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Author Topic: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)  (Read 43218 times)

digitaldog

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #20 on: October 29, 2011, 07:19:18 pm »

Because as I stated, I'm not running MacOS, but Win7. 

And that doesn’t change how Epson has designed their driver either. The older Apple drivers behaved as your Windows driver did, the change now is, Apple users now have to use the drivers as Epson designed them!
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Alan Goldhammer

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #21 on: October 29, 2011, 08:24:49 pm »

And that doesn’t change how Epson has designed their driver either. The older Apple drivers behaved as your Windows driver did, the change now is, Apple users now have to use the drivers as Epson designed them!
Then how do you explain how I and many other QTR users can prepare ABW profiles and actually measure density changes when we use the profile?  As I said, I have the original driver that the Epson 3880 shipped with and have NOT updated it.  Perhaps this is the reason, I don't know.  I absolutely do know that my density curve is more linear with the QTR profile than without it.  These are actual measured numbers!
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digitaldog

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #22 on: October 29, 2011, 08:36:25 pm »

Then how do you explain how I and many other QTR users can prepare ABW profiles and actually measure density changes when we use the profile? 

I don’t have to explain it because its a process that isn’t based on the original design of the driver which is the topic of the original post. As I’ve said over and over again, you are more than welcome to use the driver in a means not intended by the designer, soft proof (which has no relationship to the driver at that point), or use a 3rd party product the originator of the driver may feel is a hack. The bottom line is, ABW was designed and primarily used as a closed loop black box system. And now, on a major OS with a newer set of drivers, that has been reinforced. As I pointed out in my first post, of which you seem to feel is worth arguing about, ABW wasn’t designed to use profiles (its a black box). That you are using some third party product to circumvent this is understood but doesn’t change the intent of the driver by its manufacturer.
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Alan Goldhammer

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #23 on: October 29, 2011, 08:56:45 pm »

Andrew, I'm not going to continue this discussion any longer as what I've observed based on actual data disagrees with your point save the appropriate caveats that I noted.  I also suggest that you write Eric Chan and ask him to do something about this webpage which also has profiles for the ABW print driver that also give quantitatively different results when measured with an i1 Pro.  It may be an Epson black box and you may not understand what goes on behind the curtain, but it is possible to see measurable differences using ABW profiles whether done using QTR or having Eric do them.
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Alan Goldhammer

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #24 on: October 29, 2011, 09:01:27 pm »

For those that are interested in the permanency of the ABW driver toning wheel, I have submitted a number of targets to Aardenburg for testing.  Mark McCormick-Goodhart and I thought that it would be good not only to measure the normal toning values Epson suggest but the extremes around the wheel.  The targets were all printed on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Ultra Smooth and Mark just notified me that the 10 mLux testing results are in, "...Filter the list for [batch][contains] k1 to find the new batch of samples now in test.  At the 10Mlux hour mark, it's too early to draw conclusions, but there is already a hint that the cool (blue and cyan quadrants) will eventually outperform the yellow containing quadrants (i.e., red, yellow, green). Make sense since yellow is Epson's weakest link in the K3, K3VM,, and HDR ink sets."

We hope that this will make a positive contribution to the print database.

Alan
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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #25 on: October 29, 2011, 09:47:32 pm »

Then why would I see density differences with and without an ABW profile? 

Of course you see differences with or without a profile - that has nothing to do with the driver setting paradigm changes.

Windows allows the application to specify the driver settings (ie colour management on or off, etc), but it doesn't lock you out (which means under Windows you can over ride it and use an ICC profile workflow with ABW) in the way that OS X does.

They both (OS X and Windows), though, provide the same ability to control the driver based on application settings.
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Phil Brown

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #26 on: October 29, 2011, 11:46:50 pm »

Because as I stated, I'm not running MacOS, but Win7.

The issues is a Mac OS/Colorsync/print diver issue that does not have a direct baring on Windows (although it has a slight impact). On Mac, if you select application manages colors the driver locks out the ability to select the ABW mode of the driver...get it? If you want to talk about other aspects of the ABW mode in Windows, go ahead and start a new thread. All you are doing is confusing the issue. OK?

As for Eric updating his web page, this new driver update is new...it involves the 8.x.x series of the new Epson drivers for Mac OS only. I'm sure Eric will get around yo updating his pages but his day job–working on the Camera Raw engineering kinda takes precedence, ya know?
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Alan Goldhammer

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #27 on: October 30, 2011, 09:11:02 am »

The issues is a Mac OS/Colorsync/print diver issue that does not have a direct baring on Windows (although it has a slight impact). On Mac, if you select application manages colors the driver locks out the ability to select the ABW mode of the driver...get it? If you want to talk about other aspects of the ABW mode in Windows, go ahead and start a new thread. All you are doing is confusing the issue. OK?
I was just pointing out a real difference between the two OS and not wanting to start any type of flame war on this topic, only noting that a lot of us use Windows OS and what is said for one OS may not apply to the other.  You cannot write software applications (or drivers) that run across all OS platforms without system calls so there have to be differences.  As noted above in a response, I'll not trouble this group any further with what happens on a Win7 platform.   
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Schewe

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #28 on: October 30, 2011, 02:49:29 pm »

As noted above in a response, I'll not trouble this group any further with what happens on a Win7 platform.   

Just start a new thread...
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eleanorbrown

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #29 on: October 31, 2011, 08:50:20 pm »

I'm at a loss to understand what is happening with my Epson driver software but something is going on that's I've never had an issue with.  I routinely print ABW through Lightroom 3...all the time. Today for some reason my Print mode (grayed on AccuPhoto) and Color Mode (grayed on Off-no color management) choices are grayed out...all I can do is print color prints...no ABW choice.  I have reinstalled the latest Epson Drivers for my 9880 and 7800 printers...several times to no avail. Only thing I did differently today was to print a couple of prints through Imageprint 7. 

Can anyone think of anything that might have happened to lock up my Epson driver so ABW selection isn't available?  Many thanks, Eleanor
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Eleanor Brown
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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #30 on: October 31, 2011, 09:38:02 pm »

Eleanor - it's working as intended.

If you choose Printer Manages colour to use ABW, then there's no need to change those settings which are greyed out if you're following the intended ABW workflow.

If you wish to print to ABW using ICC profiles (LR/PS manages colour workflow), then you can't do that under the latest driver and OS X as it imposes the Apple paradigm for this workflow.  The same thing happens under Windows, except that Microsoft's implimentation does not lock out the driver settings, it just sets them according to the application settings.

By design, ABW is a "printer manages" workflow, even though some processes have been designed previously to allow an "application manages" workflow.  Updates to OS X in particular are highlighting/enforcing this new paradigm.

So if you want ABW, selected "printer manages" for your colour.
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Phil Brown

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #31 on: October 31, 2011, 10:15:51 pm »

Phil I can't even get to my ABW  window to select my warm tones.  I print ABW literally every day without incident until today.  I can always access the ABW window in the Epson driver to make selections.  I'm printing out of Lightroom with srgb selected as the profile.  Been doing this ever since ABW was made available by Epson...that is until today.  The epson driver has acquired some kind of bug and I'm trying to fine out what is the matter. Eleanor



Eleanor - it's working as intended.

If you choose Printer Manages colour to use ABW, then there's no need to change those settings which are greyed out if you're following the intended ABW workflow.

If you wish to print to ABW using ICC profiles (LR/PS manages colour workflow), then you can't do that under the latest driver and OS X as it imposes the Apple paradigm for this workflow.  The same thing happens under Windows, except that Microsoft's implimentation does not lock out the driver settings, it just sets them according to the application settings.

By design, ABW is a "printer manages" workflow, even though some processes have been designed previously to allow an "application manages" workflow.  Updates to OS X in particular are highlighting/enforcing this new paradigm.

So if you want ABW, selected "printer manages" for your colour.
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Eleanor Brown
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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #32 on: October 31, 2011, 10:30:45 pm »

Honestly, it's not a bug.  If you're printing using an ICC profile (application manages colour), then under OS X and this driver now you will have ABW locked out - it's not intended to be used with ICC profiles (even though you've done it in the past).  If you change LR to be "printer manages colour" as your workflow, then you'll get access back to ABW.
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Phil Brown

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #33 on: October 31, 2011, 11:02:43 pm »

Phil thanks for taking the time to answer.  This is so weird....I switched in LR to printer manages colors and got access to ABW.  With that said...I have NEVER printed ABW this way and have always selected SRGB in the LR profile space and literally always gotten access to ABW in the Epson driver...Ever since LR3 was released.  Now this doesn't work and I have to use Printer manages colors.  I remember having an email conversation...maybe with Eric Chan (he can correct me if it wasn't him) and he suggested using srgb because at the time i had been selecting the actual paper profile in LR and printing in ABW with no problem.  In my fiddling around with Imageprint today and reinstalling Epson drivers, I obviously did something to change the driver back to what it was supposed to be....Thanks again, Eleanor



Honestly, it's not a bug.  If you're printing using an ICC profile (application manages colour), then under OS X and this driver now you will have ABW locked out - it's not intended to be used with ICC profiles (even though you've done it in the past).  If you change LR to be "printer manages colour" as your workflow, then you'll get access back to ABW.
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Eleanor Brown
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Schewe

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #34 on: October 31, 2011, 11:32:47 pm »

This is so weird....I switched in LR to printer manages colors and got access to ABW.  With that said...I have NEVER printed ABW this way and have always selected SRGB in the LR profile space and literally always gotten access to ABW in the Epson driver...Ever since LR3 was released.  Now this doesn't work and I have to use Printer manages colors.

What changed was the print driver...the newer drivers respect the new ColorSync/Mac print pipeline to disable changing the driver when an application says it's managing color. That's the way it is now for good or bad.

Eric DID suggest selecting sRGB and then send that to the Epson ABW mode. That's no longer possible.
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Alan Goldhammer

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #35 on: November 01, 2011, 09:32:35 am »

What changed was the print driver...the newer drivers respect the new ColorSync/Mac print pipeline to disable changing the driver when an application says it's managing color. That's the way it is now for good or bad.

Eric DID suggest selecting sRGB and then send that to the Epson ABW mode. That's no longer possible.
Correct, a visit to the Epson website shows that new MacOS drivers (v. 8.64) were issued in mid-September.  Perhaps Eleanor's computer finally got around to updating and each time she tried to reinstall the driver there would not be any change since the old driver which permitted the old ABW print pathway was gone from her computer.
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eleanorbrown

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #36 on: November 01, 2011, 10:14:54 am »

Thanks Alan and Jeff for clearing all this up for me. I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon trying to find out what happened and couldn't .  I actually also was in the process of printing out ABW targets using the new Adobe printing app to send to Eric for profiles...now I can't use the ABW profiles I'd planned to get from him. 

Glad I got this cleared up...Eleanor
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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #37 on: November 03, 2011, 02:38:14 pm »

Sorry, I'm coming in late on this thread (just got back from Photo Plus ...).

My take on this is:  I understand that Epson has designed the recent driver's ABW mode to be a "printer manages color"-based pipeline.  I personally don't agree with this design decision (*), but that's not my call to make.  I think this design is here to stay, so I'll just accept it and move on.  For users who like to use my ABW profiles:  I think you can continue to use these, but on Windows only. 

Eric


(*) Put simply, I think there are advantages to profiling the ABW driver behavior in the same way there are advantages to profiling the normal RGB color driver behavior: namely, (1) better consistency from paper to paper, esp. if using third-party papers, and (2) the ability to soft proof.  Both of these are seen as "good things" for regular color printing, and I personally see them also as good things for printing B&W via ABW.  This is why I am sad to see this go.
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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #38 on: November 03, 2011, 02:58:10 pm »

If using Photoshop, will it work if you convert to the desired ABW profile just before printing?

Alan Goldhammer

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Re: Epson ABW selection grayed out (CS5)
« Reply #39 on: November 03, 2011, 03:48:07 pm »

Sorry, I'm coming in late on this thread (just got back from Photo Plus ...).

My take on this is:  I understand that Epson has designed the recent driver's ABW mode to be a "printer manages color"-based pipeline.  I personally don't agree with this design decision (*), but that's not my call to make.  I think this design is here to stay, so I'll just accept it and move on.  For users who like to use my ABW profiles:  I think you can continue to use these, but on Windows only. 

Eric


(*) Put simply, I think there are advantages to profiling the ABW driver behavior in the same way there are advantages to profiling the normal RGB color driver behavior: namely, (1) better consistency from paper to paper, esp. if using third-party papers, and (2) the ability to soft proof.  Both of these are seen as "good things" for regular color printing, and I personally see them also as good things for printing B&W via ABW.  This is why I am sad to see this go.
Thanks for taking the time to answer this!!  It clears up the issue for me (Win7 user which is why I didn't understand what was going on since it is a MacOS matter).  I know Epson has a new Windows driver out as of mid-September.  I don't think I'm going to experiment with it for fear it will also be the same as the Mac driver.

Alan
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