces it more strictly (the driver won't allow changes) whereas at the moment Microsoft simply sets the driver based on the settings in the application (both OSes assuming that the application handles things correctly).
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Schewe on October 28, 2011, 11:12:09 pm
Interesting, I hope Eric Chan sees this thread. He specifically states, in his Epson 3800 / 3880 resources page, to select "Photoshop manages colors" and to select one of the specific ABW profiles (if available) when printing with the ABW driver

And with recent Epson drivers, you can't do that. If an application says it's handling color the driver turns off the ability to change the driver settings regarding color or in this case settings the ABW mode. I'm not saying this is good, I'm just saying that's the way it is now. In many cases, this is a "good thing" because it avoids double color managements. But in this case with ABW it gets disabled as well.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: fdisilvestro on October 29, 2011, 08:18:17 am
I think there is a way to overcome this issue if you really think there is a benefit in using the ABW profiles for printing with the ABW driver. Whenever you´re ready for printing, Edit->"Convert to" the desired ABW profile and then print with "printer manages color".

You could either make a copy of your image before converting or not saving it. You just need to be careful.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on October 29, 2011, 08:21:49 am
And with recent Epson drivers, you can't do that. If an application says it's handling color the driver turns off the ability to change the driver settings regarding color or in this case settings the ABW mode. I'm not saying this is good, I'm just saying that's the way it is now. In many cases, this is a "good thing" because it avoids double color managements. But in this case with ABW it gets disabled as well.
Jeff, isn't this only the case with Mac OS?  With Win7 systems, the ABW driver is never blacked out.  Now, I'm not the software engineer who developed the print driver so I don't know what's going on behind the scenes here whether it would recognize a ABW profile when sent via Lightroom.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Schewe on October 29, 2011, 01:07:30 pm
Jeff, isn't this only the case with Mac OS?

Yes, this is a Mac OS print pipeline issue...it impacts both Photoshop and Lightroom.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Mark D Segal on October 29, 2011, 01:13:56 pm
Not that my research on this can be considered "exhaustive", but any comparisons I've ever made between using ABW in the Epson Driver or printing carefully prepared B&W conversions from Photoshop or LR, there's nothing that hit me in the face looking at the prints making me prefer the black-box approach of the ABW driver. Of course this doesn't help people who absolutely want to use the ABW driver, but just a suggestion that perhaps one isn't missing all that much without it.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on October 29, 2011, 05:44:18 pm
No. ABW as designed by Epson was never intended to be used with profiles and the new driver behavior reflects this. You can soft proof if you wish, that has no bearing over the driver design. And when Roy lands on the Epson driver team, perhaps the use of profiles will change. Until then, the drivers under discussion are intended to be used with Printer Manages Color.
I guess I disagree here since I can measure the changes in a 21 step gray scale using a QTR generated profile vs. the native no color management.  As Jeff says in a subsequent comment, this only applies to the Mac OS print pipeline and not the Win7 pipeline.

Mark Segal wote:
Quote
Not that my research on this can be considered "exhaustive", but any comparisons I've ever made between using ABW in the Epson Driver or printing carefully prepared B&W conversions from Photoshop or LR, there's nothing that hit me in the face looking at the prints making me prefer the black-box approach of the ABW driver. Of course this doesn't help people who absolutely want to use the ABW driver, but just a suggestion that perhaps one isn't missing all that much without it.
Mark, do you mean a B/W print using the normal print driver (e.g., not ABW).  If so, I do know that with the ABW driver you get a darker black that is measurable so that your gray scale is longer than if you are printing without it.  In correspondence with Eric Chan, he confirms this as well.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Mark D Segal on October 29, 2011, 05:52:03 pm
In theory - i.e. by making measurements, this may well be true. Looking at prints, I find any differences quite trivial, to the extent it's a matter of taste. My comparisons are on IGFS, where the DMax is already very high without ABW. Maybe the effect would be more noticeable with matte papers if the ABW can eek a little more DMax out of them. When I last examined this for my 4900 review article, I in fact slightly preferred the B&W tonality of the one I did in Photoshop over the oneusing the ABW driver, but both of them were very good prints from a tonal perspective if you looked at each of them individually. In any event I don't like the AWB workflow and didn't see the value-added persevering with it.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Farmer on October 29, 2011, 06:44:04 pm
Actually, it DOES apply in the Windows pipeline, too, it's just that Microsoft doesn't lock the driver whereas Apple does, but they do set it according the application settings.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: digitaldog on October 29, 2011, 07:06:46 pm
I guess I disagree here since I can measure the changes in a 21 step gray scale using a QTR generated profile vs. the native no color management.

I’m unable to understand how your ability to measure something or use QTR alters the intended design of the Epson driver or the current Apple control over it.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on October 29, 2011, 07:07:45 pm
Actually, it DOES apply in the Windows pipeline, too, it's just that Microsoft doesn't lock the driver whereas Apple does, but they do set it according the application settings.
Then why would I see density differences with and without an ABW profile? 
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on October 29, 2011, 07:10:19 pm
I’m unable to understand how your ability to measure something or use QTR alters the intended design of the Epson driver or the current Apple control over it.
Because as I stated, I'm not running MacOS, but Win7.  It may also be that my 3880 driver doesn't do what the newer drivers do; I don't know.  All I can say for certain is that I can linearize the density curve for a 21 step ABW print using QTR.  I guess the only one who can really weigh in on this is Eric Chan since he was the one who advocated the use of an ABW profile for linearization.  If it doesn't do it on a MacOS, that's fine with me since I don't print that way.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: digitaldog on October 29, 2011, 07:19:18 pm
Because as I stated, I'm not running MacOS, but Win7. 

And that doesn’t change how Epson has designed their driver either. The older Apple drivers behaved as your Windows driver did, the change now is, Apple users now have to use the drivers as Epson designed them!
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on October 29, 2011, 08:24:49 pm
And that doesn’t change how Epson has designed their driver either. The older Apple drivers behaved as your Windows driver did, the change now is, Apple users now have to use the drivers as Epson designed them!
Then how do you explain how I and many other QTR users can prepare ABW profiles and actually measure density changes when we use the profile?  As I said, I have the original driver that the Epson 3880 shipped with and have NOT updated it.  Perhaps this is the reason, I don't know.  I absolutely do know that my density curve is more linear with the QTR profile than without it.  These are actual measured numbers!
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: digitaldog on October 29, 2011, 08:36:25 pm
Then how do you explain how I and many other QTR users can prepare ABW profiles and actually measure density changes when we use the profile? 

I don’t have to explain it because its a process that isn’t based on the original design of the driver which is the topic of the original post. As I’ve said over and over again, you are more than welcome to use the driver in a means not intended by the designer, soft proof (which has no relationship to the driver at that point), or use a 3rd party product the originator of the driver may feel is a hack. The bottom line is, ABW was designed and primarily used as a closed loop black box system. And now, on a major OS with a newer set of drivers, that has been reinforced. As I pointed out in my first post, of which you seem to feel is worth arguing about, ABW wasn’t designed to use profiles (its a black box). That you are using some third party product to circumvent this is understood but doesn’t change the intent of the driver by its manufacturer.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on October 29, 2011, 08:56:45 pm
Andrew, I'm not going to continue this discussion any longer as what I've observed based on actual data disagrees with your point save the appropriate caveats that I noted.  I also suggest that you write Eric Chan and ask him to do something about this webpage (http://people.csail.mit.edu/ericchan/dp/Epson3880/abwprofiles.html) which also has profiles for the ABW print driver that also give quantitatively different results when measured with an i1 Pro.  It may be an Epson black box and you may not understand what goes on behind the curtain, but it is possible to see measurable differences using ABW profiles whether done using QTR or having Eric do them.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on October 29, 2011, 09:01:27 pm
For those that are interested in the permanency of the ABW driver toning wheel, I have submitted a number of targets to Aardenburg for testing.  Mark McCormick-Goodhart and I thought that it would be good not only to measure the normal toning values Epson suggest but the extremes around the wheel.  The targets were all printed on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Ultra Smooth and Mark just notified me that the 10 mLux testing results are in, "...Filter the list for [batch][contains] k1 to find the new batch of samples now in test.  At the 10Mlux hour mark, it's too early to draw conclusions, but there is already a hint that the cool (blue and cyan quadrants) will eventually outperform the yellow containing quadrants (i.e., red, yellow, green). Make sense since yellow is Epson's weakest link in the K3, K3VM,, and HDR ink sets."

We hope that this will make a positive contribution to the print database.

Alan
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Farmer on October 29, 2011, 09:47:32 pm
Then why would I see density differences with and without an ABW profile? 

Of course you see differences with or without a profile - that has nothing to do with the driver setting paradigm changes.

Windows allows the application to specify the driver settings (ie colour management on or off, etc), but it doesn't lock you out (which means under Windows you can over ride it and use an ICC profile workflow with ABW) in the way that OS X does.

They both (OS X and Windows), though, provide the same ability to control the driver based on application settings.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Schewe on October 29, 2011, 11:46:50 pm
Because as I stated, I'm not running MacOS, but Win7.

The issues is a Mac OS/Colorsync/print diver issue that does not have a direct baring on Windows (although it has a slight impact). On Mac, if you select application manages colors the driver locks out the ability to select the ABW mode of the driver...get it? If you want to talk about other aspects of the ABW mode in Windows, go ahead and start a new thread. All you are doing is confusing the issue. OK?

As for Eric updating his web page, this new driver update is new...it involves the 8.x.x series of the new Epson drivers for Mac OS only. I'm sure Eric will get around yo updating his pages but his day job–working on the Camera Raw engineering kinda takes precedence, ya know?
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on October 30, 2011, 09:11:02 am
The issues is a Mac OS/Colorsync/print diver issue that does not have a direct baring on Windows (although it has a slight impact). On Mac, if you select application manages colors the driver locks out the ability to select the ABW mode of the driver...get it? If you want to talk about other aspects of the ABW mode in Windows, go ahead and start a new thread. All you are doing is confusing the issue. OK?
I was just pointing out a real difference between the two OS and not wanting to start any type of flame war on this topic, only noting that a lot of us use Windows OS and what is said for one OS may not apply to the other.  You cannot write software applications (or drivers) that run across all OS platforms without system calls so there have to be differences.  As noted above in a response, I'll not trouble this group any further with what happens on a Win7 platform.   
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Schewe on October 30, 2011, 02:49:29 pm
As noted above in a response, I'll not trouble this group any further with what happens on a Win7 platform.   

Just start a new thread...
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: eleanorbrown on October 31, 2011, 08:50:20 pm
I'm at a loss to understand what is happening with my Epson driver software but something is going on that's I've never had an issue with.  I routinely print ABW through Lightroom 3...all the time. Today for some reason my Print mode (grayed on AccuPhoto) and Color Mode (grayed on Off-no color management) choices are grayed out...all I can do is print color prints...no ABW choice.  I have reinstalled the latest Epson Drivers for my 9880 and 7800 printers...several times to no avail. Only thing I did differently today was to print a couple of prints through Imageprint 7. 

Can anyone think of anything that might have happened to lock up my Epson driver so ABW selection isn't available?  Many thanks, Eleanor
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Farmer on October 31, 2011, 09:38:02 pm
Eleanor - it's working as intended.

If you choose Printer Manages colour to use ABW, then there's no need to change those settings which are greyed out if you're following the intended ABW workflow.

If you wish to print to ABW using ICC profiles (LR/PS manages colour workflow), then you can't do that under the latest driver and OS X as it imposes the Apple paradigm for this workflow.  The same thing happens under Windows, except that Microsoft's implimentation does not lock out the driver settings, it just sets them according to the application settings.

By design, ABW is a "printer manages" workflow, even though some processes have been designed previously to allow an "application manages" workflow.  Updates to OS X in particular are highlighting/enforcing this new paradigm.

So if you want ABW, selected "printer manages" for your colour.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: eleanorbrown on October 31, 2011, 10:15:51 pm
Phil I can't even get to my ABW  window to select my warm tones.  I print ABW literally every day without incident until today.  I can always access the ABW window in the Epson driver to make selections.  I'm printing out of Lightroom with srgb selected as the profile.  Been doing this ever since ABW was made available by Epson...that is until today.  The epson driver has acquired some kind of bug and I'm trying to fine out what is the matter. Eleanor



Eleanor - it's working as intended.

If you choose Printer Manages colour to use ABW, then there's no need to change those settings which are greyed out if you're following the intended ABW workflow.

If you wish to print to ABW using ICC profiles (LR/PS manages colour workflow), then you can't do that under the latest driver and OS X as it imposes the Apple paradigm for this workflow.  The same thing happens under Windows, except that Microsoft's implimentation does not lock out the driver settings, it just sets them according to the application settings.

By design, ABW is a "printer manages" workflow, even though some processes have been designed previously to allow an "application manages" workflow.  Updates to OS X in particular are highlighting/enforcing this new paradigm.

So if you want ABW, selected "printer manages" for your colour.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Farmer on October 31, 2011, 10:30:45 pm
Honestly, it's not a bug.  If you're printing using an ICC profile (application manages colour), then under OS X and this driver now you will have ABW locked out - it's not intended to be used with ICC profiles (even though you've done it in the past).  If you change LR to be "printer manages colour" as your workflow, then you'll get access back to ABW.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: eleanorbrown on October 31, 2011, 11:02:43 pm
Phil thanks for taking the time to answer.  This is so weird....I switched in LR to printer manages colors and got access to ABW.  With that said...I have NEVER printed ABW this way and have always selected SRGB in the LR profile space and literally always gotten access to ABW in the Epson driver...Ever since LR3 was released.  Now this doesn't work and I have to use Printer manages colors.  I remember having an email conversation...maybe with Eric Chan (he can correct me if it wasn't him) and he suggested using srgb because at the time i had been selecting the actual paper profile in LR and printing in ABW with no problem.  In my fiddling around with Imageprint today and reinstalling Epson drivers, I obviously did something to change the driver back to what it was supposed to be....Thanks again, Eleanor



Honestly, it's not a bug.  If you're printing using an ICC profile (application manages colour), then under OS X and this driver now you will have ABW locked out - it's not intended to be used with ICC profiles (even though you've done it in the past).  If you change LR to be "printer manages colour" as your workflow, then you'll get access back to ABW.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Schewe on October 31, 2011, 11:32:47 pm
This is so weird....I switched in LR to printer manages colors and got access to ABW.  With that said...I have NEVER printed ABW this way and have always selected SRGB in the LR profile space and literally always gotten access to ABW in the Epson driver...Ever since LR3 was released.  Now this doesn't work and I have to use Printer manages colors.

What changed was the print driver...the newer drivers respect the new ColorSync/Mac print pipeline to disable changing the driver when an application says it's managing color. That's the way it is now for good or bad.

Eric DID suggest selecting sRGB and then send that to the Epson ABW mode. That's no longer possible.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on November 01, 2011, 09:32:35 am
What changed was the print driver...the newer drivers respect the new ColorSync/Mac print pipeline to disable changing the driver when an application says it's managing color. That's the way it is now for good or bad.

Eric DID suggest selecting sRGB and then send that to the Epson ABW mode. That's no longer possible.
Correct, a visit to the Epson website shows that new MacOS drivers (v. 8.64) were issued in mid-September.  Perhaps Eleanor's computer finally got around to updating and each time she tried to reinstall the driver there would not be any change since the old driver which permitted the old ABW print pathway was gone from her computer.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: eleanorbrown on November 01, 2011, 10:14:54 am
Thanks Alan and Jeff for clearing all this up for me. I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon trying to find out what happened and couldn't .  I actually also was in the process of printing out ABW targets using the new Adobe printing app to send to Eric for profiles...now I can't use the ABW profiles I'd planned to get from him. 

Glad I got this cleared up...Eleanor
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: madmanchan on November 03, 2011, 02:38:14 pm
Sorry, I'm coming in late on this thread (just got back from Photo Plus ...).

My take on this is:  I understand that Epson has designed the recent driver's ABW mode to be a "printer manages color"-based pipeline.  I personally don't agree with this design decision (*), but that's not my call to make.  I think this design is here to stay, so I'll just accept it and move on.  For users who like to use my ABW profiles:  I think you can continue to use these, but on Windows only. 

Eric


(*) Put simply, I think there are advantages to profiling the ABW driver behavior in the same way there are advantages to profiling the normal RGB color driver behavior: namely, (1) better consistency from paper to paper, esp. if using third-party papers, and (2) the ability to soft proof.  Both of these are seen as "good things" for regular color printing, and I personally see them also as good things for printing B&W via ABW.  This is why I am sad to see this go.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: fdisilvestro on November 03, 2011, 02:58:10 pm
If using Photoshop, will it work if you convert to the desired ABW profile just before printing?
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on November 03, 2011, 03:48:07 pm
Sorry, I'm coming in late on this thread (just got back from Photo Plus ...).

My take on this is:  I understand that Epson has designed the recent driver's ABW mode to be a "printer manages color"-based pipeline.  I personally don't agree with this design decision (*), but that's not my call to make.  I think this design is here to stay, so I'll just accept it and move on.  For users who like to use my ABW profiles:  I think you can continue to use these, but on Windows only. 

Eric


(*) Put simply, I think there are advantages to profiling the ABW driver behavior in the same way there are advantages to profiling the normal RGB color driver behavior: namely, (1) better consistency from paper to paper, esp. if using third-party papers, and (2) the ability to soft proof.  Both of these are seen as "good things" for regular color printing, and I personally see them also as good things for printing B&W via ABW.  This is why I am sad to see this go.
Thanks for taking the time to answer this!!  It clears up the issue for me (Win7 user which is why I didn't understand what was going on since it is a MacOS matter).  I know Epson has a new Windows driver out as of mid-September.  I don't think I'm going to experiment with it for fear it will also be the same as the Mac driver.

Alan
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: madmanchan on November 03, 2011, 04:02:42 pm
If using Photoshop, will it work if you convert to the desired ABW profile just before printing?

I am not sure, but I don't think so.  I made the ABW profiles when printing targets in "No Color Management" mode (different driver path).  When using "Printer Manages Color" one is then using a different driver path from the one I used to build the profiles.  So the baseline is different, and the results will likely be different.  I would have to do some testing to be sure, though.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Ernst Dinkla on November 03, 2011, 04:34:41 pm
If using Photoshop, will it work if you convert to the desired ABW profile just before printing?

In that case: Convert in PS P2P to the B&W printer profile and assign after that sRGB or AdobeRGB, whatever profile ABW would expect or assign itself.  More or less how I used QTR custom made B&W profiles in Qimage for HP's B&W mode on the Z models (printer CM on like HP recommends) when Qimage could not be trusted with QTR profiles. Give it a try. An HP Z model may act different with printer CM on.


met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst

330+ paper white spectral plots including the Canon US catalog:

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm


Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Farmer on November 03, 2011, 04:38:56 pm
Alan - the Windows driver already does this (changes to match settings based on the application settings), but Windows, as an OS, doesn't lock you out from then changing it whereas OS X does.  So, unless Microsoft change the process in Windows, you'll be able to continue to override the settings made by the application.

In both cases, the driver is respecting the paradigm set by the OS.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on November 03, 2011, 05:11:07 pm
Alan - the Windows driver already does this (changes to match settings based on the application settings), but Windows, as an OS, doesn't lock you out from then changing it whereas OS X does.  So, unless Microsoft change the process in Windows, you'll be able to continue to override the settings made by the application.

In both cases, the driver is respecting the paradigm set by the OS.
Thanks for the comment and I understand this.  What I don't know is when Epson made the change to the driver.  They have posted an updated Windows driver in mid-September which I've not downloaded.  I'm still printing from the original driver that came with the 3880 (don't know the version number of the driver as I've tried finding it but with little luck so far since it doesn't have a straight forward name.  I'm in the same camp with Eric on this as it is certainly convenient to be able to soft proof and linearize the gray scale when using the ABW driver.  The alternative of course would be to create some profiles with lots of B/W patches for printing out using the normal Epson driver with the traditional color manged work flow (one can do this easily enough using ArgylCMS) but then one doesn't get some of the advantages of using the ABW driver (greater Dmax and an easy to use toning wheel).  Life is full of tradeoffs as we all know.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Farmer on November 03, 2011, 05:33:05 pm
Printer Properties, then click on the Version Information tab - should tell you the version.

I'd suggest looking to udpate your driver - it won't stop you doing what you're doing on Windows.  If you don't like it, you can always uninstall and reinstall from the CD but it shouldn't present you with any problems.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on November 03, 2011, 06:20:23 pm
Printer Properties, then click on the Version Information tab - should tell you the version.

I'd suggest looking to udpate your driver - it won't stop you doing what you're doing on Windows.  If you don't like it, you can always uninstall and reinstall from the CD but it shouldn't present you with any problems.
Silly me, I was checking it without the printer being turned on (big duh moment)!  Got the driver number now.  I'll give the new driver a tryout and see what happens.  I do like the ability to use the ABW feature with the profiles.

thanks,

Alan
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: abiggs on March 29, 2012, 08:28:18 am
What's the latest on this situation? I dove into the issue yesterday, and no matter which path I take (Printer manages colors or Photoshop manages colors) the ABW option is *not* available in the printer driver. I am using the latest drivers for OSX 10.7.x for all of my Epson printers (9900, 2880, 3880, 4900, R3000) and I simply cannot locate any ABW functionality no matter what I do.

It's not that big of a deal, since I don't like the 'normal' ABW methodology, but I am trying to update my knowledge on what the latest scenario looks like.

????
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Ernst Dinkla on March 29, 2012, 11:04:29 am
The latest scenario is purchasing a PC till M$ gives way to A$ CM dominance too.


met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Shareware too:
330+ paper white spectral plots:
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: abiggs on March 29, 2012, 02:46:25 pm
I was having a whole bunch of issues with my Mac Pro after my OSX Lion upgrade, so I decided to install Lion from scratch. Well, amazingly, all issues have been resolved. Sucks that something so simple, like an OS upgrade, can wreak so much havoc on my machine that I have to reinstall the OS.

Oh well, at least I have some Rolling Stones playing loudly in the background.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Farmer on March 30, 2012, 03:02:35 am
Andy - which main black do you currently have active in your printer?
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: mlecler on March 30, 2012, 05:06:36 am
Hello,

After installing 10.6.8, i had the bug, i wasn't able to use profiles with ABW. I fixed the bug by installing the driver version 6.11 for my 3800 and it is working properly. I don't know if it will be the same with Lion. Before you install 6.11, remove your printer from the printer's list in Prefs. Now i have access to ABW both ways.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on March 30, 2012, 09:01:52 am
Hello,

After installing 10.6.8, i had the bug, i wasn't able to use profiles with ABW. I fixed the bug by installing the driver version 6.11 for my 3800 and it is working properly. I don't know if it will be the same with Lion. Before you install 6.11, remove your printer from the printer's list in Prefs. Now i have access to ABW both ways.
Please go back and read this thread.  This is not a "bug" but the way the Apple OS and the Epson driver are supposed to work (Win7 implementation still allows one to use ABW profiles but that could change).
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Farmer on March 30, 2012, 05:25:50 pm
The latest scenario is purchasing a PC till M$ gives way to A$ CM dominance too.

Hmm, thought I had replied earlier but can't see it - I must have closed the window or something :-)

Anyway, this seems like a strange response from you, Ernst.

Adobe didn't set this new paradigm.  Apple started and Adobe complied.  Microsoft also implimented a change but just not as restrictive as Apple (which is probably par for the course, really).  This is not an Adobe initiative - Adobe had to spend resources on developing the Colour Print Utility which is given away to help to deal with these changes, and they've had to spend time redesigning the printing workflow in CS6 (if you haven't had a look already, you should - that's a general "you" not just to Ernst).

This is mostly the result of Apple trying to force colour management on the masses who have no idea it even exists, let alone how to use it.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on March 30, 2012, 11:54:04 pm
Ernst's post makes perfect sense to me, if you read A$ as referring to Apple rather than Adobe. My Windows machines have no problems with color management so far. That is, until M$...
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Farmer on March 31, 2012, 03:24:37 am
Ernst's post makes perfect sense to me, if you read A$ as referring to Apple rather than Adobe. My Windows machines have no problems with color management so far. That is, until M$...

Maybe - but why would Microsoft give way to Apple and in what way are Apple the dominant CM provider?  /shrug

Microsoft already allows apps to set the driver correctly, they just don't lock you out from changing it yourself (whereas Apple does).
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: Ernst Dinkla on March 31, 2012, 04:03:36 am

Anyway, this seems like a strange response from you, Ernst.


The risk of abbreviations. Eric guessed right. I thought that Apple being the largest company of the world (in shares) and squeezing every cent from its customers and Foxconn employees, could be represented with an A$. I'm aware the name is not Applesoft. Like Microsoft in the past it now tries to dictate what standards should be. The Flash controversy and now the new SIM standard, there are more. The Safari CM oddity in assigning monitor profiles to untagged images is considered stupid even by Colorsync gurus. Mac Safari users do not represent more than 10% of the web population, any other browser with CM running assigns sRGB to untagged images.

Rumor has it that Microsoft could switch to a similar OS CM policy, the day the only transparent CM in an OS is found in a Linux distribution like Ubuntu is not far away. That Adobe removed the "No-CM" option in Windows versions of its applications is the result of Apple's obstinate CM policies, not a result of a flaw in Windows CM.

Right now the masses use Windows on their PCs and they could get their CM perfect, now and in the past, in a transparent system that hardly changed over the last 5 years. The minority that has Macs have struggled with all kinds of CM changes, flaws, bugs over the last 5 years. Mac experts and the user "masses" alike. Just check the CM threads on many forums. The mobile masses did not get CM at all whether running Symbian, iOS, Android, though the last has more CM fundamentals aboard than the other two. Not really a problem till printers are hooked up, image editing is already happening on tablets and alike. Soon we will get another nice task on the forums and in the print shops, educate the mobile masses :-)


met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Shareware too:
330+ paper white spectral plots:
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
soon Harman by Hahnemühle papers included + some new Innovas.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: FrankG on November 28, 2014, 07:40:57 pm
I posted a new thread as the forum suggested I do since this one is more than 6 months old, but I was referred back to this thread by a member, so.....

It is well established that profiles (Eric Chan's) cannot be used with ABW.

As an alternative route, is it a good practice to print out of photoshop using Eric Chan's ABW profiles?
(seems they should be called something else as it's misleading to think you can use them in ABW)

I know many people have RIPs but I'm not inquiring about that at the moment
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: TylerB on November 29, 2014, 01:20:39 pm
...
As an alternative route, is it a good practice to print out of photoshop using Eric Chan's ABW profiles?
(seems they should be called something else as it's misleading to think you can use them in ABW)
...

They were made using ABW so in fact their names are correct. If they are relevant to your printer model (he stopped making them at some point I believe) then of course using them could be worthwhile. The workaround for the Adobe/Epson/OS evolution away from having them available in the print dialogs is to preconvert your file to that profile before printing, then continuing on through with printer color management and the appropriate print settings. Just don't hit save, an output profile is not the best space for an archived final. It's a simple one step workaround.
Whether or not one can softproof has to do with the availability of the appropriate profile, not how you will eventually print it (ABW, RGB, whatever).

I have no personal experience with Eric's profiles, but they addressed so many people's needs when the options were more straightforward, and knowing his expertise,  I must assume they were good. I have made ABW profiles for others to use as well, and the above workaround works fine, as well as softproofing.

Some 3rd party print applications like QTR Print Tool gives you back all those options without workarounds and are worth considering.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: FrankG on November 29, 2014, 05:01:39 pm
preconvert your file to that profile before printing, then continuing on through with printer color management and the appropriate print settings.

Thanks Tyler. 
I have an Epson 3880/inks, OSX 10.6.8, PS CS6.
Just to be clear on the above - are you saying instead of going directly to ABW settings/Printer Manages Colors, whilst still in PS to convert the file to a ABW profile, and then to print with Printer manages Colors/ABW?
If so, any special considerations in the printer dialog settings?
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: TylerB on November 29, 2014, 05:41:55 pm
Thanks Tyler. 
I have an Epson 3880/inks, OSX 10.6.8, PS CS6.
Just to be clear on the above - are you saying instead of going directly to ABW settings/Printer Manages Colors, whilst still in PS to convert the file to a ABW profile, and then to print with Printer manages Colors/ABW?
If so, any special considerations in the printer dialog settings?

So I assume he made profiles for the 3880 before stopping? Yes, convert using PS tools, before invoking print commands. Be sure and double check his driver settings to use with the profile for printer settings.. things like 1440 vs 2880, media selection, and darkness settings. Any of that must be specific to the profile made, and any profile provider would have those instructions available. Of course he did all this work while more straightforward ABW/icc print workflow was still available, but assuming printer/paper match, it should all work.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: FrankG on November 29, 2014, 07:43:26 pm
Thanks for this. I'll give it a whirl.
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: FrankG on November 29, 2014, 10:21:10 pm
A last nagging question to have confirmed please. The difference of doing as suggested - Convert to the ABW profile in PS & then print via Printer Manages Color/ABW.
Or selecting Photoshop Manages Col and applying the profile in that print dialog?
I guess the first option allows you to make a few more selections in the ABW dialog re media, dpi etc
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: TylerB on November 30, 2014, 04:26:49 pm
A last nagging question to have confirmed please. The difference of doing as suggested - Convert to the ABW profile in PS & then print via Printer Manages Color/ABW.
Or selecting Photoshop Manages Col and applying the profile in that print dialog?
I guess the first option allows you to make a few more selections in the ABW dialog re media, dpi etc

photoshop manages color, allowing profile selection in the print dialog, will negate the availability to select ABW.. hence the need to pre-convert and use printer manages color
Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: FrankG on November 30, 2014, 09:34:09 pm
Does this screen shot (attached) look correct to you ? (I usually use Relative but Eric Chan's abw profile notes say Perceptual)

Title: Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
Post by: TylerB on November 30, 2014, 09:45:49 pm
yup looks fine... BPC isn't necessary for perceptual but it will do no harm to have it checked.