RE: More on PraxiSoft WiziWYG

["Cathy Brown" <catbrown@prodigy.net>]

Ah, I'm drooling. But ... does it work on Win 98?

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-epson-inkjet@leben.com
[mailto:owner-epson-inkjet@leben.com]On Behalf Of CDTobie@aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 1999 8:54 AM
To: epson-inkjet@leben.com
Subject: Re: More on PraxiSoft WiziWYG


I promised I would post further results with PraxiSoft's new WiziWYG ICC
profile creation software as it became available, so here is the next
installment:

WiziWYG will create RGB profiles for RGB printer drivers (It will also
create
CMYK profiles, but this will be a bit more complicated to test and compare,
soI've left that until later).  I started by creating side-by-side profiles
using WiziWYG and EZ Color and the same scanner (Epson Expression 836XL),
the
same printer (Epson Stylus 3000) and the same ink and paper (Epson Photo
Quality inkjet paper and Fotonic CMYK inks). This was equally fast and easy
in both programs. They even both generate the same error on attempting to
access the scanner's twain driver, I prefer to scan my targets myself
anyhow,
and did so in both cases.

Assuming that I had minimized as many variables as possible, I then produced
side-by-side prints on the 3000 using the PhotoDisc test image and setting
the profiles in the ColorSpace popdown menu from Photoshop 5. The results
definitely reflected the profiles chosen. The EZ Color image was about as I
have come to expect from EZ: rather pale and flat with washed out blacks and
a lack of punch that good contrast can bring. The WiziWYG profiled print was
excellent. The contrast was improved, the color were brighter, the skintones
and other memory colors read truer to expectations. And of course the
dithering in both prints was that gorgeous Epson dithering... so here was a
print that I would say was about as optimized as an RGB driver print could
be. Really something to get excited about. The last time I made an Epson
driver profile that created prints this nice, there had been six or eight
thousand dollars worth of special equipment involved. This one used a
flatbed
scanner and a $79 buck program. Wow...

So; would it have been possible to tweak the EZ Color print by adjusting
white and black points, contrast etc...  blindly after converting to the
printer profile? Perhaps, but why would one bother when it can be done
seamlessly by a program as low cost as WiziWYG?

The majority of Epson users print directly from the RGB drivers, and this
product improves the results that can be achieved using that method. How if
functions for RIP users is still an open question, though it is certainly
promising there as well,  and as optimal as the prints obtained with WiziWYG
custom printer profiles are, they still lack the kind of color that
PostScript users have come to think of as "PostScript color", but the
difference is certainly diminishing. We won't know the whole story until a
body of users try out WiziWYG with a variety of equipment, supplies and
uses,
but this is certainly a product to try.

C. David Tobie
Design Cooperative
CDTobie@designcoop.com
-
Please do not include an entire message in your response. Delete the excess.
http://www.leben.com/lists for list instructions.

-
Please do not include an entire message in your response. Delete the excess.
http://www.leben.com/lists for list instructions.