Digital BW, The Print

Paul Roark wrote

> My original hope was that people could do paper profiles as Transfer
> Functions to be applied after the usual variable-tone curve was applied.  I
> did a rough one for Somerset Enhanced, for example.
>
> I never envisioned everyone tweaking the curves.
>
> I think the primary failure of the vm approach is that there has been no
> pooling of such profiles, which I anticipated would happen.  Admittedly, the
> transfer function tool is crude, which could be part of the problem.
> However, I thought that doing rough profiles by just printing a 21-step test
> file and correcting for the amount by which the steps are off would be easy
> enough that people would just do it manually.

I am keen to contribute to the pool, if it's within my capabilities.

Paul, do you have a step-by-step description of the process? I imagine it
involves printing stepped gradients on the paper to be 'profiled', and making
iterative changes to the transfer function to match the printout to a standard?

Is a flatbed scanner a sufficient measuring device? (I don't have a densitometer
in my kit, or in my budget).

Can you suggest some papers that would benefit from transfer functions?

Anyone else willing to share?

Peter Marquis-Kyle