RE: [Leica] Piezo printing -- how to make a warm neutral B&W with color inks

[Henry Ambrose <henryambrose@home.com>]

Neil Coty wroty:
; >)
>
>I'd love to hear your take on it. I've spent the weekend trying to match a
>neutral step wedge and have had some success - but as you say still have a
>colour cast. I managed to eliminate most of the nasty casts, a strong
>magenta cast in the 70%+ region - blacks - (Epson 1290) so I'm reasonably
>happy. I'm using Transfer curves to achieve this in PS6. I use Epson's RC
>Premium Semigloss paper fwiw - really like this paper.

I'm on a Mac, OS 9 using Photoshop 5.5, Epson 1270, mostly Epson 
Heavyweight Matte or Epson Fine Art Smooth. This will vary for other PS 
versions and/or the PC crowd (especially youse PC guys). 
This assumes a calibrated system or at least a close match by eye of your 
file, monitor and print. If your color prints match your monitor this 
should work OK.

For best results, use a monitor calibration device like the Spyder from 
Colorvision, profile your printer using WIZIWIG or similar. This will pay 
off for all your printing both color and B&W.

1) Scan in grayscale and make adjustments as needed to correct the image 
to look the way you want it and set the size appropriately for the print 
you wish to make. For 35mm Leica negs I scan at 4000 ppi. But sometimes 
for making a 6X9 image on 8.5X11 paper I only go 2000 if I'm just goofing 
around or want a quick print. For a big print (10X15 inches image size or 
larger) I always go for all the resolution I can get.

2) Convert to RGB

3) In Photoshop go to the Image menu>Adjust>Hue Saturation, click 
Colorize.

4) top slider (Hue) set to about 25-32ish

5) middle slider (Saturation) set to about 8-11 ish

(adjust steps 4 and 5 as needed - this is where you get to be - CREATIVE 
!)

6) Save this once you get it looking right. It should be slightly warm.
Assuming you want a neutral to warmish print. The degree of warmth is 
adjustable. Whatwe're doing is killing off as much of the ugly greeny 
thing that happens otherwise. A little warmth is more pleasing than green 
tinged people!

7) Do your PageSet Up in the printer driver. Save the file.

8) Photoshop Menu > Mode>Profile to Profile and select the appropriate 
profile for your printer and paper. It'll change color on screen, don't 
worry.

9) Print.

10) Undo the Profile to Profile when you're done.

If the first one does not look just right, desaturate the file, 
recolorize (steps 4&5) as you think it needs and try again. After you do 
a few this way you'll get a feel for what'll look right.
Please note that the print will look different under different light 
sources. It may look great in tungsten light and not so great in daylight 
or the other way around. The idea is too get it looking right under the 
viewing conditions you pick.

If you want total-dead-neutral-the-same-every-time buy Piezo or other 
Quad inks. But then you can't make toned prints or color prints unless 
you have another printer.

Henry
- --
To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html