[filmscanners] Re: CMYK rant (was Digital DarkroomComputerBuilders?)

["Arthur Entlich" <artistic-1@shaw.ca>]

I honestly don't know.  I can only tell you that my work flow using CMYK
and ink profiles in Photoshop, especially with the older Epson drivers,
provided me with some control that I was unable to figure out how to get
otherwise.  It is certainly possible there are methods to accomplish
what I am doing via CMYK, within the RGB mode.  I understand that Epson
printers convert the file to RGB to provide the input to the driver, so
I can't explain why I find more control, but I was unable to find a
satisfactory method to get a near screen reproduction from my printers
until I went to CMYK mode and altered the ink profiles.

I developed this technique back when Epson was first making color inkjet
printers (the original Stylus Color) and using Photoshop 2.5, and I just
continued to use it, since it worked for me.  It is very possible that
the newer drivers and printers, and the newer versions of Photoshop
have made this method obsolete, but up until now I haven't tried to use
other color management to accomplish my printing.

CMYK has certain distinct disadvantages, such as changes of printer,
monitor settings, etc, make the file fairily useless, which means
starting with RGB again, while RGB adapts to the changes. Also, the file
is larger than RGB, due to the additional channel.

Art

Paul D. DeRocco wrote:

> I don't see that working in CMYK mode does anything that couldn't be done in
> RGB mode. Increasing C just decreases R, and so on. If you play with the
> black undercolor removal, that accomplishes nothing because the data gets
> converted back to RGB for sending to the printer driver, when then
> reconverts to CMYK using its own undercolor removal algorithm. Or is there
> something that I'm missing?
>
> --
>
> Ciao,               Paul D. DeRocco
> Paul                mailto:pderocco@ix.netcom.com
>
>
>>From: Arthur Entlich
>>
>>Until my most recent Epson printer (a 880) I found the only way to get
>>accurate colors was via conversion of the file to CMYK and adjusting the
>>ink preferences in Photoshop.
>>
>>I don't have any sophisticated color management on my system, so that's
>>the way I accomplished my color accuracy.  It worked (closed loop at
>>least).  I found I had much better control of blacks, and blues,
>>particularly.
>>
>>With the new driver that came with the 880, I was able to get nearly
>>accurate to screen results with the standard RGB Epson driver without
>>incorporating CMYK, but the 850 with CMYK output gave me a better print
>>still.  I haven't yet profiled the 880 to my weird CMYK method, however.
>>
>
>
>


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe by mail to listserver@halftone.co.uk, with 'unsubscribe 
filmscanners'
or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or 
body