Printing advanced black and white from LR4?

[Lars Skillius]

When printing in color the Color Handling setting in the Photoshop Print Dialog usually is “Photoshop Manages Colors”. For ABW, Advanced Black and White printing, the manual for the printer Epson S P 3880 recommends the Color Handling “Printer Manages Colors”. (There are some other differences in the settings too, not mentioned here.)
All the other necessary settings in the Epson Page Setup and Print Setup, depending for instance on the paper size and quality, are easy to save as preset settings in LR4. But how can I from LR4 control the settings in the Photoshop Print Dialog when I intend to print in ABW?

[Steve House]

I assume you're printing directly from Lightroom rather than taking the picture over to Photoshop for printing.  Lightroom 3.6 own print settings include a similar option of choosing from either one of the installed color profiles so Lightroom can manage the color or "Managed by Printer"... I assume LR4 is the same.

[Lars Skillius]

Thank you! Just where you choose profiles it is evidently possible to set the Color Management to "Managed by printer".

[Nora_nor]

Question:
I tried printing in advanced black and white from Lightroom, and it worked fine just like from ps.

At one point I clicked on the black and white tab in Lightroom, but today I suddenly came  to think I should have left that alone, as maybe there is less image info available after reducing the image to black and white.

So what exactly does LR do when one happens to click on the black and white mode thing? Do I lose info? Or does the file stay in prophoto colour mode?

For printing it does not matter of course if the files are in colour mode (I scanned old photos in colour mode as recommended) since the printer driver will print the images in black and white from colour anyway.

[PeterAit]

As with everything you do in LR, you never lose information. This is fundamental to LR's way of doing things, and one of its major strengths. You have:

The original raw image (never changed) + your develop instructions (change freely) = a specific rendering for screen, printer, or export.

[Nigel Johnson]

For printing it does not matter of course if the files are in colour mode (I scanned old photos in colour mode as recommended) since the printer driver will print the images in black and white from colour anyway.

Nora

I would not recommend printing directly from colour to B&W as this will use some default conversion whereas Lightroom allows you to optimise the tonality of the conversion including simulating the effect of various colour filters used with B&W film.

Regards
Nigel

[digitaldog]

Question:
I tried printing in advanced black and white from Lightroom, and it worked fine just like from ps.

At one point I clicked on the black and white tab in Lightroom, but today I suddenly came  to think I should have left that alone, as maybe there is less image info available after reducing the image to black and white.

Just two different processes and options.

ABW with Epson is a black box, proprietary conversion AND print process. Nothing wrong with it. There are advantages and some disadvantages. Using LR to convert to B&W also have advantages but don’t expect that appearance to be honored using ABW. If you produce a rendering in B&W you like and want to honor on the print, you have to bypass ABW and use an ICC profile. You’ll use more inks, might find a slightly less neutral result and the light-fastness is reduced compared to ABW.

[S Kale]

I presume OS-X is still undertaking a mandatory profile conversion to "Generic Gray Gamma 2.2" for all greyscale files coming out of LR4 and thereby throwing a spanner into the works of the Epson ABW workflow - just as it does with greyscale files exiting PS 5.........

[S Kale]

If you produce a rendering in B&W you like and want to honor on the print, you have to bypass ABW and use an ICC profile.

Or much better yet, use QTR Create ICC to fill the "gap" in the Epson ABW workflow.  You can proof the hue of your selected ABW settings and, more importantly, manage the tone transfer better image file and printer output space. You just need to be wary of the issue I posted above if using Max OS-X (at least with 10.6 and above)

[Alan Goldhammer]

Just two different processes and options.

ABW with Epson is a black box, proprietary conversion AND print process. Nothing wrong with it. There are advantages and some disadvantages. Using LR to convert to B&W also have advantages but don’t expect that appearance to be honored using ABW. If you produce a rendering in B&W you like and want to honor on the print, you have to bypass ABW and use an ICC profile. You’ll use more inks, might find a slightly less neutral result and the light-fastness is reduced compared to ABW.

Or you can switch to a Win7 machine and still use ABW profiles which are easy enough to generate using QTR (or use Eric Chan's profiles that are still available on his website).  You can also soft proof using this technology as well and I don't have any trouble getting accurate representations of conversions that have been done in either LR or PS this way.

Alan

[S Kale]

hehe...

It's manageable under OS-X. It's just frustrating that there's a (hidden) profile conversion going on and because it's B&W no one at places like Adobe cares...

[digitaldog]

Or you can switch to a Win7 machine and still use ABW profiles which are easy enough to generate using QTR (or use Eric Chan's profiles that are still available on his website). 

Or not, that is up to the OP.

But none of this changes the facts of the statement: Just two (now add three if you must) different processes and options. ABW with Epson is a black box, proprietary conversion AND print process.

Switch to Win7? You’re kidding <g>.

[Alan Goldhammer]

Switch to Win7? You’re kidding <g>.

Why not, I never have to worry about any of the MacOS updates which screw up color management.  It's interesting in my years here on LuLa that I've never seen any Win users complaining about print drivers and imposed color management changes by the OS.  Maybe Microsoft is doing something right by not doing anything at all.

[S Kale]

ABW with Epson is a black box, proprietary conversion AND print process.

If by "black box" you mean just the same as any other printer driver then I agree.

It's response to input values is profile-able, insofar as a B&W photographer requires (i.e. luminance), and the hue can be soft-proofed.   Happy days.  Without QTR Create ICC (or other equivalent) it falls short though.

What is Windows 7?

[S Kale]

Why not, I never have to worry about any of the MacOS updates which screw up color management.  

Personally I blame those most concerned with a strong colour-managed workflow e.g. Adobe for letting the B&W things slide. The colour workflow has been fixed but the B&W workflow ignored. Clearly no one who has Apple's ear has challenged their sudden desire to impose a profile transformation to all B&W files.

[digitaldog]

Why not, I never have to worry about any of the MacOS updates which screw up color management.  It's interesting in my years here on LuLa that I've never seen any Win users complaining about print drivers and imposed color management changes by the OS.  Maybe Microsoft is doing something right by not doing anything at all.

True, and I do have a single laptop with Win 7 which I use when a gun is to my head. Don’t care for it. But what you say in terms of print issues is absolutely true on Mac OS. I suffer the pain to reduce other pain points of that other OS. Nothing’s perfect.

[digitaldog]

If by "black box" you mean just the same as any other printer driver then I agree.

Well in terms of converting color to B&W (there is little control over this) and ink delivery. Never said it can’t be profiled by using another process of which I have no idea the OP even wants to consider.

[S Kale]

Yes but without a rip I can't control ink delivery (ink limits, linearisation etc) on an Epson in colour mode either. (Although I can attempt to reline arise the printer via Colorbase.)

Re converting colour to B&W, I would rather take control over that in PS, LR or other...

[S Kale]

My question is "who is in a position to challenge Apple regarding such things as the conversion of all greyscale images to Generic Gray Gamma 2.2 which makes no sense whatsoever?"

[Alan Goldhammer]

My question is "who is in a position to challenge Apple regarding such things as the conversion of all greyscale images to Generic Gray Gamma 2.2 which makes no sense whatsoever?"

Nobody, Apple will do what they always do which is what they want and everyone else be damned.  We had a lengthy discussion on this forum a couple of months ago when the Epson driver was changed to deal with the new MacOS and you could no longer use a profile with ABW, it had to be printer manages the colors.  I remember Eric Chan lamenting this and stopping his ABW profile service at that time.