Digital BW, The Print

on 10/1/01 11:53 AM, Mark Tucker wrote:

> This whole Piezo/MIS thing is a tough cookie. For me, like Phil, I
> was just thrown for a loop when I actually did the whole
> applying-the-Roark-curve process. I am just so accustomed to
> using a gut-level approach when preparing and toning an image;
> when I applied the curve, and I saw the monitor image go Jimi
> Hendrix green and yellow, I didn't know what to think. At that
> point, it became so apparent that this was purely math at work
> here; the monitor image meant nothing. But that then eliminates
> gut-level intuition -- how then do you attack/alter an image if that
> first test print comes out too grey, or too contrasty, or solarized? It
> was as if I had been working in English, and then somehow I
> was required to start working in Russian all of a sudden; I was
> out of my element.


Mark,

Just curious, were you working in 16-bit mode?

Although I do a good deal of editing in 16-bit mode, I usually do downsample
to 8-bits so I can apply Paul's curves as an adjustment layer, which I can
easily turn on or off (I use an 1160). I click it on to print, and off to
edit. When I used Paul's curves for the earlier Variable Tone inkset Paul
wrote curves for, which we mixed ourselves from Piezo quads, with
Generations Pigs for the toner, I got a pretty good screen to print match
when I viewed my image with his curve layer turned off. Now with the MIS
formulation and curves, while I get a good printed grayscale, my prints are
darker relative to my screen than the other inkset was, so I made and saved
a luminosity curve which brightens the print accordingly. I load it on an
adjustment layer just below Paul's curves. BTW, I've noticed for me it's
very important that if I have a stack of layers, that Paul's curves are
ALWAYS at the very top of the stack. Anyway, for this inkset I use Paul's
curves and my own luminosity curve together (his still at the very top, mine
just below his), and in PS 6 I can place them together into a layer set
(which again must sit at the top of the layer stack), which I can easily
click on to print and off to edit.

Works pretty well, and I get a good screen to print match. the only time I
see the image screwy is just before I hit print.

One other thing, sometimes viewing the image through the curve will
illuminate some of my bad edits that had otherwise gone unnoticed, IOW, they
can visually exacerbate some of the rough masks I may have made, and rough
tonal transitions, etc. So, they can be useful to view through now and again
after you get the hang of them. It's kinda like learning how to squint to
visualize what'll happen to your shadows on film. ;-)

Todd Flashner