Digital BW, The Print

> Or does the non-linearity of the scanner make it simply the
> moral equivalent of chasing your tail ?  But it seems like with
> a standard grayscale, one could linearize the scanner.


John,

I know many use scanners for color profiling and the like and get 
closer-than-nothing-at-all results. In bw the big issue is not so much 
linearizing the scanner as how far into the black shadows of a print it can 
"see".  The Xrite 810 gives stable, repeatable results within +-0.01 way into 
the  2.00s (i.e. dmax in the range of 2.5 and up). Don't know how a scanner 
would compare trying to see through a glass and all that. In a pinch, it's a start, 
I suppose, but you are likely to get inaccurate profiles with distorted shadow 
separation. I never tried it myself to tell you for sure.

As I see it, with all these densitometers going for a few hundred $ on eBay, as 
Robert mentioned, anyone with a serious commitment to bw printing should 
have one. Even if not to make custom profiles with IJC, at least to verify what  
canned profiles are doing. Printmakers can find themselves chasing their tails 
adjusting the image and breaking delicate histograms just to fight an old 
canned profile.

In the days of the old piezo plug in, I remember trying to print PhotoRag out of 
a 1280 with Piezotones. The results were disastrous with all sorts of breaks in 
what should have been a smooth gray ramp. Inkjetmall advised me to try all 
their profiles until one worked better. Sure enough, Sommerset came in a little 
closer. I found the whole experience good for weekend work, not for 
exhibition-level prints.  So I have come to believe in reading densities and 
making profiles with IJC. It has made a big difference in my prints.

Antonis