Digital BW, The Print

I've been using the Vision Saver for at least a year now- bought the 
floor stand model, 18 watts, when the series first came out. My second 
choice would be the desk clamp model. I really like to scoot the floor 
stand around and it works well peering inside printers to get to 
parking pads, etc.

I couldn't compare it head to head to a true-color, but I did find a 
local store that had the floor stand true-color set up and I twiddled 
with it for about an hour. Then I went home and ordered the 
vision-saver version. Couldn't say how much better it is- seems 
marginally so<shrug>.

The primary benefit for me is that imperfections from dust specks to 
bronzing show up well under this light- it is my default proofing 
light. I now use it as a standard light to judge images, except when 
choosing mat board to frame I put print under a diffuse skylight.

If I had to take a guess at color shift (and I'm not the best to ask), 
well I examined some uncorrected 7600 BW prints which looked sort of 
neutral in tungsten and very green in BRIGHT Colorado sunshine 
outdoors. My Ott-Lite showed the print as greenish, but not quite as 
bad as when I took it outdoors. FWIW, my eyeball opinion.

I had heard way back that Jon Cone used a light box with a variable 
output control, which he set up next to his monitor I believe. Maybe 
this is a good way to go...
Jim H. 




--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "K2 Chittin" <k2lists@h...> 
wrote:
> Colin
> 
> I was just revisiting this topic myself last night.  I actually 
> looked at the Vision Saver lamp on this page:
> 
> http://www.ott-lite.com/secondary/secondary.asp?
> WhichPage=prod&sub=GA&whichcategory=subcategory
> 
> I think the "GA" in the URL stands for Graphic Artists.
> 
> I didn't realise there were various models of the lamp.  Perhaps you 
> should contact OTT and ask which one has the 5000K lamp in it.
> 
> For me, in the end, I decided to substitute my low voltage halogen 
> lights with Solux 4700K bulbs.  I didn't dig around too much but 
> found good prices at www.usalight.com.
> 
> K2