Digital BW, The Print

Bernd,

If you have a good match between monitor and print for the straight Piezo
setup you probably followed the instructions in the Piezo manual for
customizing the CMYK dot gain settings to match your print (or you were
lucky). Bear in mind that I have no experience with MIS inks, but you should
be able to follow the same process to tweak your grayscale preview so it
matches the output you're getting from the MIS workflows.

Recently, I was having problems with images that looked really good on
screen printing with really flat midtones that looked almost posterized. I
spent some time playing with a custom dot gain curve, and now I'm able to
get much more predictable results that match what I'm seeing on screen. In
the process I convinced myself that I need to get some monitor calibration
hardware/software as well. As I'm getting more discriminating, and getting
better at making adjustments in Photoshop, I find I'm becoming much more
sensitive to the differences between the screen view and the print output.
Time for me to get serious about this calibration stuff...

-Jason


-----Original Message-----
From: Ruhrfoto/Bernd L. [mailto:ruhrfoto@...]
Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2001 10:24 AM
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Digital BW] Piezo vs MIS FS again


Well, after some days of trial and error I would say:
the whole thing it isn\ufffdt that easy as it seemed to be.

If I compare these combos:

#1  1160, Piezo driver, Piezo inks
#2  1160, Piezo Driver , MIS FS inks
#3  1160, Woolf workflow, MIS FS inks

it seems to be, that I get full tonal-range prints with the #1 combo
the easiest way, because the digital row is calibrated to get a
match between monitor and print image, so corrections in PS
are easy to judge before printing the next image.

With some curve tweaking it is possible to get  a rather similar
result with the second combo. But as monitor and print don\ufffdt
match any longer (monitor picture is now significantly darker as
print), corrections in the curve are harder to judge.

Even if I would say that you can get very good looking prints
without the Cone Driver - but with the Woolf workflow, this # 3
combo needs extrem curve tweaking - so that the monitor image
is nearly black from the midtones to the blacks - and curve fine
tuning as no longer judgable on the monitor and printing
becomes a trial and error process.

I want to stress that these are preliminary results.
Maybe I\ufffdm missing something, maybe I should check my
monitor calibration. Maybe I need some more experience,
maybe...  ... just wanted to know, whether you are working hard
too  -- or could it be that you are asleep now?
; - )

Bernd