Digital BW, The Print

Steve,

I think you are right that there is a "gamut compression" going on.  But
I think there's a basic fitting of one gamut into another happening no
matter what.  I'm not even sure how you'd compare a 75 gray in a file, a 75=

gray on the screen and a 75 gray on paper in absolute terms.  What are
the units?

Although I can see you point in your 10 to 80 example, I'm not to sure
trying to do things "absolute" is great either.  Wouldn't you result in all=

the values from 80 to 100 being mapped to the same max 80 density?
Maintaining the best separation you can throughout seems like a better
alternative.   This is analogous to the color rendering -- using Perceptual=

rather than Absolute Colormetric.

Roy

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Steve Kale <stevekale@=
b...> 
wrote:
> Roy, thanks for the response.  I agree that soft proofing works well.  Th=
e
> interesting thing is that I tend to work on an image without it and then
> turn it on when it comes to printing.  I then find a curve that I think b=
est
> turns the image back to how it looked with proofing off (the premise bein=
g I
> might want to print to different media) which is inherently a little hit =
and
> miss.  Still can¹t help thinking that this undoes something that was done=

> before.  I was wondering if there was a sort of gamut compression factor
> (lay man¹s terms) going on.  That is, if the monitor can represent a scal=
e
> of 0 to 100 whereas say the printer can only produce 10 to 80 (paper not
> being perfect white and the inks not being able to get perfect black). (T=
he
> 10 and the 80 are measured as part of the linearisation process.)  If the=

> driver, curves and linearisation process then mapped 0 to 10 and 100 to 8=
0
> and all else in between proportionately then there would be quite a tonal=

> shift.  A pixel originally at 75 would get thumped down to 65.  This woul=
d
> all cause an image to trend to mid gray and print a lot lighter.  What I
> think we would prefer to have happen is that the 75 stays at 75 and an 85=

> pixel simply hits the max of 80.  Just thinking out loud....
> 
> 
> From: "Roy Harrington" <roy@h...>
> 
> Hi Steve,
> 
> I'm not sure I can give you much theory behind it all.   I mostly go by
> whatever
> looks and works the best.  I've always been surprised by how poor a simpl=
e
> 21step looks on a well profiled monitor.   On the other hand the softproo=
fed
> 21step has much nicer separation everywhere and matches the print too.
> On the Piezo website the rollovers that show their softproofing exhibit t=
he
> same dramatic tonal difference.  I don't know why but softproofing is so
> good
> as far as I'm concerned that I just use it all the time.
> 
> I would think "simulate paper white" would be correct, too.  But again by=

> trying
> both it just doesn't look as good.  With EEM the highlights look way to
> blue.
> So I leave paper white and ink black off.
> 
> Roy
> 
> 
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]