Digital BW, The Print

Thanks for your replies.  (fwiw, I have a 1280 and winXP)

> Roy has done some very interesting work on the soft proofing 
issue, as noted
> in the post, below.

Roy : Thanks for the response.  When are you porting the RIP to 
Windows, so i can use it? :)  I assume the profiles generated by 
that system aren't be portable over to my winXP/1280 setup, are they?

Paul :

> To be honest, I just match the grayscale image on the monitor to 
the print.

I wonder if this will be easier to do for greyscale than color.  I 
have some experience with the ColorVision callibration suite and 
always have a bit of frustration when it comes to eyeballing 
comparisons between print/monitor.  Because of this, I feel paranoid 
about going with the less accurate (or just more reliant on me) way 
of doing things. :)

> To match the monitor's grayscale image to the print, I use a 
Photoshop
> custom dot gain curve.  That procedure is explained on my 
information web
> page, the second URL below.

Thanks for the information and developing the resource.  

I guess I can just give it a go and see how I can match the 
results.  I am assuming eliminating test prints is perhaps an 
unreasonable goal, but I guess it's just up to me to see how "good" 
I am at my comparisons and image editing.

The MIS vs. Piezo price difference is very appealing, but not if I, 
as a novice digital printamaker can't get what I subjectively think 
are accurate prints easily.  Ok, maybe that's unreasonable again. :)

To give some context, I am a working photog that would like to 
produce some archival, fine art b&w prints.

Thanks,

-Kev