Digital BW, The Print

ERIC says, in part: < ... If ever there is a case of teach a man to fish 
it's with making digital
negatives. Since the many of the processes used are UV in nature and that 
is
not a fixed source for many, the starting point can not be a plug and play
for many. Everything that the light passes through will effect the process
so having a preset seems a bit like being lock into certain conditions to
me. .... >

I don't agree with your conclusion. One has to pick a "paper preset" before 
printing anyway as part of the normal workflow. This preset is a "paper 
definition" (or "type") that tells the printer how to handle the ink separation 
(how many drops of what color) for the medium (paper) being used. Using 
your analogy model, without this new paper definition you'd be trying to teach 
a man to fish who doesn't know where the fish are, or that they even live in 
water because he's standing in a desert and doesn't know where the water 
is. The chances of him catching a fish would be slim indeed. The paper preset 
gives him the fishing line and hook and points him to the closest river.

And if you have not downloaded and read the PDF Guide that comes with this 
paper package file, I suggest you do (it's live on the HP site). It's 33 
pages and the scope is pretty amazing with links for more information. This 
process has been invented by a single passionate photographer who loves 
photography and wants to help other photographers. I know the guy, and he doesn't 
want to force anybody to do anything. But let's be realistic: He uses HP 
printers (he's an HP engineer, for goodness sake!), so that's his working 
platform. But his goal was to create a tool that helps photographers produce the 
highest-quality digital negatives (and thereby alterntive process prints) 
with the least amount of pain. Maybe he'll join the discussion.

H


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]