Print engine

Hello Brooks,
You state that you use Epson Printer to produce the Folio images. What print driver do you use? The Epson print engine or a RIP? If it is a RIP which one?

— Vartkes Peltekoglu

   

For quite a long time I used Quadtone RIP and found it to be excellent. When we purchased the Epson 4880 printers, we found they included the so-called "Advanced Blank and White Mode" printing option that resolved the metachromatism problem just as well as QTR had done. It was a lot easier, too. I did an afternoon's worth of experimenting to find the setting on the ABW color wheel that created the warm-toned image I like and we were set.

So, in an abbreviated fashion, here are my steps when printing . . .

1. Do all the finish work to the image in either Lightroom (or Photoshop, if necessary) — sharpening, tonal adjustments, cropping, etc. Standard "darkroom" stuff. These are RGB files.
2. Import the image into an InDesign layout where I can add text and crop marks as necessary.
3. Export the layout from InDesign to a PDF file. This is our "master" and we archive these.
4. Print the master from a laptop that is attached to our network and uses the simple Acrobat Reader. Open the file in Acrobat Reader and print using one of our saved printer presets (for paper, dimensions, any toning variations, etc. in the Epson print driver).

That's it. Nothing fancier than that.

I have an interesting story to add. Huntington Witherill was visiting us a couple of years ago when we were getting ready to offer his LensWork Folio of color images called Improvisations. He had with him copies of his master PSD files that he had spent months dialing in perfectly, fussing with custom printer profiles, and calibrating his system to the nth degree. Simply as a starting point, we loaded his PSD files into an InDesign document, exported a PDF using Adobe RGB 1998 as the destination profile and printed two test prints of each image. The first test print was printed with the Epson printer driver using the Adobe RGB 1998 profile. The second test print was printed with the Epson printer drive using the Epson Standard profile. We assumed these would be off and feared a long challenge to create our own custom printer profiles so we could match his prints as close as possible. The Adobe RGB 1998 test prints were darned close — so close, in fact, that Hunter said he'd be happy with the results even though they weren't an exact match for his meticulously calibrated system master prints. Then we looked at the test prints made with the Epson Standard profile and were flabbergasted. They were an EXACT match for his master prints. We measured with a densitometer and they were spot on up and down the spectrum. No custom profiles, no special adjustment curves, no fuss, no drips, no errors. We've stuck with the Epson Standard profile on all the color work we've done and in each case the photographer has been very happy with our prints using their unadjusted files. Quite frankly, it couldn't be easier! I almost feel guilty. Almost.

Comments

[Jim Swift]

I found this description of your workflow most interesting because you are obviously not getting the quality drop that I am getting in the export from InDesign CS4 to the PDF format. I asked about this in an earlier comment and said that I was researching this issue in internet resources, but I have still not found any mention of the issue. So I must assume it's something I am doing. But it's so close to what you do in the PDF Publishing DVD that I'm unable to find any reason why I should get banding. The banding is not present in the PSD or Indesign Document.
Any suggestions would be more than welcome.
Jim Swift

[Brooks Jensen]

I've found the term "banding" can lead to some confusion — a term I see people use for completely different problems. Can you describe what it is you are seeing in your prints that you refer to as banding?

[Paul Giguere]

Hi Brooks,

I think you are spot-on with regards to the modern Epson drivers and out of the can profiles. I used to use ImagePrint RIP on my Epson 2200 which was necessary to get a good print that didn't have metamerism, etc. When I upgraded to the 3800 (I got a good deal just before the 3880 came out) I held off on upgrading my RIP for the printer (another $400 outlay) and I'm glad I did. The Epson driver performs perfectly each time without exception. People marvel at my prints and I too feel a bit guilty but I also tell them how easy it is given the right printer and driver (and paper) these days.

I know this might be a kind of nitty-gritty question (but hey isn't that what this blog is for) but what are the settings you use in the Advanced B&W mode to achieve the tones you use in the folios? I own a few of the folios and I like the tones you use but haven't gotten around to experimenting yet (which as you know is costly in terms of ink and paper). I'm using both Harman FB AL and FB AL Warmtone papers (which is what I think you use as well).

Life has never been better for printing photos (especially B&W ones) IMHO!

Paul

[vartkes peltekoglu]

Thank you for detailing your print making workflow using Epson print engine and ABW. Now if only Epson could give us the facility to soft-proof the potential output of the ABW engine! Well maybe one day....

[Jim Swift]

Thanks, Brooks.
The image in question has a smooth gradient (CS4) background going vertically from light green to blue.
http://www.capacanada.ca/digitalcircuit/group1/jswift/index.html
To my eye, the transitions are smooth in the psd file, but are not as smooth in the pdf. There are horizontal bands where the colour does not quite follow the expected transition. http://jhsw.ca/bandtest.pdf
Many thanks
Jim

[Brooks Jensen]

You're making the smooth gradient in InDesign, right? By any chance have you tried making the gradient in Photoshop and importing it as a background image? If it still bands, I might try changing the gradient a bit or adding a little Gaussian noise to break up the banding pattern.
Another question — perhaps this should have been the first question — is how are you exporting the PDFs? JPEG images or Zipped LZW? If JPEG, what compression and ppi?
And finally, when you look at the PDFs, what magnification on what monitor?
There are lots of variable in this and it might be necessary to do some testing to eliminate the factors that are not contributors.

[Jim Swift]

Thanks, Brooks. The gradient was made in Photoshop as background to the leaf layer. I am not exporting PDFs at all. I just create the pdfs through InDesign following the steps in your PDF DVD. I import the PSD into Indesign and create the pdf at 300 ppi. I have a NEC 2690 monitor which has a wide gamut and calibrated regularly. I compare the psd and pdf views at 100%.
Thanks for the tip about adding noise. I had not considered that.
I was able to reproduce the problem just by creating a gradient in a PSD file, importing the PSD file into InDesign and then making a pdf file. I will repeat that test later today using the noise addition.

Many thanks for the helpful suggestions. Much appreciated. I have a solo exhibition coming up in May and want to make a CD with a pdf of the exhibition. Two of the images in the exhibition have these gradients and I want to make the pdf as high a quality as I can.
Jim

[Larry Blackwood]

Hi Brooks,

I'm a little late commenting on this post but it's become more relevant to me since I just switched from an Epson 4800 printer to a Canon ipf5100. Since I have Epson papers left over, I've been printing on the Canon using it's printer driver and just choosing the paper type that seems the closest match to the Epson. The results look fine. So I'm wondering if we've all been wasting our time with custom paper profiles and letting Photoshop run the printer, or if I (and you) have just got lucky in for these particular papers? Thoughts?

[Brooks Jensen]

I have no idea. I am certain, however, that I am more than willing to accept luck when it lands on my doorstep. Brighter minds than mine will need to sort this out. I'm more interested in making artwork than fiddling with technology, so for me the fact that I can get great color without custom profiles is a godsend. I'm happy to work blissfully ignorant of the why and just do the work. If it stops working, then I'll take the time to figure it out.
Brooks

[Larry Blackwood]

Thanks for your perspective Brooks. I admire and aspire to the blissfully ignorant approach, but the scientist in me keeps thinking I should know the why as well. Or maybe I'm getting that feeling confused with thinking I need to know the why in order to somehow "deserve" the output quality I get. Obviously psychoanalyzing myself too much!