Digital BW, The Print

> From: Don M [mailto:don@...]
>
>   I recently subscribed here, and I can tell I'm in over my head.  You
> folks are doing complicated printing that I probably will never attempt.
>
> I wondered if anyone can point me to any websites or books they've found
> good for someone just beginning to work with digital B&W ?
>
> Just to explain, I'm a casual photographer.  20 years ago learned how to
> shoot a Pentax K1000 manual SLR, and I understand the basics of
> photography.  I always wanted to shoot some B&W but never got
> around to it,
> save a few C-41 process rolls here and there.
>
> Now the digital world offers so much in the way of B&W options.  And I'm
> getting started.
>
> But as I say, I think I need to be sent somewhere for beginners
> first.  Any recommendations?

You think B&W is complicated, try color. ;-)

My advice, for the greatest simplicity, is to start out in black-only (BO)
ink mode, if your printer has such a mode. The results will be a bit
grainier than using color inks to do B&W, but you don't have to worry about
color casts, beyond the slight uniform cast built into the black ink. (E.g.,
Epson 2200 black ink tends to the warm side.)

Unless you're shooting and scanning B&W film, this still leaves the issue of
how to convert from color to B&W in the first place. If you have Photoshop,
the Channel Mixer is a good general tool to use for the conversion, followed
by judicious use of Curves to optimize the contrast range. If you have other
editing software that doesn't have the equivalent of Channel Mixer, you can
generally accomplish the same sort of thing by manipulating the levels of
the individual color channels before doing the usual color to B&W
conversion. You often have to yank the individual color curves around pretty
drastically to get a good B&W image, much more than you'd ever dare do for a
color image.

--

Ciao,               Paul D. DeRocco
Paul                mailto:pderocco@...