Digital Prints

354
Mastering Digital Printing
RGB > Hue/Sat > LAB
(This is adapted from R9 Corporation’s BWBatch program.)
With a flattened, color image open, create a new Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer with
the following settings: Hue–-180, Saturation–-100, Lightness–+100, and
Mode–Saturation. Then convert to LAB mode (Image > Mode > Lab Color), selecting the
flatten option, if needed. Next, open the Channels menu and get rid of the a and b color
channels by simply trashing them. You’ll be prompted to flatten the image, which leaves
only the Lightness—now called Alpha 1—channel that contains all the light-to-dark information
(see Figure 11.11). Convert to Grayscale and print.
Using Specialized Monochrome Inksets
An improvement in the digital printing of black-and-white images is the development of
third-party, multi-toned, monochromatic inks that replace the color inks in inkjet printers.
This is also called “quadtone” or “hextone” printing; the printer thinks it’s printing in
color, but the inks that come out are all shades of black or differing densities of gray. Popular
inksets include: Lysonic Quad Black and Small Gamut (Lyson), PiezoTone (Inkjet Mall),
Preservation Monochrome (Lumijet), the Quadtone B&W and UltraTone families that
include both Monotone and Variable Tone inksets (MIS), and Septone (Sundance).
“Depending on a photographer’s needs,” says digital expert C. David Tobie, “a quadtone/hextone
gray ink system, or a tinted version of one, may be an excellent choice,
although unless it is purchased at a significantly increased price as a proprietary matched
system, it will require special knowledge and a fair amount of work to get ideal results. A
small-gamut color ink system that uses CMYK-tinted gray inks requires a far less specialized
process and offers a broader range of user-determined tint choices (warm, cool, sepia,
platinum/paladium, etc.).”
Figure 11.11 Using Hue/Saturation
and then LAB mode is another
monochrome conversion technique.