Black and white printing

RogerB said:

Try printing the Northlight test image on your 3880, on a good paper, like a baryta, using ABW. Gives the best darkroom prints a good run for their money.

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@RogerB what you say is able to be demonstrated true. But that test can and will only give the outcome it is set up to deliver.
As @martinOreg has demonstrated and put the discussion point introduced by @jtoolman beyond debate, the quality of the colour original has a profound effect on the B&W output. Further what Lab mode does to colour is impossible, as it creates colour that does not exist or so many argue, so what we have here is a rerun of the type of discussions that may have taken place between the Scientists that "knew" the world was flat and a man that was 'creative' and showed that the world is round.
We are not all on the same page with this discussion so it is giving the appearance of debate. What you are saying is correct in as far as the limitations imposed by a flawed test
What I and others are saying is that there is more, and the quality of the colour input drives the 'more'

Roy Sletcher said:

Good point.

Next time I do a nude seesion, I will tell my wife it is a nature outing.

Why I like this site! You learn so much.

RS

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Roy, you have got it wrong, it's the mountains, mist and lakes that constitute the nature.

3dogs said:

@RogerB what you say is able to be demonstrated true. But that test can and will only give the outcome it is set up to deliver.
As @martinOreg has demonstrated .......................................................

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There is an even better way, simply print on the wrong side of PE microporous paper.

At least it shows you how much ink microporous paper absorbs. "Instant dry" becomes "permanently wet".

Emulator said:

Roy, you have got it wrong, it's the mountains, mist and lakes that constitute the nature.

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@Emulator, no he hasn’t, @Roy Sletcher just dispenses with the mountains, the mist and the lakes, you know the little things and focuses on the nude.
Way to go Roy..

As far as using e.g. the ICC profiles that Eric Chan developed for the Pro 3880, I have read that with the latest Epson drivers for the Mac (which I assume I must have on my new 3880) you can no longer use these ICC profiles in conjunction with the ABW printing mode if you select "LR manages color".
If I select "Printer manages color" no ICC profiles are used and I feel that this is the way to handle BW printing when using the ABW printing mode?
Is this the correct conclusion?
Harry

Emulator said:

Roy, you have got it wrong, it's the mountains, mist and lakes that constitute the nature.

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To misquote Clint Eastwood "Go ahead and spoil my day"

My definition: If the nude is soft focus, tastefully photographed and well printed then it is art and probably valueless.
If the image is tack sharp and contrasty with lots of detail is is probably pornography and can be sold for big bucks in the right market.

RS

Quote from Jay Maisels's new book -"Light, colour, gesture"

One of the first things in Genesis is: “Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. God saw that the
light was good....” Ever since then, photographers have been complaining about “bad light.”

Harry Briels said:

As far as using e.g. the ICC profiles that Eric Chan developed for the Pro 3880, I have read that with the latest Epson drivers for the Mac (which I assume I must have on my new 3880) you can no longer use these ICC profiles in conjunction with the ABW printing mode if you select "LR manages color".
If I select "Printer manages color" no ICC profiles are used and I feel that this is the way to handle BW printing when using the ABW printing mode?
Is this the correct conclusion?
Harry

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I cant offer any input on this Harry I dont do Mac for Photo processing.

Harry Briels said:

As far as using e.g. the ICC profiles that Eric Chan developed for the Pro 3880, I have read that with the latest Epson drivers for the Mac (which I assume I must have on my new 3880) you can no longer use these ICC profiles in conjunction with the ABW printing mode if you select "LR manages color".
If I select "Printer manages color" no ICC profiles are used and I feel that this is the way to handle BW printing when using the ABW printing mode?
Is this the correct conclusion?
Harry

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That's correct Harry. Under OSX it's not possible to use profiles with ABW. There is a workaround, but as I said in an earlier post, the 3880, with ABW can give very good results straight out of the box. For the sake of one sheet of A4 try the Northlight test image. I think you will be impressed.

A good result with the test image will show that you can print B&W successfully, and get something very close to what you see on your screen. This should show you that there is no black art in printing B&W so you can concentrate your efforts on producing B&W images that look good on the screen. Transferring them to paper is not that difficult.

Some time ago you could actually use custom profiles with the ABW driver but that has all changes now. The ABW is essentially a black box, you can feed it a colour image and it will give you a black and white image, whether it matches your vision is another question.

If you want full control over the tonality, then the best option is to do the conversion (and not by desaturation) before sending then image to the printer.

Another thing to keep in mind, if using Lightroom, you are working in a Prophoto Color Space, well actually its called , Melissa which has a gamut value of 1.8 and the Epson ABW expects to receive a file in the 2.2 gamut so converting to Adobe RGB 1998 and then sending it to the ABW will give you slightly better shadow detail.

After studying the wealth of advises about how to start learning to print in B&W I invested quite some time in using color images, converting and printing.
It is with some hesitance that I attach to this a copy of a B&W image I made from our daughter, hoping to read your critique and advice to how improve on my B&W work.
Thank you in advance for your comments!
Harry