Digital BW, The Print

At Antonis's suggestion, I contacted Bowhaus a few days ago to 
ask if there was a recent beta they could send that might fix a 
streaking/banding problem. The problem had been reported by 
_some_ of us when printing areas of 100% black with OPM on 
the Epson 2200.

Huzzah! They did (send me a copy of OPM 1.02b5), and it does 
(fix my problems). Areas with 100% black  now print without 
streak or band defects. In addition, the program's "image adjust" 
features now works properly (instead of freezing the program 
when attempting to use the lightness or contrast sliders). 
Huzzah, again.

I don't have densitometer data yet, but visual evaluation of testing 
--with my "standard" print and a 26-step grayscale--indicates that 
the new version gives noticeably  higher densities across the 
lower half of the scale and probably somewhat higher contrast 
as well. This is based on using Carl Schofield's linearized profile 
set.The grayscale (printed with Carl's "cool" IJC profile) is also a 
bit colder-toned than before. However the test prints are not yet 
fully dried, so these conclusions about tone could change with 
time. I assume that Carl linearized the profiles by printing with 
the previous OPM version, so I imagine it's no surprise that the 
profiles might need relinearizing now(?).  As before, a 50/50 
blend of Carl's "cool" and "warm" profiles gave a good neutral 
tone.

I'm encouraged that Bowhaus has continued to refine (or at least 
debug) their very capable software. At this stage, OPM seems 
capable of fulfilling my B&W printing needs, and the prospect of 
purchasing the IJC module becomes very appealing.

Phil