Digital BW, The Print

Thats a good point about curves.  I'm loving the control Photoshop 
affords, but I don't think it's completely sunk in yet.  I still find 
myself falling back to old ways.  For example, I still find it easier 
to judge an image by it's printed output, than by looking at it on 
the monitor.  I'm sure that will change as I spend more time with 
Photoshop and become more comfortable working in digital.

Regarding tweaking curves for black and white, do you know of any 
good books that address this control in terms of b/w prints?  There 
are loads of good photoshop photography books out there, but I've yet 
to find one that focuses on using photoshop for strictly b/w output. 
They all seem to be focused on color, and treat b/w as an 
afterthought.  

Thanks for the feedback, it's been very informative! 

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Paul D. DeRocco
> \I suppose you could do that, but remember, in digital you don't
> just have one exposure time variable, you have an infinite range of
> possibilities through curve adjustment. The most generally useful
> "brightness" adjustment is a gamma-like curve created by dragging 
the
> midpoint of the Curves dialog up or down, but this isn't the same 
as an
> exposure variation in an enlarger.
>  
> .... some stuff snipped ...
 
> However, the kinds of tweaks you need to do to improve a particular 
image
> usually involve specific parts of the dynamic range (e.g., 
darkening the
> blacks or bringing out shadow detail), rather than the whole range. 
When I
> polish a B&W image, I usually wind up appying a fairly odd-shaped 
curve, of
> the sort that one could never get away with in a color image, and 
one that
> is tailored to that image. So I don't think a strip that 
merely "exposed"
> the test image by varying amounts would be that helpful.
> 
> I think the better approach is to try to improve your tools for 
better
> screen-print matching. Then you won't have to experiment so much.
> 
> --
> 
> Ciao,               Paul D. DeRocco
> Paul                mailto:pderocco@i...