One question pops up though: If you are using Camera RAW to convert to B&W, using the nice new Lightroom-like colour-specific HSB sliders, you end up with a 8 or 16-bit greyscale image in Photoshop. This you cannot sharpen with PK Sharpener (automate menu options are greyed out).
What is the best alternative in that case?
1. Do the conversion to greyscale as normal in Camera RAW, then set the colour mode back to RGB, then run the various PK sharpener steps, or...
2. Don't convert to grey in Camera RAW, just get the tonality etc. right, and have it open up as a colour image in Photoshop, then run the sharpening steps, and finally convert it back to B&W in Photoshop (would be a shame since the Camera RAW greyscale conversion seems to have more control then it photoshop equivalent).
Bonus question: In the video it is said that it is best to let the printer handle greyscale and that one therefore has to turn off colour management all together in Photoshop. This seems to work OK, but I noticed a colour shift (to blueish) on some papers (Innova F-Type I think) that way. Anybody have any thoughts?
Thanks so much,
Tao.
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There are no real differences between color sharpening and B&W sharpening according to Mike Chaney. He gave the following answers to my questions on the Qimage's sharpening functions.
">Remains that question whether the interpolation and sharpening
>> qualities of Qimage are as effective in B&W (quad) printing as
>> they are in color. Or are there better algorithms for B&W only ?
The techniques should be identical. I don't know of any reason to treat
B/W sharpening and interpolation any differently than color.
Mike
>With a B&W image, you are altering only luminance values, so you should
>> be able to use higher levels of sharpening.. That leads to a question
>> of whether QImage currently defaults to higher sharpening values when
>> sharpening B&W images?
Shouldn't matter. Qimage sharpens based on the luminance channel to
begin with, even in color images.
Mike" End of quotes.
With Qimage a greyscale file treated to one of its features will be saved or goes en route to the printer as an RGB file, extrapolation and sharpening is done after the conversion to RGB and it will not convert the image back to greyscale. It is possible that your software tries to avoid that conversion and greys out the function for that reason.
There are 2 or 3 stages recommended (Bruce Fraser) to sharpen in image processing so your question is a bit more complicated. The first sharpening part could be done in the Raw conversion itself but I understand that isn't the way you want it. I would say go to greyscale 16 bit right away with Gamma 2.2 embedded, convert to RGB with AdobeRGB embedded do the sharpening, convert back to greyscale for the rest and print with Qimage for the extrapolation + last print sharpening. If you are on a Mac you have to find another last part which will be more complicated.
I would say keep CM on in Photoshop and use an embedded greyscale profile that links to the gamma of the color space you normally use: Gamma 2.2 <> AdobeRGB.
The problem with Photoshop's CM is that it never is really off and it it is hard to say what still works and what not. If you switch CM off in Picture Window Pro it is OFF.
CM on in PS + a good monitor profile + printer profiles (including QTR and PrintFix Pro profiles) keeps the softproof features + normal tonal range control on the monitor and it is a reliable CM for the conversion of the image to the printer profile.
Ernst Dinkla
try: [a href=\"http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/]http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/[/url]