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kingdex

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« on: November 15, 2008, 11:34:50 am »

Is anyone grappling with the fact that in CS4 it is not possible to select "No Color Management" when printing grayscale files? And, even though "No Color Management" is available when printing RGB files it is not possible to print "black & white" RGB files to ABW if "No Color Management" is selected. It seems that the only time "No Color Management" is available is printing an RGB file and selecting the "Color" print mode in the basic printer settings box and using any of the color mode drop down choices including "Off - No color management"

A practical problem I'm having as a result is making ABW profiles for my Epson printers (9800/7800):

Typically I'd use an untagged, grayscale target image to make a black & white profile (for ABW, not QTR) and then select "No Color Management" and then print using ABW. Since Photoshop CS4 won't allow me to chose "No Color Management" with a grayscale file I'm left with only two choices: "Printer Manages Color" or "Photoshop Manages Color." Intuitively neither choice seems a good one but, since letting Photoshop manage color is the wrong choice, it seems letting the printer manage color wins by default.

What am I missing here?

Regards,
kingdex
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digitaldog

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« Reply #1 on: November 15, 2008, 11:44:44 am »

Quote from: kingdex
A practical problem I'm having as a result is making ABW profiles for my Epson printers (9800/7800):

You can either use Let Printer Manage color, or better I think, select Adobe RGB (1998) as the working (printer) space when using Let Photoshop Manage color. Then use ABW.
« Last Edit: November 15, 2008, 11:45:09 am by digitaldog »
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kingdex

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« Reply #2 on: November 15, 2008, 03:22:55 pm »

So what you're saying (in the case of making my B&W profiles) is to keep the target file as a grayscale file (untagged); use Photoshop Manages Color;  set the printer profile to Adobe RGB and then print the target using ABW? Why not use a profile like "Working Gray Gamma 2.2"?

I've also received this very informative reply to an inquiry on a different forum:

In 10.5 Apple has pulled back support for "No CM" so your best bet for
profiling targets is to use Printer Manages color and then make sure
the print driver is set to CM off. When set to Printer manages color,
PS just passes along embedded profile and rendering intent info. PS
does no conversion on its own, it just makes profile and rendering
intent info available to the print driver. Whether the driver receives
that info correctly and/or knows what to do with it depends on the
particular print driver. But for most current drivers Printer Manages
color should provide identical results as No CM; with the appropriate
driver settings.

Whaduhyathink?

Thanks again, Andrew
« Last Edit: November 15, 2008, 04:17:25 pm by kingdex »
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digitaldog

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« Reply #3 on: November 15, 2008, 06:13:56 pm »

Quote from: kingdex
So what you're saying (in the case of making my B&W profiles) is to keep the target file as a grayscale file (untagged); use Photoshop Manages Color;  set the printer profile to Adobe RGB and then print the target using ABW? Why not use a profile like "Working Gray Gamma 2.2"?

Actually I would send it a tagged RGB document, one that's got the "grayscale" appearance you desire.
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kingdex

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« Reply #4 on: November 16, 2008, 11:42:58 am »


Quote
Actually I would send it a tagged RGB document, one that's got the "grayscale" appearance you desire.


Andrew - Sorry to be so dense, but I'm not sure I understand your response.  Duhhh! Can ya help me out here? [;.)

kingdex
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digitaldog

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« Reply #5 on: November 16, 2008, 01:10:22 pm »

Quote from: kingdex
Andrew - Sorry to be so dense, but I'm not sure I understand your response.  Duhhh! Can ya help me out here? [;.)

Send RGB, not a single channel grayscale is what I mean.
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kingdex

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« Reply #6 on: November 16, 2008, 04:21:05 pm »


Quote
Send RGB, not a single channel grayscale is what I mean.

Ok. Got it. I'm actually sending an RGB version of the black & white target; Photoshop manages color with a profile of Adobe RGB. At which point I use the ABW driver and appropriate media choice to print my target.

I assume, then, that I can use the profile I make from that target to print single channel grayscale files with the ABW driver. Correct?

The bit of confusion you sense here is that it seems to me that I'd be using an RGB profile to print a grayscale, ABW image. Is my concern misplaced?

Regards,
kingdex
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digitaldog

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« Reply #7 on: November 16, 2008, 06:04:20 pm »

Quote from: kingdex
Ok. Got it. I'm actually sending an RGB version of the black & white target; Photoshop manages color with a profile of Adobe RGB. At which point I use the ABW driver and appropriate media choice to print my target.

I assume, then, that I can use the profile I make from that target to print single channel grayscale files with the ABW driver. Correct?

The bit of confusion you sense here is that it seems to me that I'd be using an RGB profile to print a grayscale, ABW image. Is my concern misplaced?

OK, now I'm kind of confused.

What target are you referring to?

The suggestion is to use Adobe RGB (1998) as the "output" profile (the profile you select in the Print dialog) rather than an actual paper profile when using ABW, instead of using Printer Manages Color.

To me, grayscale implies a single channel document, not a B&W image (which could be grayscale but could also be an RGB document).
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kingdex

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« Reply #8 on: November 16, 2008, 07:43:41 pm »


Quote
What target are you referring to?



Sorry. . . I guess I've not been clear.

Anyway, my objective is to make an ABW profile from an untagged, grayscale ABW gray curve target. I have to print the target from which I intend to build my profile. (Nearly all my work is black & white).
In PSCS4 I can't select No Color Management using a grayscale image -only Printer Manages or PS Manages- Because of this printer dialog change in CS4 I'm searching for the correct way to print the target using ABW. Another anomaly is the fact that, even if I convert the target to RGB, PSCS4 won't let me use the ABW driver if I select No Color Management in the initial printer dialog box. So, as I posted earlier, that still seems to boil down my choices to either Photoshop Manages or Printer Manages if I want to use ABW.

I'm Mac, Intel, 10.5.5 using Epson K3 on a 7800 and 9800. My drivers are current and Leopard compatible.

Hope this helps clarify things. Sorry for any confusion.

Regards,
kingdex


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adiallo

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« Reply #9 on: November 16, 2008, 08:01:23 pm »

Perhaps what's tripping you up is the fact that using ABW in the Epson driver is effectively a "color managed" driver option in the following sense. You want to pass an untagged grayscale target with no conversion via PS (Printer manages color will achieve this) to the driver with ABW settings of "xyz".  THe ABW driver does its super secret black box magic to produce the print output. You then measure that target and create a profile via QTR or some similar method. After the profile is created you send real grayscale images from PS with a color managed conversion (PS manages color) to the newly created profile. But you still have to make sure your ABW settings are identical to those when you printed the target. ABW and No CM are either/or solutions. Unlike with RGB images through the color driver you can't turn off CM in the printer driver and call ABW into play. The rule about turning off CM in the driver for printing profiling targets only applies to a "normal" color driver workflow. If you go the ABW route you don't want to turn off CM in the print driver.
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kingdex

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« Reply #10 on: November 17, 2008, 11:19:17 am »

Quote
You want to pass an untagged grayscale target with no conversion via PS (Printer manages color will achieve this) to the driver with ABW settings of "xyz".  THe ABW driver does its super secret black box magic

Very clear! Printer Manages & ABW should do the job for producing a credible target from which to make a reliable ABW profile.

Since this basic thread is being discussed on various forums it is obvious that there is measurable concern about the printing interface changes and driver problems in the new CS4. I received the following direct email from a very reliable colleague. Perhaps it deserves some comments here. I realize my primary focus is black & white printing but there seems to be sufficient crossover to post this good information as well:

The deeper explanation going on here has to do with printing interfaces on OS X changing over time. In the past, some printer drivers (notably Canon, with its older iPF series printers) did not interpret the image data appropriately and thus had incorrect driver settings that could not be reset by the user. Photoshop CS3 worked around some of these issues for specific drivers, but did not conform to Apple's OS X specifications for how to pass image data to the print driver, leading to problems elsewhere. With CS4, Adobe has taken the approach of conforming to Apple's latest print driver interface specifications, so CS4 now has the same behavior as LR with regards to printing on OS X.

However, many print drivers have not been updated to conform to the OS X printing interface, and thus some folks are experiencing printing issues, such as double color-management. This is unfortunate, but it really needs to be addressed by the printer drivers.

Now, back to the ABW situation: I don't know if Epson has a glitch with the ABW driver under the latest OS X release. I have occasionally seen what you've seen: i.e., I hit "Print" in PS CS4 and nothing comes out. But then I mess around a little with the Epson printer driver configuration and then it works.

In particular, I found that if I had an older "saved setting" or preset within the Epson driver that I used to recall a particular ABW driver setting, then it would fail. So I deleted all my Epson driver presets and started again from scratch (manually selecting media type, color mode, ABW settings, paper config, etc.) Then I haven't had any trouble printing ABW images since.

Regards,
kingdex
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kingdex

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« Reply #11 on: November 26, 2008, 04:28:22 pm »

Quote
Since this basic thread is being discussed on various forums it is obvious that there is measurable concern about the printing interface changes and driver problems in the new CS4.

A brief update post may be in order here:

The problem of ABW profiling and ABW workflow in CS4 is still unresolved. Specifically, PSCS4, LR2 and Mac Leopard are all presently having trouble living together. This manifests in particular when it comes to using ABW profiles for b&w output in LR2 or PSCS4. In CS4,  profiled printing using "Photoshop Manages Color" and the ABW driver do not produce expected results. Until this situation is resolved it is recommended that PSCS3; CS3 ABW profiles and  "Photoshop Manages Color" be used for accurate printing to the ABW driver.

The situation is maddening since it restricts controlled ABW printing as well as profiling in LR2 and PSCS4. The situation is being aggressively pursued with "The Big Three" Adobe, Apple & Epson.

Regards,
kingdex
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digitaldog

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« Reply #12 on: November 26, 2008, 05:52:37 pm »

Quote from: kingdex
The problem of ABW profiling and ABW workflow in CS4 is still unresolved. Specifically, PSCS4, LR2 and Mac Leopard are all presently having trouble living together. This manifests in particular when it comes to using ABW profiles for b&w output in LR2 or PSCS4. In CS4,  profiled printing using "Photoshop Manages Color" and the ABW driver do not produce expected results. Until this situation is resolved it is recommended that PSCS3; CS3 ABW profiles and  "Photoshop Manages Color" be used for accurate printing to the ABW driver.
Regards,
kingdex

ABW profiles for B&W? So you're not printing an RGB doc?
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kingdex

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« Reply #13 on: November 26, 2008, 07:15:53 pm »

Quote
ABW profiles for B&W? So you're not printing an RGB doc?

That's correct. I'm printing grayscale, gg 2.2 files using Photoshop Manages Color, a custom b&w profile and ABW. This workflow worked perfectly in CS3. Technically it should work perfectly in CS4. But,unfortunately it produces unpredictable (and unacceptable) results in CS4 (PSCS4 & LR2). Even after re-profiling using CS4 the results are the same - unpredictable and unacceptable. Here is an excerpt from my recent post on the Adobe Photoshop Mac Forum FYI:

"There is a very BIG problem with regard to ABW printing in PSCS4 and LR2. Rest assured printing grayscale files in CS4 using Photoshop Manages Color, a custom (ABW) profile and the ABW driver yield unpredictable and unacceptable results. This was not the case in PSCS3. The process worked perfectly in CS3. It seems that we also should be able to use the same profiles and ABW workflow in CS4 but that is not the case. This leads to the conclusion that something has changed in CS4. And, as far as ABW workflow is concerned, this change is so far, not for the better. Exhaustive testing has been on-going by myself and several others since the problem was discovered. All of which corroborates what I'm referring to. I'll do my best to get you up to speed off line since the testing and experimentation data is much too voluminous to post."

Regards,
kingdex
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madmanchan

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« Reply #14 on: November 26, 2008, 08:40:21 pm »

King and I have been exchanging email offline about this issue, but just to bring other folks up to speed ...

Let's back up to color printing for a moment. If you print a color image to the Epson color driver (either called "Color" or "AccuPhoto HD") and let the application manage colors (e.g., "Photoshop Manages Colors") then you get identical output from CS3, CS4, LR 1, and LR 2, on Mac OS X Leopard. This is normal, desirable, and expected behavior. (Just to check, I have printed a target, measured it with an iSis, and the average difference between any pair of targets is ~0.15 DE 2000, with a max error of ~0.5 DE 2000.)

That's not the case for ABW, for some reason. In other words, if you keep everything above the same, but simply choose "ABW" mode in the Epson driver instead of the RGB color driver, you will get the same output from CS4 and LR1/LR2, but different output from CS3. Specifically, prints from CS4 & LR are much lighter than those from CS3. So, let's say you've printed a gray target to the ABW driver using "No Color Management" in CS3, then built an ICC profile to be used with the ABW driver based on that target. That profile works correctly with "Photoshop Manages Colors" in CS3. But it doesn't work with CS4/LR on Leopard.

Why is this? I don't know yet. But it's under investigation.
« Last Edit: November 26, 2008, 08:42:57 pm by madmanchan »
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Eric Chan

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« Reply #15 on: November 26, 2008, 11:24:08 pm »

My guess you could probably be able to use a workaround in the ColorSync Utility. Much the same way we got around these same problem in LR1.3.1. This workaround also works in with PSCS4 and LR2.1 when for what ever reason something (driver not fully compatible with the OS?) is causing the double profiling, picking up the profile assigned to the media settings in colorsync.

Again I will ask. Why is Adobe coding things to force the drivers to do something? Why can I not have choices under Color Matching in the driver? As an example in the Print Setting dialog of LR2.1 I can have those choices but not in the Print dialog. I can get a correct print with selecting Print One but after that when I go back to Print Setting my choices under Color Matching is grayed out and I/the driver is forced to ColorSync. I have to close and reopen LR to get the Color Matching choices back.

Doyle
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« Reply #16 on: November 26, 2008, 11:55:56 pm »

Quote from: madmanchan
Why is this? I don't know yet. But it's under investigation.

It's because the ABW mode of the Epson driver is not color management aware and is actually "expecting" Adobe RGB and pretty much barfs on any other data being sent. The Gamma of Adobe RGB is 2.2 and while sRGB has the same gamma, it's slightly different so the output you end up getting from the ABW mode depends on the way data is sent to the driver and the driver only has one thing on it's mind...treat everything it gets as though it's Adobe RGB.

So, what I do in Lightroom is have the "Other" settings set to also load Display Profiles (poor name choice there, it should be RGB Color Space Profiles) and check Adobe RGB. Then from Lightroom I select Lightroom Manages Color and select the Adobe RGB output profile. Then in the Epson driver in the ABW mode I just set the settings I need. Yes, it's "technically" using "double-color-management" but with an explicit reason, to send data to the driver in the gamma space it's expecting. The same approach can be used for ANY printer whose color management capabilities or weak or non-existent, a lot of consumer level printers come to mind. I'll also add that when I print to my Epson PictureMate (that expects sRGB) I do the same thing except change the Lightroom output color space to sRGB.

There are two major OS platforms and different flavors of both. There are conflicting and contradictory platform requirements. Then you have old/new printers and drivers and all of the major printer makers have different approaches to their drivers. It's a wonder we can ever print anything well. But, it's useful to take proactive steps and try different things and see what works. It's not always obvious nor well explained...but there ya go. All of this stuff just barely works. Hey, it didn't USED to work worth crap at all not too long ago and every system upgrade brings the potential for a reset and change in the way things work (or don't work as the case may be).
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kingdex

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« Reply #17 on: November 27, 2008, 11:54:50 am »

Quote
So, what I do in Lightroom is. . .

Jeff,

Good, solid info! I'm gonna try it "post-haste" using a known true, CS3 ABW profile. When possible I prefer to do most of my printing from LR anyway.

Regards,
kingdex
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kingdex

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« Reply #18 on: November 27, 2008, 01:21:09 pm »


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. . .I'm gonna try it "post-haste" using a known true, CS3 ABW profile.



Ooops! Can't do that can I? Have to use Adobe RGB. Guess this workaround precludes the possibility of using custom ABW profiles.

kd
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madmanchan

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« Reply #19 on: November 27, 2008, 05:09:03 pm »

Jeff, I recall from our earlier conversion your method of feeding 2.2-encoded data to the Epson ABW driver: i.e., using the Adobe RGB profile.

The issue is that if you try doing this from LR or CS4, you get a (very) different result than if you do it from CS3.

i.e., if we do the equivalent steps in PS, that would be "Photoshop Manages Colors" and then choose Adobe RGB from the Profile popup menu. Doing this in CS4 produces equivalent results to LR. But doing this in CS3 produces quite different results (e.g., midtones from LR and CS4 are about L* > 10 units lighter than CS3).

So which is the "right" flavor, CS4 & LR, or CS3?

Based on my measurements, I'm guessing it's CS3, because if you go to the Windows side (or prior to Leopard on the Mac side), CS3, CS4, and LR all print the same way if you use your method (i.e., select Adobe RGB as the profile), and the output matches CS3 + Mac Leopard. So, of all these combos, the ones that "stand apart from the others" are LR & CS4 under Leopard.

Funky, huh?
« Last Edit: November 27, 2008, 05:11:45 pm by madmanchan »
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