Digital BW, The Print

Barry,

Of more use is a photospectrometer which will give you color information as
well as density. Tyler Boley did a trial run for me using Dan Culbertson's
RGB Softproof method of generating RGB separation curves for quad/hex inks.
The goal was to come up with a set of curves for standard MIS VM ink on
Photo Rag paper.

Look under SpectraTone Quads on the Lincoln Inks site:
http://www.lincolninks.com/ for Dan's method.

Tyler had me print wedges using all of the different paper choices in the
Epson driver that supported 1440dpi. This was done in a "No Color Control"
mode to reduce the amount of control the Epson driver has. Tyler checked the
wedges with his densitometer to find which had the best Dmax. Based on the
Dmax and the quality of the tone ramp he chose to use the Matte
Paper-Heavyweight setting.

Using these setting I printed out the test target for Tyler's SpectroStar
Spectrocam photospectrometer (say that fast ten times<G>). I mailed the
printed target to Tyler and he read it into his computer with the Spectrocam
and the values were used by ColorVision's Profiler Pro to generate a
monitor/ink/paper profile. This profile is not good enough to print with but
it does give you an excellent on screen view. With this on screen view you
can then apply RGB separation curves to a wedge file and see the results
without printing them out.

This got the curves in very good shape in a single iteration. Then from a
couple of printouts of wedges Tyler was able to dial the curves in.

While this method does not automate curve building which still needs to be
done manually, it does speed up the process. You also wind up with a monitor
profile for that ink and paper combination. The result is true WYSIWYG gray
ink printing where you actually see the color of the ink and of the paper
base on screen. This drastically speeds up the process of getting a good
print.

Once it is set up I haven't seen anything to beat if for B&W photo printing.

In comparing wedges for my 1280 running under Windows 2000 I think the
smoothest are from the Piezo driver, Tyler's 08 curve and Paul's vmp8-mw16
with very little difference, if any in quality. Tyler's mw02 and Paul's
vmp8-nc16 are almost as good.

I don't think that we are paying enough attention to color management with
the grayscale inks. You should calibrate your scanner, your monitor and
match your monitor view to your prints. The loop should be closed from start
to finish. This is not a requirement and you can still make excellent prints
without this kind of management but I think you are missing some of the
advantages digital printing has to offer.

Martin Wesley

----- Original Message -----
From: "flyfishingusa2002" <tflyfish@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2002 9:52 AM
Subject: [Digital BW] Calibrating System?


> Hi All,
> Is there anyone using Quad inks that uses a densitometer to
> calibrate their system? If you do could you please let us know what
> model densitometer you might use? I am using a windows XP system and
> are considering the purchase of a X- rite densitometer.
> I think that it would be a acurate way to set up the monitor and to
> check the dot gain on my 3000.
> Any comments?
>
> Barry
>