Digital BW, The Print

This question refers to the spreadseet: CurveTemplate.xls 
 located in: Files > Image Processing  (on this site)

Could someone tell me what the gamma field in this spreadsheet should 
be set to?

It seems to me that if it's not set to a value of 1, then the output 
will not linear (ie 50%in = 50%out, etc).

In all the books I've looked in so far, none have given an exact 
procedure to generate a dot gain (or transfer) curve - at least what 
sort of curve the outpout should have.

Are we to shoot for a particular gamma in the print or is this just a 
matter of taste?

I'm trying to use this to get better results from BO printing on a 
Epson 820.

I'd appreciate any help at all with this as I'm about to mad will all 
the prints, tests, experiments, etc. that I've done so far.

Even a response of just half a word ..........?

Thanks.
David Polasek
dp4391@...