Digital BW, The Print

>Nicholas Hartmann was kind enough to send me a print that he made
>using only black ink by setting the Epson driver to "Black Only". He
>printed with the black from the MIS VM ink set.
>
>I hope that Nick is out there and will post his full workflow from
>film to scan to Photoshop to print. I hope he joins the print
>exchange and sends out a Mono-Ink print.

Thanks to Martin (and Tyler and Todd) for their kind words on the
black-only printing method. The bottom line is that it works for me and my
negatives and my perceptions; others have (I hope) very different aesthetic
expectations for their own work.

I won't be able to join the print exchange this time around because a) it's
closed and b) I am not quite ready to go into production. If there is
another exchange, I'll do my best to get in line early.

As far as the workflow is concerned, here is everything I can think of from
start to finish:

Camera: Leica M6
Lens: 50/2 Summicron
Aperture: somewhere between f/4 and f/11

Film: Kodak TMax 400 (TMY)
Developer: Kodak TMax, one-shot, 65 ml of concentrate in 500 ml water
(don't ask)
Initial 2-minute water bath; then developed typically 7.5 minutes at 75
degrees F, two quick inversions every 30 seconds.
Stop, fix, PermaWash, water wash, PhotoFlo, hang up to dry.

Scanner: Minolta Dimage Scan Dual II
Resolution: 2820 ppi (max.)
Settings: Automatic, I guess. The prescan histogram usually looks great, so
I haven't been messing with anything.

Import into Photoshop, crop to eliminate white space, resize (to approx.
6x9" for now).
Remove spots using Clone (rubber stamp) tool.

Adjust global contrast with Curves and/or Levels.
Adjust local areas with Burn/Dodge tool <gasp> or (just discovered this)
the Adjust + Snapshot + Undo + History Brush trick (more later).

Monitor settings on my iMac are:
Contrast: maximum
Brightness: centered + 3 clicks
in Adobe Gamma: using Macintosh gamma 1.8 setting, calibrate the
box-within-box target to be as uniform as possible.

I have worked out a very mild Transfer Function curve (in the Page Setup
dialog) that compensates for otherwise slightly blocked-up blacks and
blown-out highlights on paper. I believe I now have a very good match
between what I see on-screen and what appears on the paper; this will need
tweaking if I decide to standardize on a paper other than EHWM.

Ink: MIS VM black
Paper (for now): Epson Heavyweight Matte

Print dialog (Epson 1160):
Paper: Matte Paper-Heavyweight
Color: Black
Mode: Custom
Source Space: Gamma 2.2 (yes, this is different from the monitor gamma)
Print Space: Profile: Same as Source

in the Advanced sub-dialog:
	Print Quality: Photo 1440 dpi
	Halftoning: Error Diffusion
	High Speed: off

Then hit the button and wait...

That's all I can think of. Please post questions if you have them; I will
need to take them home and look stuff up.

Best,

-- Nick

NICHOLAS HARTMANN                                +1 (414) 271-4890
611 N. Broadway, Suite 509                  fax: +1 (414) 271-4892
Milwaukee, WI 53202, USA                       polyglot@...

Technical and scientific translator:  German and French -> English