Split toning colorized pix vs Imageprint6

[Jim Hayes]

I finally got ver 6 of Colorbyte's Imageprint, after a 1 1/2 year delay. I did an image in May 2003 when I was first told of it's promised new "colorize" feature....it prints the b&w part of an image with any tone you want, and treats any color you see in the print- as a color print.

But R=G=B. If say R=128, G=127, and B=127...it treats it like a color print and gives a metatarmeric greenish tint to it. In transistion areas this looks ugly, esp if you selected a cool blue to red split tone for the b&w governed part of image. Smack dab in the middle I get areas that go from bluish to green patches with little transistion.

The areas where it looks greyscale on a monitor to naked eye but RGB are not exactly equal come about as a result of montaging an element in, doing blending mode tricks, simple layer masks can even create the IP6 greenish halo...


Anyway, my idea is to simply not use split toning with colorized RGB images in IP6, but to try out PhotoKit color split toning. Since it works on color images too, why not in areas where it looks greyscale but is off by a level or two? It may change the true colorized areas slightly, but I'm assuming I can just mask these off- or use additional saturation level to bring colors back to nominal. As long as I don't see halos in the Pshop image on screen, IP6 should be able to print a straight color image as it sees it. Only the colorized option is supersensitive to having balanced RGB values or it wildly goes greenish.

IOW: IP6 creates sharp transistions since it must have R=G=B or else. I think PK color would take it in stride and be more forgiving (?).

Image in question: http://www.frii.com/~jimhayes click on archive works, and the image "Doors".

Opinions? Sorry for the length...

Jim Hayes

[Martin Evening]

Hi Jim,

I am not sure I fully understand your dilemma. A few things though which maybe you are already aware of. Firstly, depending on the printer you are using and the print mediia. Sometimes you will see colour prints coming straight off the printer with greenish shadows to midtones. This is how the prints look before they have become fully stabilised and so any definitive judgement should be left until the print has been left for say 24 hours. And is also why you should not build a profile from a test target print until the next day.

If you have info palette readouts that say equal RGB, but the image doesn't appear true grey on the display, then that indicates there is something wrong with the calibration/profiling process for the display. One does not want to go down the route of colour compensating the image to balance the colour in the final print. Check the display profile and try testing the appearance with a gradient going from black to white - do you see uneven colour? Do you see any banding? If the answer is yes, you need to check the display profile.

The other PG guys will know more about ImagePrint 6 than I do, but I seem to remember that monochrome prints are printed using mainly the black and light black inks and the colouring is produced by addition of colour ink only where it is needed to produce the split tone effect. I believe this is different from say the Epson printer which will use more of the colour inks to produce grey tone across the whole of the tonal scale. So a direct Epson print will be more liable to a colour imbalance seen in a monochrome print unless the print profiling is spot on. With ImagePrint most of the grey is printed with black inks and slight amount of colour ink added.

Martin

[Jim Hayes]

No, that's not it. And after a week the area of transistion is still vivid green wrt rest of print.

It's just the way that IP6 decides what part of the print is greyscale and what is color. As I said IP6 only considers an area greyscale if EXACTLY R=G=B. So if R=127, G=127, and B=128...it prints it an ugly green. On the monitor it looks greyscale.

Since one can get slightly offset brightness values by using soft-edged layer masks, using blending modes that "fake" greyscale, etc....IP6 can"t handle these situations if in "colorize" mode. Only if sharp delinations from greyscale (signifigant differences aka R=150, G=140, B=130 say) change suddenly to exactly R=G=B will green halos not appear. For simpler compositions though, it shouldn't be a problem.

Thus the split tone part of PK color. I installed the demo today and spent 8 hours trying to replicate what IP6 "should" be doing. I got the toning effect I wanted by combing two different split tones with opacity changed from default 50%...and even lowering opacity of one of the split tone layer sets.

But then I had to go back in and bring back the color parts of the image, using blending modes, curve adjustments, opacity changes, and sundry tricks to restore the colored portions to "pre-toned".

It worked very well. It was a struggle, but it's a tough picture...in one area I have flesh tones which must appear to show through under a semi-transparent greyscale cloth. That part was probably the hardest to restore to pre-toned state.

So I'm pleased. Have to try out some more of the effects in the next few days. Thank you for your reply.

Jim Hayes