Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Kevin" <kfj_98@y...> wrote:
> 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?

Kevin,

I'm slowly working on Windows to figure out its idiosyncrasies. 
Unfortunately I don't have lots of extra time.

The SoftProofs I've done, work on any system, but they are JUST soft proofs.
They don't play any role in actually making prints.  In the color world
a profile can be used both for printing and for proofing, but with 
quadtone inks they are completely different things.  So at this point they
would only be interesting on windows in that they show what the inkset looks like.

Someone with an Eye-One and windows could create softproofs of the
Paul Roark curves using the info I wrote up.  And as Paul said you can do
your own by eyeball and a custom dot gain curve  -- this gets you quite
a ways towards a useful proof.

Roy

> 
> 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