B&W Adv Mode: Color to B&W
B&W Advanced mode can convert a color image to B&W on the fly. This isn't of much value to me as I'd rather control exactly how my B&W looks, not leave it up to the Epson driver. Maybe this is a feature that will be useful in studios etc where a setup is known and this will allow output of a bunch of prints from one source file - color, B&W, toned - very quickly and with little effort. The kind of thing you'd see demo'd a trade show for a wow effect, 'Look ma, no hands!'.
I printed the color test chart tonight using B&W Advanced mode, and warmed the print a little, approx +15 towards yellow/red. The result is pleasing enough but it feels like you are printing blind - given this is all happening in the driver (Color Handling is 'Let Printer Determine Colors'/'No color management' when using B&W Advanced according to Epson) you are at the mercy of the accuracy of the girl preview image as to how your print will look.
Separate to color files, the options in Advanced Mode could be very useful working with B&W images and wanted to apply toning etc at the time of printing, especially once you got a feel for the settings.
posted by Pete Walsh @ 10:54 PM 5 comments
At 1:04 AM, Nill Toulme said...
Pete your blog just gets better and better. Thanks again for your hard work and generosity.
Nill
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www.toulme.net
At 1:29 AM, Anonymous said...
Pete, do I understand correctly that there is no way to really know what your B&W print will look like when you send it to the Epson advanced B&W driver? Are you finding that what you see on the screen is what is coming out of the printer? I understand that there is no soft proofing. Can you comment? Enjoying your posts!
Scott
At 6:49 PM, Pete Walsh said...
Hi Scott, sorry in the delay in replying.
Say you are sending a color file to print via Advanced B&W and want to do some toning, you are doing all the toning blind as the driver only shows the image of the girl (would be great if it converted your image on the fly and showed a smaller version of it instead) - and as importantly, you haven't yet seen what your converted color image will look like in B&W.
And the double whammy, on my machine anyway, is that when you do get to the Epson Preview after having applied toning etc to your color image that's being converted to B&W on the fly - it does not show any of the alterations you've done in the Advanced setting :s
At 12:50 AM, Anonymous said...
Eeeek, that is awful and frustrating. I wonder why they set it up this way? Very strange.
Scott
At 1:02 AM, Pete Walsh said...
I don't know Scott. Some of the Epson guys have said they felt it was a gimmick to an extent - the Color to BW conversion by the driver that is.
But if you're sending a B&W through and toning it, I guess once you've got a feel for the settings in Advanced B&W it'll work pretty well, doing it just via knowing the effect and how it relates to the small preview image of the girl and your prints. I can imagine wasting more prints initially though.
If you could see the toning in the driver preview that would make the whole thing much better, not ideal, but you could go back and forth from the the settings to the preview - it really could be my mistake but I just see a neutral B&W preview no matter what I change in Advanced settings. If it actually is like that, I hope they correct it - if it's only my dumb mistake, apologies in advance.
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