Digital BW, The Print

Peter,

> Creating the right transfer function

"transfer function"?  I've never heard this called "transfer
function"...where did you get that?

> There are many ways of doing this - the
> Curve adjustment tool in Photoshop is one way, creating a Curve
> adjustment layer is another.  Creating custom profiles is also a way
> to shape the transfer function.  One of my new favorites is creating
> a set of custom gradient maps in Photoshop.  I have ones for
> stretching the midtones, brightening the shadows, etc.

Everything you describe, from what I can tell, is simply tonal adjustment
curve...and in simpler terms, a LUT (Look Up Table)...I'm not sure why you
call it "transfer function", but I agree, that adjusting the tonal curve is
how one would move the tones around to make them "fall" where you might find
them more beneficial for different printing "methodologies"/dithering
algorithms.

> All of these (and there are plenty of others) do the same thing -
> they determine how a particular RGB or grayscale value in the
> original image will be represented to the printer for output.

Perhaps this is what you meant, but were being more simplistic, but they
don't "represent" anything to the printer, they "represent" it to the
dithering algorithm, as the pixel values are converted to dots before being
printed.

Regards,

Austin