Great tutorial Chris and congratulations on the hospital demo project captured on Polaroid. I wanted to mention that Advanced B&W Photo will only be available when certain printing papers are selected. Thanks again, I'm looking forward to some fine art B&W printing on my Epson 4880, which I've only used as a color proofing device.
Thank you! Running off to try this. I’ve used Quadtone RIP, made my own printer/paper profiles, played with a slew of options and never actually tried the Epson supplied capabilities. I have a dream - especially if the results are similar (or better) and so much easier.
Christopher I watched a number of videos on Advanced BW printing and yours helped the most. I do have one suggestion. The P600 is difficult to tweak all the settings that I didn't want to change things until I realized I could save my savings for color printing as well as for Advanced BW settings. Thought your viewers might find that hint handy. Thanks, Mike Mitchem
Thanks for the suggestion, Mike. That is something I should have mentioned. I like to check and set everything for each photo instead of saving presets, but that's because I'm neurotic and OCD, lol. For most people, saving settings that work as presets would save a lot of time and eliminate possible mistakes.
I love my P600 but the workflow for setting up a print job, at least at first was hard. That’s why I hated changing settings. Again I enjoyed your video
Christopher, thank you for your explanation of the process and what to look for and select. I have an Epson Stylus Print 1900 printer and the selections do not follow what you presented. I will do what I think might work given your explanations and let you know how it turns out. I am operating on a PC, but I don't think that matters.
@@chrisandsneaky2453 Thanks for the quick reply. I used the Gray option and that made all the difference. Instead of using all of the colors to create black and as you pointed out, I got a bluish color cast if you held the print at a certain angle. Last night, at my camera club, we had a print competition and one of the members pointed out the bluish color and suggested I use the B&W mode from Photoshop. I did learn a great deal, and still have a ways to go, about how to print better in B&W from your video. There were some selections that were similar, but as you said, it doen's have the Advanced B&W. It works, and that is what is most important. Thanks again for taking the time to share valuable information and the reasoning behind your suggestions.
Nicely done Chris, many thanks. Have you compared your results with prints made using Piezography? The latter provides many more choices of gray tones, but one needs a dedicated printer in which one can change ink carts. Third party carts are not possible using the P800. It would be great to have the Epson advanced black and white approach the results that I have previously attained using Piezography.
I tried Piezography about 12 years ago, but have not used it since. I was disappointed in it, really. The blacks were weak compared to those using Epson's inks, and the Piezo inks only worked on matte papers. I don't know if that is still the case; since I haven't owned a printer that is compatible with Piezography in many years, I have not kept up with the current state of their products.
Terrific video. Thank you, Chris! My 3880 died a laborious death and I'm so happy to have a new P800. So this video was a great refresher. Recently, I sampled Ilford's paper and fell in love with the Gold Fiber Silk. But B&H and Adorama are out of it in most sheet sizes. "Coming soon," which means they don't know when. Do you know anything about what's going on? Is there another paper you use in addition to the Epson Legacy papers? I've subscribed and look forward to any videos you will do in the future. Thanks again.
Kathleen, I use a lot of the Gold Fibre Silk, too. The Epson Legacy Baryta is very similar to it and would be my recommendation if you cannot get the Ilford paper, though I think the Epson stuff is more expensive. Those are the two papers I use for most of my exhibition prints and prints that I sell. If you like matte papers, Epson's Velvet Fine Art is a gorgeous paper for black and white. The Velvet Fine Art uses Somerset Velvet, a 100% cotton artists' paper (used for drawing, etching, and lithography), as its base and adds a receptor coating to make it work for inkjet printing. If you took a paper like Somerset that hadn't been coated for inkjet and ran it through the printer, you would get really weak blacks, dull colors, and low contrast. The Epson version is wonderful. I prefer it for BW over color though. Another good paper is Ilford Smooth Gloss. This is a resin coated paper, so prints on it look like they were made at a photo lab. If you prefer a textured surface, they make a version called Smooth Pearl. I don't use these papers for prints I exhibit and sell, but they're great for printing family snapshots, portfolio pieces (the papers are more durable than fine art papers when handled), and proofing. I also use them for commercial work when a client wants a print. If you do any portrait or wedding work, I know the Smooth Pearl is very popular with wedding/portrait photographers. The Ilford Smooth papers are wonderful for both color and BW. The smooth gloss/pearl papers are made for the Photo Black ink, just like the Ilford Fibre Silk and Epson Legacy papers. Epson Velvet requires the Matte Black ink.
Hi Chris, I think I followed all your instructions but my prints still come up with a slightly warm cast.I'm using Illford Gallerie Smooth Pearl on an Epson R3000. It used to print greyscale and now all of a sudden it's not. I've cleaned the heads, not sure what to do.
Hi Chris, it's always good to watch your tutorials. I have a problem: My Epson P900 with the latest Epson Driver 11.01 and firmware K1124L5 (the latest) running on Monterey 12.3 from a Mac MiniM1 does not have the ABW option! I tried to download again the driver but nothing changed. I usually print from LR. I can rint but from a "simplified" printing menù which in options offers only color, B&W and B&W draft. Not sure what to do , any suggestions? Thanks in advance, I'm robert blu from RFF!
Hi Robert! Here's what's causing that: The current version of the Mac OS defaults to using the Apple Airprint Driver for Epson printers instead of the Epson driver, even if you have the Epson driver installed. Here's a link to an article explaining it and how to make the computer use the Epson driver: www.redrivercatalog.com/infocenter/how-to-fix-missing-paper-media-type-selection-osx.html The article talks about the media selection being wrong, but their advice also fixes your problem as well.
Thank you Christopher, great info. I am still using an Epson R2400 (your mentioned older model). I am considering getting a newer printer, almost exclusively printing in black and white. Are you happy with your upgrade to the P800 ? Did you see a big difference in print quality / print cost / ease of use ? Can you briefly compare ? Thank you in advance !
John, You sent me an email with this question, too. I wrote back, but I'm going to post my answer here as well, in case anyone else has the same question. The two biggest differences are the print size and quality of color prints. The r2400 only takes paper up to 13 inches wide, while the P800 takes paper up to 17 inches wide. I sell enough large prints that the P800 paid for itself fast. Color printing, especially the rendering of deep blues and reds, is greatly improved on the P800. If you have any interest in printing color photographs, the P800 is worth the money. For B&W printing, the differences are small. The P800 gives slightly deeper blacks, and if you print on glossy papers, the prints show less gloss differential on the P800, but the difference is not huge. Epson claims that the prints from the P800 last a lot longer than those from the r2400; that was important to me since I make my living from selling prints. All in all, I think the P800 was with the money. I didn't have a choice in replacing my r2400; it died and the repair cost was more than it was worth. I considered buying a newer 13 inch printer, but the P800 wasn't that much more expensive and I wanted the larger print sizes. I'd been having my larger prints made by a local shop, but they closed a couple months before I got my P800 and I was forced to drive to South Bend (another city in Indiana, about 2 hours from Fort Wayne) to get my larger prints done each time I sold one.
@@christophercrawford777 Thank you Chris for the detailed review ! I have learned tonight that evidently the P800 is now unavailable (discontinued) however the P700 and P900 are somewhat available through select outlets. If indeed the differences are small with B/W printing I'll likely keep my R2400 for a bit longer until I need to replace. Thank you again ! John
Great tutorial--thanks! I want to try out ABW, printing from Photoshop with my new Epson P700, but in the Print Settings dialog there is no Color Matching or Printer Settings option. Photoshop is up to date. Do you have any idea what I'm missing? Thanks in advance.
Thanks for the tutorial. I don't think you mention the use of the matte black ink which comes with the top end Epson Surecolor printers and I was wondering whether or not your method uses this ink. The dialog boxes for the P600 using Photoshop 5 on Windows 10 are a little different from the ones you have. One of the differences is that the Print setting shows which ink will be used - Photo black or Matte Black. I assume that the latter will give a better result but this is only available on certain papers. I have only just got my P600 so haven't experimented a lot yet but wondered whether you had any thoughts on using the Matte black with semi-gloss/satin type papers such as Ilford Goldfiber Silk?
Use the matte ink for matte papers and the photo black for glossy, semigloss, and lustre papers. That includes Ilford Fibre Silk (my favorite paper!)....photo black. The matte ink can't absorb into the surface coating that receives the ink on papers that are made for the photo black ink; it will take a long time to dry and will rub off easily.
ChrisAndSneaky is me. I forgot to switch to the account I use for my tutorials when I answered your question. Sneaky is a cat I rescued from a neighbor who was letting him starve. If you like cats, check out my videos of him.
Chistopher, are dependable printing and proofing results obtainable when scaling down an image size in Photoshop's print dialogue? (Or is it best to resize the image before the printing stage?). I'm concerned that down scaling an image in Photoshop's print dialog stage will result in a darker print -- because the dpi is forced to increase. I've experimented a little but have mixed results. Thoughts on this?
Resizing in the print dialogue box should not make the print darker. You can send a file of any DPI you want, the printer driver takes the data and converts it to the dot pattern used by the print nozzles. I always size my prints in Photoshop before opening the print dialogue, because files need to be sharpened at the output size for maximum image quality.
Christopher thanks for the video. What paper do you use to replace the discontinued Epson Legacy Bartya paper? Also, I sometimes use a split toning on my finished image. Should I just use a color profile when printing these images instead of the Epson ABW?
You can't do split toning with the Epson ABW mode. For that you can try color printing. I find that BW images printed in the color mode have inconsistent image color; the light tones can be a different color than the middle tones and the darker tones. Since you're doing split-toning, you might not notice that, though! Another option is Quatone RIP. This software is an alternative printer driver that bypasses the Epson driver altogether for BW printing. It does incredible BW prints and works with a long list of Epson printers. It comes with profiles for a number of papers; and these include neutral, cooltone, warmtone, and sepia options and you can split tone with it. www.quadtonerip.com/html/QTRoverview.html They ask you to send them $50 if you find it useful. The software is fully functional even if you don't pay so you can try it out. There are Mac and Windows versions. I made a tutorial for QTR. I wrote it about ten years ago, so some of the papers and printers I mention are no longer made, but the software works the same with newer printers like the P800 and newer papers whose profiles come with the latest version of the software. QTR Tutorial: crawfordphotoschool.com/digital/bw-printing.php I still have a lot of Epson Legacy Bartya and Ilford Gold Fibre Silk left on my supply shelves so I haven't tried anything newer. They're my favorite B&W papers. Ilford has replaced the Gold Fibre Silk with a new paper called Gold Fibre Gloss that is said to be very similar, but I haven't tried any yet.
I know this video has been here for a while now, question is, will this tutorial be applicable to any epson ink jet printers? Since you mentioned that your using a P800 Printer. Thank you.
It should work with any Epson printer that includes the Advanced BW Mode. Not all of them do, though. I've used several models with it, and it worked the same on all of them.
Chris: Another question if I might. Assume that I have converted my images to black and white either by using Nik Silver Effex or another method. I have used the ICC profile for my paper to adjust the tones. Is there a problem if one simply uses the normal printing method, i.e., bypass Advanced Black and White and prints using the ICC profile?
You can use the ICC profiles, but the prints will not look as good as you'll get with the Advanced BW mode. The grays won't be neutral, and worse still the color will be different in the different tones. That is, the light tones will be one color, the midtones another, etc. The Advanced BW mode gives grays that are the same 'color' through the entire tonal range from white to black. Before Epson introduced the Advanced BW mode, photographers were forced to use separate third-party printer driver software that was made for BW printing. The two best were Quadtone RIP and Colorbyte Imageprint. QTR is very good, and is donationware. Roy Harrington, the man who created it, asks you to send him $50 if you like it. It is worth it. That reminds me, I should make a tutorial for it. QTR's downside is it only works for a few paper types. Image quality in the prints is superb, and the sepia and warmtone settings give nicer color than the warm and sepia settings in Epson's Advanced BW mode in my opinion. Imageprint is also great and it works with just about every paper made, since the company that makes it provides profiles for them (they're not ICC profiles you can use with the Epson driver, it is something proprietary to Colorbyte Software). It also does color prints that have better shadow detail than the Epson driver gives. The downside to Imageprint is cost. It costs a breathtaking $895 for the Epson P800 version. I used it 20 yrs ago with the Epson 2200 because back then Imageprint was the ONLY way to get true neutral BW prints on an inkjet. It was expensive then, $500, but the company has gotten far more greedy since then. No reason to encourage that when the Epson BW mode and QTR work as well for free or $50.
Here's a written tutorial on Quadtone RIP that I made a few years ago. I don't have a video version of it, yet. crawfordphotoschool.com/digital/bw-printing.php
Thanks for the replies Chris. Confirmed my suspicions. It would be great if someone would be able to adapt Quad Tone Rip for the Epson inks as used on the P800.
@@Yalelax It does work with Epson's inks! The problem is it only includes settings for a couple of papers. You can make profiles for QTR for other papers but it requires an expensive spectrophotometer like the Xrite i1 Pro. This costs about $1500. I can't afford it, so have never tried to do new QTR profiles.
Hate to bug you with questions but I noticed this morning when I set tone to normal color toning goes from neutral to fine adjustment. Last week when I printed several images I set color toning to neutral and tone to normal, and I thought it didn't change. I printed with it set to fine adjustment and to me it looks fine. Have you had trouble setting color toning to neutral and tone to normal?
Mike, yes that's normal. If you set the color tone, then change the brightness setting, it will then say "Fine Adjustment." That doesn't affect the color, though. Whatever color settings you chose will remain. I don't know why Epson set it up that way, it is confusing!
If you're printing with the advanced BW mode on an Epson printer, it does not matter how the conversion mode is set in Photoshop; the printer ignores that setting and does it all internally.
@@christophercrawford777 Good point. I have found that using the luster profile produces better black and white when printing to exhibition fiber which prints too green. Advanced black and white doesn’t produce great results for me unfortunately. Thanks for the video. Epson sent me your way.
I can't remember where I originally found it; I've had it for close to 20 years. I've put it on my server for you to download. crawfordphotoschool.com/downloads/grayscale-bars.psd
Hey Chris. I have printed numerous prints using the settings you have suggested with great success, until now. When I use the B& W settings now, parts of the image have a weird faded, blue hue looking in some areas. If I print using the color settings the print looks fine. I have cleaned the print heads and there are no error messages with the black cartridges. Any ideas? Maybe a bad ink cartridge? Thanks
Hard to say without playing with your printer. Have you printed any color photos since it began doing this? Not BW photos using color settings, but color photos. If not, try this test chart and see if all the colors look normal: crawfordphotoschool.com/downloads/colorfile.tif Very saturated colors will look muted in your print compared to the screen, since the test chart contains some colors that no printer can reproduce. That's normal, but if you're seeing weird color shifts, like in your BW prints, it means something is wrong with the printer.
Thanks Chris. I printed your test image and it looks fine. I have aligned the print heads, cleaned the heads. Only other thing I can think of is replace all three black cartridges. I have looked on line and cant find a way to determine if one cartridge is faultycid:7C7668F0-3E94-416A-8D46-CCB93751C081@hsd1.ga.comcast.net
Great tutorial Chris and congratulations on the hospital demo project captured on Polaroid. I wanted to mention that Advanced B&W Photo will only be available when certain printing papers are selected. Thanks again, I'm looking forward to some fine art B&W printing on my Epson 4880, which I've only used as a color proofing device.
This was very helpful! Thank you! I was struggling with a print last night and this solved my problem!
Really thorough and well thought out tutorial. Thank you sir!
Thank you! Running off to try this. I’ve used Quadtone RIP, made my own printer/paper profiles, played with a slew of options and never actually tried the Epson supplied capabilities. I have a dream - especially if the results are similar (or better) and so much easier.
Excellent tutorial - this was incredibly helpful. Thank you.
Christopher I watched a number of videos on Advanced BW printing and yours helped the most. I do have one suggestion. The P600 is difficult to tweak all the settings that I didn't want to change things until I realized I could save my savings for color printing as well as for Advanced BW settings. Thought your viewers might find that hint handy. Thanks, Mike Mitchem
Thanks for the suggestion, Mike. That is something I should have mentioned. I like to check and set everything for each photo instead of saving presets, but that's because I'm neurotic and OCD, lol. For most people, saving settings that work as presets would save a lot of time and eliminate possible mistakes.
I love my P600 but the workflow for setting up a print job, at least at first was hard. That’s why I hated changing settings. Again I enjoyed your video
Fantastic video, just what I needed to learn for my new P800
Very clear, excellent instructional pace
Christopher, thank you for your explanation of the process and what to look for and select. I have an Epson Stylus Print 1900 printer and the selections do not follow what you presented. I will do what I think might work given your explanations and let you know how it turns out. I am operating on a PC, but I don't think that matters.
Are you using the Stylus Photo r1900? If so, that printer does not support the Advanced B&W mode; that's why you can't find it in the driver.
@@chrisandsneaky2453 Thanks for the quick reply. I used the Gray option and that made all the difference. Instead of using all of the colors to create black and as you pointed out, I got a bluish color cast if you held the print at a certain angle. Last night, at my camera club, we had a print competition and one of the members pointed out the bluish color and suggested I use the B&W mode from Photoshop. I did learn a great deal, and still have a ways to go, about how to print better in B&W from your video. There were some selections that were similar, but as you said, it doen's have the Advanced B&W. It works, and that is what is most important. Thanks again for taking the time to share valuable information and the reasoning behind your suggestions.
Really Helpful. Thanks. The driver on my P600 isn't as advanced as the P800, but I'm very happy with the results.
Very helpful. Thanks for producing this! (slightly different interfaces than my new P600, but very similar.)
thanks bro. this is wonderful
Thanks, Chris! Very helpful, just got a P900 and will try this out/
Excellent tutorial!! Thx.
Thanks. Now to venture into sepia tones.
Nicely done Chris, many thanks.
Have you compared your results with prints made using Piezography? The latter provides many more choices of gray tones, but one needs a dedicated printer in which one can change ink carts. Third party carts are not possible using the P800. It would be great to have the Epson advanced black and white approach the results that I have previously attained using Piezography.
I tried Piezography about 12 years ago, but have not used it since. I was disappointed in it, really. The blacks were weak compared to those using Epson's inks, and the Piezo inks only worked on matte papers. I don't know if that is still the case; since I haven't owned a printer that is compatible with Piezography in many years, I have not kept up with the current state of their products.
Terrific video. Thank you, Chris! My 3880 died a laborious death and I'm so happy to have a new P800. So this video was a great refresher. Recently, I sampled Ilford's paper and fell in love with the Gold Fiber Silk. But B&H and Adorama are out of it in most sheet sizes. "Coming soon," which means they don't know when. Do you know anything about what's going on? Is there another paper you use in addition to the Epson Legacy papers? I've subscribed and look forward to any videos you will do in the future. Thanks again.
Kathleen, I use a lot of the Gold Fibre Silk, too. The Epson Legacy Baryta is very similar to it and would be my recommendation if you cannot get the Ilford paper, though I think the Epson stuff is more expensive. Those are the two papers I use for most of my exhibition prints and prints that I sell.
If you like matte papers, Epson's Velvet Fine Art is a gorgeous paper for black and white. The Velvet Fine Art uses Somerset Velvet, a 100% cotton artists' paper (used for drawing, etching, and lithography), as its base and adds a receptor coating to make it work for inkjet printing. If you took a paper like Somerset that hadn't been coated for inkjet and ran it through the printer, you would get really weak blacks, dull colors, and low contrast. The Epson version is wonderful. I prefer it for BW over color though.
Another good paper is Ilford Smooth Gloss. This is a resin coated paper, so prints on it look like they were made at a photo lab. If you prefer a textured surface, they make a version called Smooth Pearl. I don't use these papers for prints I exhibit and sell, but they're great for printing family snapshots, portfolio pieces (the papers are more durable than fine art papers when handled), and proofing. I also use them for commercial work when a client wants a print. If you do any portrait or wedding work, I know the Smooth Pearl is very popular with wedding/portrait photographers. The Ilford Smooth papers are wonderful for both color and BW.
The smooth gloss/pearl papers are made for the Photo Black ink, just like the Ilford Fibre Silk and Epson Legacy papers. Epson Velvet requires the Matte Black ink.
@@christophercrawford777 Thank you, Chris. In the meantime, I looked you up online and will explore your tutorials further.
Hi Chris, I think I followed all your instructions but my prints still come up with a slightly warm cast.I'm using Illford Gallerie Smooth Pearl on an Epson R3000. It used to print greyscale and now all of a sudden it's not. I've cleaned the heads, not sure what to do.
Hi Chris, it's always good to watch your tutorials. I have a problem: My Epson P900 with the latest Epson Driver 11.01 and firmware K1124L5 (the latest) running on Monterey 12.3 from a Mac MiniM1 does not have the ABW option! I tried to download again the driver but nothing changed. I usually print from LR. I can rint but from a "simplified" printing menù which in options offers only color, B&W and B&W draft.
Not sure what to do , any suggestions?
Thanks in advance, I'm robert blu from RFF!
Hi Robert! Here's what's causing that: The current version of the Mac OS defaults to using the Apple Airprint Driver for Epson printers instead of the Epson driver, even if you have the Epson driver installed. Here's a link to an article explaining it and how to make the computer use the Epson driver:
www.redrivercatalog.com/infocenter/how-to-fix-missing-paper-media-type-selection-osx.html
The article talks about the media selection being wrong, but their advice also fixes your problem as well.
Thank you Christopher, great info. I am still using an Epson R2400 (your mentioned older model). I am considering getting a newer printer, almost exclusively printing in black and white. Are you happy with your upgrade to the P800 ? Did you see a big difference in print quality / print cost / ease of use ?
Can you briefly compare ? Thank you in advance !
John,
You sent me an email with this question, too. I wrote back, but I'm going to post my answer here as well, in case anyone else has the same question.
The two biggest differences are the print size and quality of color prints. The r2400 only takes paper up to 13 inches wide, while the P800 takes paper up to 17 inches wide. I sell enough large prints that the P800 paid for itself fast. Color printing, especially the rendering of deep blues and reds, is greatly improved on the P800. If you have any interest in printing color photographs, the P800 is worth the money.
For B&W printing, the differences are small. The P800 gives slightly deeper blacks, and if you print on glossy papers, the prints show less gloss differential on the P800, but the difference is not huge.
Epson claims that the prints from the P800 last a lot longer than those from the r2400; that was important to me since I make my living from selling prints.
All in all, I think the P800 was with the money. I didn't have a choice in replacing my r2400; it died and the repair cost was more than it was worth. I considered buying a newer 13 inch printer, but the P800 wasn't that much more expensive and I wanted the larger print sizes. I'd been having my larger prints made by a local shop, but they closed a couple months before I got my P800 and I was forced to drive to South Bend (another city in Indiana, about 2 hours from Fort Wayne) to get my larger prints done each time I sold one.
@@christophercrawford777 Thank you Chris for the detailed review ! I have learned tonight that evidently the P800 is now unavailable (discontinued) however the P700 and P900 are somewhat available through select outlets. If indeed the differences are small with B/W printing I'll likely keep my R2400 for a bit longer until I need to replace. Thank you again ! John
Great tutorial--thanks! I want to try out ABW, printing from Photoshop with my new Epson P700, but in the Print Settings dialog there is no Color Matching or Printer Settings option. Photoshop is up to date. Do you have any idea what I'm missing? Thanks in advance.
John, I'm not sure. Can you send me a screenshot of the print dialogue box you're getting? chriscrawfordphoto@gmail.com
Thanks for the tutorial. I don't think you mention the use of the matte black ink which comes with the top end Epson Surecolor printers and I was wondering whether or not your method uses this ink. The dialog boxes for the P600 using Photoshop 5 on Windows 10 are a little different from the ones you have. One of the differences is that the Print setting shows which ink will be used - Photo black or Matte Black. I assume that the latter will give a better result but this is only available on certain papers. I have only just got my P600 so haven't experimented a lot yet but wondered whether you had any thoughts on using the Matte black with semi-gloss/satin type papers such as Ilford Goldfiber Silk?
Use the matte ink for matte papers and the photo black for glossy, semigloss, and lustre papers. That includes Ilford Fibre Silk (my favorite paper!)....photo black. The matte ink can't absorb into the surface coating that receives the ink on papers that are made for the photo black ink; it will take a long time to dry and will rub off easily.
ChrisAndSneaky is me. I forgot to switch to the account I use for my tutorials when I answered your question. Sneaky is a cat I rescued from a neighbor who was letting him starve. If you like cats, check out my videos of him.
Chistopher, are dependable printing and proofing results obtainable when scaling down an image size in Photoshop's print dialogue? (Or is it best to resize the image before the printing stage?). I'm concerned that down scaling an image in Photoshop's print dialog stage will result in a darker print -- because the dpi is forced to increase. I've experimented a little but have mixed results. Thoughts on this?
Resizing in the print dialogue box should not make the print darker. You can send a file of any DPI you want, the printer driver takes the data and converts it to the dot pattern used by the print nozzles.
I always size my prints in Photoshop before opening the print dialogue, because files need to be sharpened at the output size for maximum image quality.
Excellent. Thanks.
Christopher thanks for the video. What paper do you use to replace the discontinued Epson Legacy Bartya paper? Also, I sometimes use a split toning on my finished image. Should I just use a color profile when printing these images instead of the Epson ABW?
You can't do split toning with the Epson ABW mode. For that you can try color printing. I find that BW images printed in the color mode have inconsistent image color; the light tones can be a different color than the middle tones and the darker tones. Since you're doing split-toning, you might not notice that, though!
Another option is Quatone RIP. This software is an alternative printer driver that bypasses the Epson driver altogether for BW printing. It does incredible BW prints and works with a long list of Epson printers. It comes with profiles for a number of papers; and these include neutral, cooltone, warmtone, and sepia options and you can split tone with it.
www.quadtonerip.com/html/QTRoverview.html
They ask you to send them $50 if you find it useful. The software is fully functional even if you don't pay so you can try it out. There are Mac and Windows versions. I made a tutorial for QTR. I wrote it about ten years ago, so some of the papers and printers I mention are no longer made, but the software works the same with newer printers like the P800 and newer papers whose profiles come with the latest version of the software.
QTR Tutorial: crawfordphotoschool.com/digital/bw-printing.php
I still have a lot of Epson Legacy Bartya and Ilford Gold Fibre Silk left on my supply shelves so I haven't tried anything newer. They're my favorite B&W papers. Ilford has replaced the Gold Fibre Silk with a new paper called Gold Fibre Gloss that is said to be very similar, but I haven't tried any yet.
@@christophercrawford777 Thanks for the helpful information
I know this video has been here for a while now, question is, will this tutorial be applicable to any epson ink jet printers? Since you mentioned that your using a P800 Printer. Thank you.
It should work with any Epson printer that includes the Advanced BW Mode. Not all of them do, though. I've used several models with it, and it worked the same on all of them.
Chris:
Another question if I might.
Assume that I have converted my images to black and white either by using Nik Silver Effex or another method. I have used the ICC profile for my paper to adjust the tones.
Is there a problem if one simply uses the normal printing method, i.e., bypass Advanced Black
and White and prints using the ICC profile?
You can use the ICC profiles, but the prints will not look as good as you'll get with the Advanced BW mode. The grays won't be neutral, and worse still the color will be different in the different tones. That is, the light tones will be one color, the midtones another, etc. The Advanced BW mode gives grays that are the same 'color' through the entire tonal range from white to black.
Before Epson introduced the Advanced BW mode, photographers were forced to use separate third-party printer driver software that was made for BW printing. The two best were Quadtone RIP and Colorbyte Imageprint.
QTR is very good, and is donationware. Roy Harrington, the man who created it, asks you to send him $50 if you like it. It is worth it. That reminds me, I should make a tutorial for it. QTR's downside is it only works for a few paper types. Image quality in the prints is superb, and the sepia and warmtone settings give nicer color than the warm and sepia settings in Epson's Advanced BW mode in my opinion.
Imageprint is also great and it works with just about every paper made, since the company that makes it provides profiles for them (they're not ICC profiles you can use with the Epson driver, it is something proprietary to Colorbyte Software). It also does color prints that have better shadow detail than the Epson driver gives. The downside to Imageprint is cost. It costs a breathtaking $895 for the Epson P800 version. I used it 20 yrs ago with the Epson 2200 because back then Imageprint was the ONLY way to get true neutral BW prints on an inkjet. It was expensive then, $500, but the company has gotten far more greedy since then. No reason to encourage that when the Epson BW mode and QTR work as well for free or $50.
Here's a written tutorial on Quadtone RIP that I made a few years ago. I don't have a video version of it, yet.
crawfordphotoschool.com/digital/bw-printing.php
Thanks for the replies Chris. Confirmed my suspicions. It would be great if someone would be able to adapt Quad Tone Rip for the Epson inks as used on the P800.
@@Yalelax It does work with Epson's inks! The problem is it only includes settings for a couple of papers. You can make profiles for QTR for other papers but it requires an expensive spectrophotometer like the Xrite i1 Pro. This costs about $1500. I can't afford it, so have never tried to do new QTR profiles.
Hate to bug you with questions but I noticed this morning when I set tone to normal color toning goes from neutral to fine adjustment. Last week when I printed several images I set color toning to neutral and tone to normal, and I thought it didn't change. I printed with it set to fine adjustment and to me it looks fine. Have you had trouble setting color toning to neutral and tone to normal?
Mike, yes that's normal. If you set the color tone, then change the brightness setting, it will then say "Fine Adjustment." That doesn't affect the color, though. Whatever color settings you chose will remain. I don't know why Epson set it up that way, it is confusing!
wow what a hummmmm in the audio. Had to quit early because my` pc fan is rattling too.
Hi- I've always used relative colormetric with black point compensation checked, should I be using perceptual?
If you're printing with the advanced BW mode on an Epson printer, it does not matter how the conversion mode is set in Photoshop; the printer ignores that setting and does it all internally.
@@christophercrawford777 Good point. I have found that using the luster profile produces better black and white when printing to exhibition fiber which prints too green. Advanced black and white doesn’t produce great results for me unfortunately. Thanks for the video. Epson sent me your way.
Whee can I get the gray scale bar you included in the photo? Thanks
I can't remember where I originally found it; I've had it for close to 20 years. I've put it on my server for you to download. crawfordphotoschool.com/downloads/grayscale-bars.psd
Thanks a bunch.
Hey Chris. I have printed numerous prints using the settings you have suggested with great success, until now. When I use the B& W settings now, parts of the image have a weird faded, blue hue looking in some areas. If I print using the color settings the print looks fine. I have cleaned the print heads and there are no error messages with the black cartridges. Any ideas? Maybe a bad ink cartridge? Thanks
Hard to say without playing with your printer. Have you printed any color photos since it began doing this? Not BW photos using color settings, but color photos. If not, try this test chart and see if all the colors look normal:
crawfordphotoschool.com/downloads/colorfile.tif
Very saturated colors will look muted in your print compared to the screen, since the test chart contains some colors that no printer can reproduce. That's normal, but if you're seeing weird color shifts, like in your BW prints, it means something is wrong with the printer.
Thanks Chris. I printed your test image and it looks fine. I have aligned the print heads, cleaned the heads. Only other thing I can think of is replace all three black cartridges. I have looked on line and cant find a way to determine if one cartridge is faultycid:7C7668F0-3E94-416A-8D46-CCB93751C081@hsd1.ga.comcast.net
Sorry, tried to attach a shot of the faulty image and it didn't work
Email it to me; I'm curious to see what you're getting. chriscrawfordphoto@gmail.com