Epson Advance B&W Mode on 4900

[Mike Guilbault]

I've usually processed my B&Ws directly in Lightroom, just hit print, and been pleased with the results.  Now I'm looking into using the Advanced B&W mode as an option.  One thing I haven't been able to find, is do you do a B&W conversion first - or do you print in ABM directly from the colour image?

[howardm]

this page from Eric Chan's site may be useful.........

http://people.csail.mit.edu/ericchan/dp/Epson3800/printworkflow.html

[Paul2660]

I believe the consensus on this forum is that the info from Eric's site, is out of date for the newer versions of the Epson AWB driver.  This has been documented on this forum in several discussions. 

For the 4900, or 7900, 9900 the recommended path, is leave the image in sRGB mode, and use "Let printer manage colors".  You select this in the box where you have the options of no color management, let photoshop manage colors, etc.

This is totally different from Eric's workflow, which allowed for soft proofing. 

If you convert a color image to B&W with either Lightroom or a tool like Silver Effects Pro, make the conversion to B&W but leave the image in sRGB not greyscale. 

I have had very good success with both the 9880 and now the 9900 with this workflow on B&W prints from the Epson Driver. 

Sincerely
Paul Caldwell

[Alan Goldhammer]

I believe the consensus on this forum is that the info from Eric's site, is out of date for the newer versions of the Epson AWB driver. 

This only applies to those who print using the MacOS.  Win users still can use Eric's workflow, his profiles (or profiles generated from QTR), and soft proofing.

Alan

[Paul2660]

Alan is correct also, so it's a real toss up.

From reading and studying, I believe even on the PC, the way Epson wants you to use the driver is "printer manages color"  I realize the older way is still possible and was
written out on the Mac side by Lion.  But too many people on this site that are much closer to Epson than me have repeatedly pointed out that the "direction" of
Epson (who wrote the driver) is to use "printer manages color" 

It's a personal pref.  And as good a tool as the ABW driver is, it's not documented well at within Epson.  And if anyone from Epson is reading this, please take
note of this. 

I was a users of Eric's method for many years, but after I tried not converting to greyscale and using "printer manages color" I was blown away by the prints I started to
get from my 9880.  As good as anything I was getting from QTR and IMO QTR is not an easy learning curve.   

It's a personal pref as I realize Eric's method allows for soft proofing which is a nice capability also.

Paul

[Alan Goldhammer]

I was a users of Eric's method for many years, but after I tried not converting to greyscale and using "printer manages color" I was blown away by the prints I started to
get from my 9880.  As good as anything I was getting from QTR and IMO QTR is not an easy learning curve.   

Maybe I'm a little dense today.  Does this mean that you are sending a color image to the printer via the ABW driver so that the result is a B/W image?

[Paul2660]

Yes, you can do it that way.  If you use "printer manages color" and then select the Epson Advanced B&W option. 

Color images will be converted to B&W.  You can control the output with the controls that Epson gives you, however
you can't see the effect they will have on your final image (instead it's the picture of a woman and you watch the changes
on that image).  When you hit print, your print preview will show a B&W image and you will get a B&W.   This only work
when you use "printer manages color".   I realize that using a profile from Eric C, you can soft proof and get a very
good idea also.  You can also get there with QTR, but after going down both of those roads, I was very happy to
find that the Epson ABW gets the job done for me. 

I have since moved to using LR3 or silver Efex pro to make the actual B&W conversion (mainly Silver efex pro), so I can
have better control over the tone, temp etc.  But I leave the image in sRGB and send  to the Epson ABW driver, using
"printer manages color". 

Paul

So far very nice results. 

[davidh202]

John Paul Caponigro has a great article on ABW mode.

http://www.johnpaulcaponigro.com/blog/4829/epson-advanced-bw-photo/

[Mike Guilbault]

Thanks guys... now to find some images to try out!