Digital BW, The Print

C D Tobie <CDTobie@...> wrote:

> > "Sylvain M." <sylvain@> wrote:
> > >
> > >... I usually consider a tone as neutral when Lab B is 
> > > between 0 and 2. Am I right?
> 
> Its b*, not B, ...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lab_color_space  seems to explain in technical terms the difference between the two Lab notation types:

"A Lab color space is a color-opponent space with dimension L for lightness and a and b for the color-opponent dimensions, based on nonlinearly compressed CIE XYZ color space coordinates."

"The coordinates of the Hunter 1948 L, a, b color space are L, a, and b. However, Lab is now more often used as an informal abbreviation for the CIE 1976 (L*, a*, b*) color space (or CIELAB). The difference between Hunter and CIE color coordinates is that the CIE coordinates are based on a cube root transformation of the color data, while the Hunter coordinates are based on a square root transformation."

Is there a practical difference in the usual B&W gamut?

I notice that my Spyder3Print, when measure a test strip, simply lists "L=__, a= __, and b= __" (with no * used).  Are these the Hunter 1948 L, a, b, or the CIE 1976 (L*, a*, b*)?  Or does it really make no difference?

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com