black & white profiles

 

Get Unmatched Black and White Print Quality

Why Do I Need a Special Profile for B&W Printing?

The benefit that comes from using printer profiles is not just limited to improving the accuracy of your printed color.  You can also achieve awesome black and white results that will blow you away!  You can print B&W images that will display incredible shadow and highlight detail, as well as exceptional tonal range… when you use a B&W printer profile specially created to do just that!  Several newer Epson printers offer a special Advanced Black and White (ABW) Photo mode that helps you get this kind of outstanding B&W image quality from color management that is built into the printer driver for B&W printing. But you can successfully obtain similar results even with a printer that is NOT an Epson, and that is NOT configured for Advanced Black & White Photo printing.  How…. you ask?  The secret is in using a custom black and white printer profile that has been specially designed to enhance your B&W printing experience.  And the cost for this special black and white profile is just $15!  Read on to learn more, or visit the Downloads page to retrieve the target image and instructions necessary to get you on your way to obtaining the black and white profile you need.

A number of Epson printers currently offer an Advanced Black & White Photo mode. They include the Stylus Photo® 2400, R2880, R3000, and several of the Stylus Pro® models — 3800, 3880, 4800, 4880, 7880, 7900, 9880, 9900, and 11880. Furthermore, a number of other Epson printers (including the 1280, 2200, R800, R1800, R1900 and many others) possess a special “Black Ink Only” setting. When this setting is used, these printers can also be coaxed to print outstanding B&W images. (Other manufacturers — like HP and Canon — may offer a similar “Black Ink Only” or “Grayscale” setting. Check your printer’s documentation for this functionality.)

But you don’t have to have one of these specially configured printers to achieve excellent quality when you print your black and white images.  When you use a specially created B&W printer profile with any photo printer — even one that does not specifically support advanced black and white printing — you can experience huge improvements in the quality of your black and white prints.  The range of grayscale colors available for building a special B&W profile is MUCH smaller than what is required for a color profile — just 256 basic grayscale shades, as opposed to more than 16 million colors! The target image you must print for a black and white printer profile consists of only 51 individually measured grayscale reference points — a very small number when compared to what is required for building an accurate Color profile.  And yet this much smaller B&W profile will include nearly 1 out of 5 of all available individual grayscale hues — offering you incredibly precise grayscale accuracy and linearity.  This special B&W profile will greatly enhance your digital printing experience by delivering an unmatched range of highlight and shadow detail in your B&W prints.

If you have a printer that does not support Epson’s Advanced Black & White Photo printing mode, and if you are an aficionado of black and white prints, you should consider adding a special B&W profile to your digital printing workflow for the best results possible.  A B&W Target Image is included with your download of the Target Image Kit, which is available on the Downloads page.

Also visit the Downloads page to to retrieve the Printer Setup Kit, a ZIP file that corresponds to the specific software you use for printing.  Whether you are using a Color profile or a B&W profile, you need to pay close attention to setting up your printer driver.  Depending on your printer, your printer driver set-up for B&W printing may not be exactly the same as when printing in color.  However, in most cases, there is no difference, and you are okay just following the same instructions that are included in the Printer Setup Kit, available on the Downloads page.

The cost of a black and white printer profile is just $15!  So get ready to enjoy printing some amazing B&W images!  When you are finished downloading the files you need for getting a black and white profile, open the Instructions pages to learn what to do next…