Digital BW, The Print

Sam,

I find that on a calibrated monitor set up with a 1.8 gamma in the
Photoshop prefs for grayscale, I get a very close match to what
OPM prints (using the 1.8 default on OPM and setting the linearization
to -6 for the profile).
True, the shadows may look a tiny bit more open in the print, but I
never had a problem anticipating that.
The other thing that may throw you is that "monitor black" and
"print black" can be very different and no gamma or gain curve can
fix the 100% point of the display. For this reason I prefer to work
on a Sony Artisan that gives you complete manual control
 over the contrast of the display.

The issue of color and paper preview, as has been noted here, can
be solved by making soft proof profiles to use in Photoshop. Those
can be made for any print driver, not just the ones we are discussing here.
 I am sure opinions will differ - but I find that once the grayscale itself is
accurately displayed, I would rather see a hard copy proof and judge
the effect of ink color or paper density on a real print. Even with
color work on the best monitor, nothing beats how our eyes (i.e. brains)
respond to reflective copy when it comes to that final tweak.

Antonis


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Sam McCandless 
<samcc@v...> wrote:

.......

> And speaking of softproofing, I assume QTR and IJC require an equally 
> good monitor/display and adjustment of it? But again I wonder which 
> options are now thought good enough to exploit the software to best 
> effect.