Digital BW, The Print

> Dan,
> 
> After checking around I see that you did indeed put a dent in your
> to...uh...productivity tool account.

Well I bought my DTP-41 from http://www.colorok.com and the price was lower
than elsewhere - but still comparatively steep.  I just drank a half liter
of Absolut before I logged on to the site and my inhibitions went right
away.

> One thing I did notice on ColorVision's site is that Profiler Pro
> includes Profiler RGB and CMYK, which can use a scanner in place of
> the spectrophotometer. Is this even worth considering even as an
> interim first step?

Tyler has been trying that out and he had some success with it - but I think
he came to the conclusion that there is a good bit of difficulty in the
shadows with using a scanner based profiler.  Still, could be a good
starting point.  Tyler?

> 
> The other question is how would to work the variable tone capability
> of the MIS VM ink set into the process?
> 
Variable tone works exactly the same.  No changes in the process.  However,
when you make your RGB separation curves and preview the results you need to
consider not just the gradation but also the color tint.  So the curve
development will be a bit more complex and maybe take a bit more time since
you are balancing a couple of other variables.  However, since you can
preview the whole thing while you tweak the curves it shouldn't be all that
much of a problem.  You won't have any of the slider controls in the driver
though since you pretty much need to use "No Color Adjustment" in the driver
if you want to create a set of curves that keep the dark inks out of the
light tones. 

Dan Culbertson