Digital BW, The Print

Hello Roy,

>First, Clayton, thanks for the paper review.  The number of 
>good papers these days has made it hard to keep up with.  

Yes, it's hard to choose, especially for someone just coming into it.
I hope the article will help people get a good overview and not be
mindboggled by all the choices.


>I've never used Merlin paper and I'm not sure what you mean 
>by unusual contrast characteristics.   

When I first tried it it seemed to have an extended midtone range. 
Carl Schofield sent me a plot of it and indeed, it has a longer
straight line section with more abbreviated toe and shoulder.  This is
quite different from all the other papers I've tested, and it is
really nice for some images, giving an extended range, sort of
platinum-ish look (hard to describe, but distinctive).  As for color,
it's even more unusual because its paper color is upper-medium warm (4
on a scale of 1-6 among all the papers I tested) but renders Eboni
very cool, almost as cool as Condor.  So it has an unusual mix of cool
darks and warm highlights, the effect of which varies according to the
dark/light mix of the image.  Depending on the image, these effects
can be quite beautiful or simply not work at all.  You just have to
try and see.

The combination of these things makes it unique among the papers, and
it occurred to me that a profile for it would probably be unusual. 
I'll be curious about anything you have to say if you try some.


>BTW, while QTR can do variable tone inks etc. you could use QTR 
>for BO printing to take advantage of the ink limits, linearizing 
>and softproofing. 

Now _that's_ a thought.  Even though I'm not inclined to tinker with
profiles and such (one of the reasons I like BO) I might get a Windows
version when it's ready and fiddle with it.  Who knows, maybe I'll
like it <g>. 


Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm