Digital BW, The Print

I'm using a Samsung SyncMaster 172T LCD connected to a Windows XP 
system via a fully digital video card, and printing on an Epson 2200 
with ImagePrint 5.6 "Lite."

I've used both Monaco and Colorvision spyders to calibrate the LCD 
monitor. The bad news is that neither will calibrate the brightness 
on an LCD. They do color only. Monaco did a poor job of calibrating 
the color. Colorvision did a little better. Both their support groups 
tell me to just set the brightness where I like it and go. Sounds 
like bad advice to me, but apparently no calibration company has 
really solved the LCD problem yet. Their current "solution" simply 
means they figured out how to modify the sypder so it can sit on the 
LCD screen without doing any damage. 

The good news is that my B&W work is very good WYSIWYG. The B&W image 
on screen is very, very close to the Epson 2200/Imageprint print. The 
color prints are also very good, but slightly darker and slightly 
less saturated than the on screen image. This, I'm told by a few 
other amatures with a little more experience than me, is normal 
because a monitor screen is a transmissive device and a print is a 
reflective device.