Digital BW, The Print

At 6:52 PM +0000 8/5/04, jvajdos@... wrote:
>I am on a PC and have no idea what kind of video display card I
>have.  It's probably 5 years old, and it came free with my computer,
>so I'm sure it's not very good!

But, judging from what Paul and Tom posted, Jennifer, I think your 
old card is probably good enough because the card in my equally old 
Mac is. And if it's not, you apparently can get one which is for $30 
- $40. Good news.


>I am hoping to spend less than $400, so I'm sure I will have to pick 
>and choose options. I usually print jpeg 4 X 6, 5 X 7 and 8 X 10s.

More good news. Because I think it means that a 17-inch CRT will be 
big enough for you, and I believe you can get a good 17" CRT for a 
lot less than $350 (allowing $50 for the card contingency). I'd check 
the PC World reviews. If I had to buy one tonight w/o checking the 
reviews, I think I'd buy a Viewsonic from their Graphics or Pro 
series, but I'm not sure which one.


>Calibrate and profile?  I have no idea what that even means!

Adjusting the monitor so that as you massage the image (in Photoshop 
Elements 2?) you can see on the monitor a useful approximation to 
what you'd see come out of a profiled printer. But your budget 
probably can't accommodate all that color management, and I think you 
can manage without it.
--
Sam