Reader's Comments - Index of - Free

Color Printers
poor-to-mediocre documentation of both the scanner and printer and the lack of
good material dedicated to producing photographic results using PhotoShop in
conjunction with an Epson printer and consumer-level scanner).
Disappointing is the lack well-documented workflow from software and hardware
vendors as well as comparisons among the users of these products whose
experiences, using seemingly identical equipment and settings, vary widely. In
short, the controls to establish a base-line from which one can make reliable
experiments simply aren't there. One has to read widely and experiment with setup,
configuration, and workflow. Just as an example, one enthusiast says to use
(applicable to Window 98) the Color Management setting in the Epson driver;
another says use ICM (when I use ICM, and follow all of his other suggestions, I
get a color shift and generally darkening of the image). The HP scanner doesn t
have an ICM profile. This means that the scanner is not calibrated to the monitor
and printer.
My goal has been simple: work with a small number of images (color negative,
slide, and black and white negative ) and try to produce a print from each that
approaches or is equal or superior to the silver print (or slide original) of each. I
have standardized on the Epson Photo Paper media, though I have tried the Epson
film and some Lumijet paper as well (my colleague has tried a wide variety of
papers - some quite beautiful). I have configured PhotoShop 5.02 RGB to use
Adobe 1998 color space, gamma 2.2 (I'm using Windows), and I use the same RGB
space for the profile. The Epson driver uses Custom Settings, Color Adjustment
with Automatic selected. I have the paper set to Photo Paper, 1440 dpi. All other
settings are defaultMy workflow is as follows: 1) scan the image using the Import
command in PhotoShop (this launches the HP software); 2) using the histogram, I
adjust the levels to shift out of range pixels into the scanner s tonal range (this takes
some trial and error to strike a balance between satisfying the histogram and
keeping the image looking reasonable good); 3) once the scanned image appears in
PhotoShop, I adjust the levels to bring them within the highlight and shadow
ranges; 4) I check the histogram in PhotoShop, then go back into levels and fine
tune; 5) I then make some small adjustments so the image looks "right" on the
monitor; 6) I retouch the image using the "rubber stamp" tool; 7) I use the "unsharp
mask" (usually with a threshold of 2-4 with the amount set to about 120%; 8) I
resize the image and set resolution to a number which is a multiple of 1440 (ex:
240, 360, etc); I then print the image.
I have also scanned using a product called VueScan (Hamrick software). This
produces a considerably different scan from the HP software and offers a wider
range of pre-scan controls, but no preview of the image, so all tweaking must be
done post-scan (not the best method for optimizing image quality). This software
also allows for batch scanning, which may be convenient if you have a lot of
http://www.photo.net/equipment/digital/printers/primer (20 of 36)7/3/2005 2:20:36 AM