Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: cagen on April 24, 2013, 10:12:14 pm

Title: Does the possible to use ICC profiles with epson ABW in ps CS6?
Post by: cagen on April 24, 2013, 10:12:14 pm
Hello. I'm epson 9900 user.
I would like to use ABW profile for linearity.
Does the possible to use ICC profiles with epson ABW in ps CS6?
Also, Does the possible to create linearising abw profile using the QTR with spyder SR?
If I don't use ABW, Does the possible to b&w pringting without colorshift when only use RGB icc profile?
Title: Re: Does the possible to use ICC profiles with epson ABW in ps CS6?
Post by: Schewe on April 24, 2013, 10:25:23 pm
No...ABW is a non-color managed black box.
Title: Re: Does the possible to use ICC profiles with epson ABW in ps CS6?
Post by: jrsforums on April 24, 2013, 10:43:42 pm
Hello. I'm epson 9900 user.
I would like to use ABW profile for linearity.
Does the possible to use ICC profiles with epson ABW in ps CS6?
Also, Does the possible to create linearising abw profile using the QTR with spyder SR?
If I don't use ABW, Does the possible to b&w pringting without colorshift when only use RGB icc profile?

Here is what Eric Chan wrote up dooing this on the 3800
http://people.csail.mit.edu/ericchan/dp/Epson3800/bwcurves.html
Title: Re: Does the possible to use ICC profiles with epson ABW in ps CS6?
Post by: Peter Langham on April 24, 2013, 11:57:19 pm
Not in CS 6.  QTR Print Tool will on a Mac.  Works well.
Title: Re: Does the possible to use ICC profiles with epson ABW in ps CS6?
Post by: pfigen on April 25, 2013, 12:55:10 am
Why couldn't you, say, send your Grayscale target through ABW, measure it, make your profile, then convert your print file to that Grayscale profile, then Assign sRGB and send it to the printer. That would add a couple of steps, and I haven't tried it yet, but it seems like it should fool the driver into using a pre-converted file that has the profile already applied.
Title: Re: Does the possible to use ICC profiles with epson ABW in ps CS6?
Post by: digitaldog on April 25, 2013, 10:04:30 am
Here is what Eric Chan wrote up dooing this on the 3800
http://people.csail.mit.edu/ericchan/dp/Epson3800/bwcurves.html

Old, doesn't fly any longer in modern versions of Photoshop on Mac.

As Jeff said, ABW is a black box. The idea is to let it do the heavy lifting by converting a color image. The degree of control over this is, well not for those that want to fully control the process outside ABW. If you are doing this kind of work, doing your own toning etc, then you'll need to use an ICC profile without ABW.
Title: Re: Does the possible to use ICC profiles with epson ABW in ps CS6?
Post by: jrsforums on April 25, 2013, 11:22:00 am
Old, doesn't fly any longer in modern versions of Photoshop on Mac.

As Jeff said, ABW is a black box. The idea is to let it do the heavy lifting by converting a color image. The degree of control over this is, well not for those that want to fully control the process outside ABW. If you are doing this kind of work, doing your own toning etc, then you'll need to use an ICC profile without ABW.

I was not aware of the problem on Mac.

I agree with your point on doing without ABW.  It is also the way I do it and am very satisfied with the results.  ABW is kind of working blind.
Title: Re: Does the possible to use ICC profiles with epson ABW in ps CS6?
Post by: Jason DiMichele on April 25, 2013, 11:46:52 am
No...ABW is a non-color managed black box.

Hey Jeff,

Well, I think it's more accurately a non-color managed black and white box. :p

Cheers,
Jay
Title: Re: Does the possible to use ICC profiles with epson ABW in ps CS6?
Post by: RHPS on April 25, 2013, 02:38:41 pm
I was not aware of the problem on Mac.
Still works OK on CS6/Win7, and still gives just a bit better linearity and Dmax.
Title: Re: Does the possible to use ICC profiles with epson ABW in ps CS6?
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on April 26, 2013, 03:03:22 pm
Still works OK on CS6/Win7, and still gives just a bit better linearity and Dmax.
That is correct for now.  Epson have not updated the Win print driver and one can still use ABW profiles under this OS but not Mac.  My test results confirm what was noted just above.  Better linearity and Dmax.  You can get the same linearity using the normal Epson driver if you have a set number of B/W patches when you do your profiling.  I always include 21 B/W patches when I do my profiles with Argyll.  The slight downside of using the normal driver is a little more colored ink is used and your Dmax is about 5-8% lower depending on the paper than with the ABW driver.