Digital BW, The Print

I'm going to add some general notes in here, they do not apply only 
to Studio Print, but to most any RIP.


> 
> >  90% of my work is B&W so I am most curious about that, but what 
> > about for color too.
> 
> You'll do great color with StudioPrint as well, you might want
> slightly different K generation profiles for color, but would have 
to
> test to see if that lightest K is visible in highlights.

With the use of the three black inks, probably 90% of your work could 
be done with a single GCR curve. Since the black inks are not 
neutral, you will always be getting some color ink to correct for 
this. If the black curve is properly designed to work with the 
printer and inks, it should be every bit as good as the Epson ABW 
output, but with more control since you are setting things like ink 
limits. You would also be changing the tone of the image in Photoshop 
(or other image editor). But if you find that one prfile does not 
work, generating another with a different GCR would be a simple task.

> 
> >  I already have an i1.  I'm currently running K3.
> 
> The i1 will work with GPS and pretty much any other good CMYK
> profiling app you can get.
> 

NOTE: Not all profiling applications will correct for OBA in papers! 
You may need an i1 UV with many of them. One suggested application 
that you normally don't hear about would be Heidelberg Prinect 
Profile Toolbox. The biggest "problem" about profiles from that app. 
is what it does with out of gamut colors in either of the 
colorimetric intents. If you correct the out of gamut colors like you 
should be doing, then there are no issues. Most people seem to expect 
the profile to just know what the artist wants done to those out of 
gamut colors like a couple of applications do. The other thing that 
isn't as good as it could be is the black generation. There is no way 
to make a custom GCR curve, but the standard curves should work 
really well with a three black printer. Cost if this set of tools is 
around $2000 directly from Heidelberg. Even the older Printopen 4 (I 
own this version) works very well in CMYK mode with a printer that is 
properly linearized. You can use either the i1 or the UV cut. With 
the use of Colorport (free) from Xrite, you can use a much larger 
number of measuring devices including the DTP20 (Pulse) spectro and 
the DTP70 spectro.