I have found this a very useful forum over the years, so I have finally stopped lurking and signed up. Having just got a satisfactory ABW workflow going on a new Epson 3880, I thought I would share what works for me.
Obviously reading Eric Chan's site is a good starting point (
http://people.csail.mit.edu/ericchan/dp/Epson3800/index.html), and he helpfully gives a link to Giorgio Trucco's essential piece as well. The key points seem to be that the ABW driver is essentially grayscale, that the 'dark' setting is the most linear, and that a gamma of 2.2 is needed for the file you are printing.
For a non-ICC workflow, the following seems to work pretty well:
1 Convert your rgb file to grayscale in PS using the Gray Gamma 2.2 profile, then print
2 Choose ABW, set to 'dark'
3 Choose the appropriate paper in the driver
4 Set the print dialogue to 'Printer manages color'
What works best for me is an ICC workflow using QTR's CreateICC program. Create the ICC as follows:
1 Print the untagged 21-step target using ABW dark setting, appropriate paper setting, 'Printer manages color' (this works in CS5 in spite of the well-known issues with color targets)
2 Read the grayscale ramp to create an input file for CreateICC - PrintFix works great for doing this
3 Create a grayscale ICC (not RGB - this is important) and install
Then printing uses the following workflow, assuming that you have created a B&W rgb file:
1 Convert your rgb file to the Gray Gamma 2.2 profile
2 Set up ABW as above (dark setting, correct paper type)
3 Print using the ICC you created, choosing 'Perceptual' rendering (this is important - otherwise prints are too dark)
The ABW driver is actually pretty linear based on what CreateICC reports, so it is possible to get good prints without an ICC workflow. But the ICC gives you that much more accuracy - basically what I see on the screen is what I get on the print.
Hope this helps.
Kirk
