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Let's Talk Color. Settings in Print Driver by kok leong

Photo EX color management in Photoshop. Just completed an article on the most difficult of topics:- color management. It's just a short article with some scan samples showing what the different settings in the Photo EX driver (version 4.50 -circa December 1998) produce when printing using Photoshop 5. .

lor Please also drop by , a new bulletin board just for color issues.

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Quadtone Printing. Workflow for Stylus 3000

George DeWolfe dropped me a note on his revised Quadtone Workflow. I first read about his workflow at the MIS Associates Site which had a page on his preliminary workflow. For those of you who have not heard of Quadtone printing, it is essentially the use of specially formulated archival inks developed by MIS Associates for printing black and white images. The inkset is called a quadtone because it uses black and 3 other shades of grey ink. Read more about it at this page of MIS Associates. George’s workflow was originally designed for the PowerMac G3, so it works on both platforms.

Now included in his revised workflow are very good information on what the Epson 3000 settings and sliders actually do. George developed his own Zone System chart which he used in his tests of his workflow and the effect the sliders have on the final output. George’s workflow for Quadtones will appear in April/May issue of the magazine, CameraArts.   Read George DeWolfe's  Updated Quadtone Workflow MIS Associate Website

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B&W Printing. A Basic Guide by kok leong

I was very pleased with the printouts (A3 size) made of my scanned negs (ilford hp4). However, i treated the image as a colour image as i wanted to use coloured text as captions. Needless to say, i could have saved precious hardisk space by converting the image to greyscale or duotone which i eventually did. Printing the image as a greyscale (converted in PS 4.0) looked great initially until i compared the printouts to the same b&w shots i had developed in the darkroom. The EX printouts (of the greyscale) had a very slight greenish cast (ever so slight, i must emphasize).

Here are some suggestions:-
1Black option at Driver Setting
Don't print with the "black" option radio button clicked at the printer driver as it produces awful results (ie no true grayscale) and lots of pixelation. It may be economical but its also aethetically economical.

2"Colour Slider method"
Much better to choose colour at the print driver and neutralise the colour cast with the colour adjustment sliders (eg if green cast, i think use more magenta) at print settings. The correct slider to use for a particular cast would be somthing other colour experts can advise on, I only know from limited personal experience that using the magenta does help get rid of green although I have not perfected it yet.

3Printing in Duotone
Using the colour option (as discussed in 2 above), another  solution is to make the image a DUOTONE in photoshop or any other image manipulation program capable of doing duotone where you select black and another colour. The other colour's curves should be adjusted such that where it is darkest, there should only be black, ie the curve is not linear (unless you want that effect). In short, the duotone option is best used to FORCE the picture to have a colour cast  the difference being, this time you can choose the colour cast that you want. This does not solve the problem for those who want true greyscale (at least i don't know what secondary colour to choose to get that effect), but it sure gives you more control over the final output. I like the sepia effect and this allows me to do that very effectively.

Also, there is a difference with this duotone method and the colour slide method in the print settings (described in (2) above): the duotone method allows you to specify where (eg in the midtones) you want the secondary colour to appear, thus, allowing for superior control of how black your blacks are and etc. The colour slider method pumps more colour across the board when used, so theoritically, contrast should be reduced. Whether this is visible, I don't know.

Finally, it may be that even if duotone were used to remove colour cast, this can only be done with choosing a secondary colour which will neutralise the original cast which you see (which is likely to be due to the print driver calibration, ie something we can't really change). However, as mentioned above, duotone allows you to specify that the corrective coluor you choose to neutralise, is only applied, say, in the midtones and not in the darkess areas. This should give a, theoritical, higher contrast to the images.

Achieving Sepia Tone
I have since used, with the Epso Photo Paper,  +10 yellow and +5 mag (i never use ICM, PE2 or any of the other settings) and it gives it a slight sepia tone.

4Lab - L Channel
I have also tried converting to lab and printing the L channel (In PHOTOSHOP) but that also gives an ever so slight green cast.

5Paper
I find that colour casts can vary with different papers or films used. Try alternating between settings for different papers (eg use 'glossy film' instead of 'photo paper'). For instance, the Mitsubishi paper gives a greenish/cyan cast when the photo paper setting is used but not when the glossy film setting is used.

The tips listed above are just some starting tips (my 2 cents) . Anybody has tested results, please let me know too. As for now, I am pretty happy with the results I get using the above methods. kokleong

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A pro's B&W Digital Darkroom.A Short Story

22 February 1999 - Thanks to Andre who emailed me on this very interesting page at the Apple website on how a renown photographer,Tom Millea (aka the master of Platinum photography) uses the digital darkroom for his professional work. Tom Millea talks about using Macs (he's a devoted Mac user), IRIS printers, a Photo EX and Photoshop among other things. Certainly worth a read:- www.apple.com/publishing/design/photos/index.html Do also have a look at Tom Millea's site. Among one of the links listed as one of his favourite links is a  link to Luminus Editions , archival black and white printmakers. Check it out too.