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Author Topic: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)  (Read 43217 times)

teddillard

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Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« 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:


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

...more here:
http://www.parrotcolor.com/store/blog/?p=883
« Last Edit: October 21, 2011, 04:36:20 pm by teddillard »
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jeff_singer

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #1 on: October 28, 2011, 10:51:02 am »

And what do you do when that's greyed out as well?
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jeff_singer

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #2 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.
« Last Edit: October 28, 2011, 11:19:48 am by jeff_singer »
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DeanChriss

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #3 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.
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digitaldog

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #4 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).
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Alan Goldhammer

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #5 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
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digitaldog

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #6 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.
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fdisilvestro

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #7 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

Farmer

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #8 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).
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Schewe

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #9 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.
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fdisilvestro

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #10 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.

Alan Goldhammer

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #11 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.
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Schewe

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #12 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.
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Mark D Segal

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #13 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.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Alan Goldhammer

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #14 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.
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Mark D Segal

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #15 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.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Farmer

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #16 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.
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Phil Brown

digitaldog

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #17 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.
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Alan Goldhammer

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #18 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? 
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Alan Goldhammer

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #19 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.
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