Printing from Lightroom and/or Photoshop CS5 to Epson R1900

LeftForum

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8 Mar 2011 - 12:20 PM

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I get brilliant colour prints on my R1900 straight from either Lightroom or Photoshop CS5 so long as I use either the correct ICC Profile for the paper I am using or, indeed, a profile created by monkeying about with ColorMunki.

But I just cannot seem to get an absolutely neutral monochrome print. Depending upon the profile used I either get a very slight greeny-grey or a very slight pinky-grey colour cast. (Most of the time I am using Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl or Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk with, as I say, the correct profile for the paper and the R1900)

The perverse thing is that if I use the cheapo Epson "Easy Photo Print" software and switch the settings within that to monochrome, then I get a perfectly neutral greyscale print irrespective of what paper I use.

It does only involve one extra step - saving my Lightroom or Photoshop image as a TIFF and then opening it in Epson Easy Photo Print - but it is a step I don't feel I should have to be making.

Does anyone know a way of printing monochrome direct from either Lightroom 3 or Photoshop CS5 that would enable this purity of monochrome image to be achieved?

LeftForum

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1 May 2011 - 10:59 AM

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I didn't find any solution other than to use the Epson software when wanting neutral monochromes.

Now that the prices of the R3000 are tumbling, I might soon be persuaded to upgrade my printer as all the reviews suggest that it prints much superior monochromes. But not yet.

Dave_Canon

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6 May 2011 - 6:18 PM

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This is not a new problem. If you convert to greyscale or otherwise force the printer to use just the black ink cartidge, you will have neutral monochromes. Unfortunately this results in a very small number of tonal levels (possibly as low as 50 due to half toning) and it does not look good along side a high quality monochrome. The obvious answer is to leave the image in RGB and thus use combinations of the colour cartridges but this often results in colour casts and metamerism (different colour when viewed in different light). The solution by the print industry (long ago as this is not a new issue) is to add controlled colour called duotone. This facility (Duotone, tritone and quad tone) is included in full versions of PS and can be effective in producing good monochromes with subtle but near neutral toning. Another alternative is to choose to positively tone your image (e.g. sepia). Whereas we are sensitive to an image which is just slightly non-neutral, we do not have the same fixed reference for sepia. The best solution is a printer which has multiple blacks/grey cartridges such as the Epson R2880 which will produce excellent quality monochromes which are neutral.

Dave