B/W printing

[Boon]

hi
i was recently in Cambridgeshire and have a few colour pictures that look brilliant as mono photo's, but on printing them, they dont seem to be correct, I dont seem to be getting a true black, they seem sort of assorted grays, which is a shame because i would like to enter a competition with them, but cant with bad printing.
Any idea's of what to do, and what is the best way to ensure you have the best B/W for your photo from photoshop, I have CS2, although a new user to it.
cheers
stevannie (too many steves) :thumb:

 

[DJW]

Have experienced same problem which I put down to 2 things :-

1. Monitor at home not properly callibrated ...see here
2. Need to use more proffesional printers than normal Tescos, Bomus print route

I'm not a great user of prints, so the more experienced guys on here can probably give a more in depth answer

 

[Steve]

Are you using a professional printer to do the prints or are you printing them yourself at home. If the latter it is highly recommended that you use the same make of paper as the printer, this is due to the printer being profiled for that paper.

 

[Boon]

hi guys
unfortunately not, i cant afford a high end printer (which in your oppinion is what??)
i am using an epsom r200, gives very reasonable results in colour, and i WILL (memo to self) buy some epsom paper too.
i have one of those bloody laptop screens, which changes lightness and shade depending where you are sitting at the time, looking at the calibration pages, i can see all the differences in the B/W images if i shift my neck up/down..left/right, so i guess changing calibrations could prove useless.
cheers
stevannie

 

[Bachs]

Hit 'de-saturate' in PS at the last stage, even though you already converted to bw.
I struggled with this too, but I'm a complete novice when it comes to printing.

 

[Steep]

stevannie, I have the same printer.

Don't waste money on Epson paper, buy Ilford paper and you can download a printer profile from ilford.com for whichever one you have to match the R200, along with instructions for how to use it. Ilford paper works brilliantly in Epson printers.

My personal favourite is Gallerie Pearl which is kind of semi gloss with a slightly roughened surface.

 

[Boon]

many thanks guys, and i will definately try the ilford route too, which company do you buy yours from?
@bachs
i visited your gallery tonight, and drooled over the beautiful b/w shots in there, especially the castle and sea shots (love scotland) although they are brilliant 'on screen' have you ever printed them out successfully?
cheers
stevannie

 

[Steep]

I got my last lot of paper from 7dayshop, they do a wide range.

http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_2&products_id=65547

 

[Bachs]

@bachs
i visited your gallery tonight, and drooled over the beautiful b/w shots in there, especially the castle and sea shots (love scotland) although they are brilliant 'on screen' have you ever printed them out successfully?
cheers
stevannie

Aww, thank you.
No I haven't printed them successfully as I haven't a pigging clue what I'm doing.
First try gave me really washed out result.
I just experimented with settings and think I tried 'desaturate' even though it was already bw but an rgb file and think I had some success with converting to LAB mode.

That brought the depth back but my printer is a toy one.

I'm a printer engineer and have access to some very expensive laser ones in our showroom but don't have PS on the company lappie.

 

[dazzajl]

If you are printing on a RBG printer, which includes pretty much all the off shelf jobbies that use CMYK inks (yeah I know... go figure) then you need to send the printer an RGB file or you will get nasty results.

The best way to do this is to not desaturate the image or convert to greyscale but do the conversion via the channel mixer. In PS, you go to image, adjustments and then channel mixer. Then click the monochrome box and have a play with the red and green channel sliders to get the look you like. Ideally the combination of all three sliders should add up to 100% but that can include negative figures like -25 and 125.

HTH

 

[Bachs]

I always convert to monochrome using channel mixer, but the file remains technically an RGB file.
Your point about rgb printers and cmyk inks is an interesting one though!

I actually work for a company called CMYK Digital Solutions.

For a Canon 1dMkIIn, anyone want to have a guess what the 'K' in CMYK stands for?

 

[Steve]

cyan, magenta, yellow, key

According to google

A colour model that describes each colour in terms of the quantity of each secondary colour (cyan, magenta, yellow), and "key" (black) it contains

So its either Black or Key?

 

[Gandhi]

Black!

Yay!

I'll PM you my address!

 

[Gandhi]

Damn. Beaten too it by reading posts above before answering. grrrrr.

 

[Bachs]

and the 1d goes to.....









Steve :first:

 

[dazzajl]

Your point about rgb printers and cmyk inks is an interesting one though!

Essentially it just means that the printer requires an RGB file, which then gets processed to CMYK values within the device before it puts ink on the paper.

As opposed to outputting a CMYK file from your PC for producing plates for litho machines.

 

[DJW]

I see Januarys edition of Practical Photography has an "essential guide to Digital Printing"

From what I have read in the past on the subject, it became clear less expensive printers had problems printing B&W tones without a colour cast. Advice was to accept the situation & adapt you shots to include some colour toning (eg Sepia, blues etc) & turn it to your advantage.

 

[Boon]

hi
i have decided to try an online printing service for my mono prints, will report how they go.
stevannie