|
|
Photography News Flashes
HOW TO.
PRINT BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOS
High quality inkjet printers like the EPSON Stylus Photo and EPSON Stylus PRO ranges have revolutionised digital
photography. While the quality of colour output has been excellent on digital printers, there has been some
reluctance from photographers to move from their B&W darkrooms to digital. Still, the new generation of EPSON
photo printer can produce excellent black and white prints, as well as colour ones!
|
|
Illustr. 01. The final image.
Digitising your black and white photo
Before printing your black & white photo, you need to digitise it. There are several techniques available. The most
popular one is to shoot in colour, to scan in colour and then to convert it in black & white. Scanning even your black
& white slides/negatives in RGB and not in grayscale will later offer you an abundance of additional creative
possibilities like colouring and toning. Click here for scanning tips.
Once the photo is scanned, you can use popular photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop that offers a lot of
image control, like processing and retouching. Click here for tips on processing and retouching.
To make use of the toning or colouring you have applied to the photo through your photo editing software, you print
the RGB file without converting it to greyscale. If you want to do the filtering through the printer driver, then you can
also convert your colour file into grayscale. Some photographers work with the red channel only, some with the green
only, and some automatically convert RGB into grayscale. There is no fixed rule and each photographer has his or
her own trick depending on experience.
Printing in black & white
Now that your black & white picture has been digitally optimized to your liking, you are ready to print it. When
printing black and white images there are two options � print with pure black or use the colour inks in
addition (composite black).
Pure Black
|
|
Illust. 02. Printing with black ink
When choosing pure black mode, only one ink - the black one - is used for the generation of the picture. This means
that you will get a very neutral picture, also under different lighting conditions. However especially in the light tones
the image has a high graininess because of the black dot size.
This is also dependent on your printer: The smaller the droplet size, the better the printer can deal with this.
To choose pure black mode, just select Black in the ink menu of your printer driver (usually, this menu appears in the
Advanced settings)
Black with color inks
|
|
Illust. 03. Printing with colour inks
The advantage of printing black with colour inks is better gradation due to the additional light inks for cyan and
magenta and also the option to tone your picture. The light inks ensure that you do not see single dots but rather get
a soft gradation. You get subtle shades of grey and more detail in the image.
All in all the benefits of printing black in colour mode mean that it is possible to produce better results than just using
black ink. However, it does require some tuning because the image is not neutral and may show a light colour cast in
some cases.
To choose composite black mode, just select Color in the ink menu of your printer driver (usually, this menu appears
in the Advanced settings)
Choosing the right type of paper
Choosing the right type of paper will be the next step. Actually this is one of the key advantages of going digital,
EPSON itself provides over 25 different media. Selecting the right media is easily done through the printer driver
|
|
Illust. 04. Media selection
For printing black & white photos, you have the choices between
- Glossy, semi glossy and luster papers
- Matte paper : smooth type or water color type
- Fine Art Paper, smooth or textured type
and much more
All in all, going digital will require you to learn and gain experience like you had when starting conventionally. It
will offer some intriguing possibilities that can change the way photography is perceived - and not only by us, but the
rest of the world as well. Photography after all is painting with light, and is a self-standing form of art. It only deserves
the best.
