Digital BW, The Print

Hi Paul,

> > I'm about to buy a densitometer, probably an X-rite, for measuring my
> > B&W prints, and before I buy such an expensive -even when second hand-
> >   device, I want to know for sure: is a COLOR densitometer suitable
> > for B&W?
> > Or is it better to buy a densitometer that does only B&W?
>
> What's a color densitometer? As far as I know, density has nothing to do
> with color.

Color is determined by "sensing" density (just like in a scanner or digital
camera does), through RGB or other color filters, so in that regard,
determining what color something is, is based on "reading" the density.

To answer the original question, for B&W, using an RGB analyzer, each
channel will give the same value...that is what grayscale is.  There may be
a mode that doesn't use any filters (or a Neutral Density filter) to read
unfiltered directly.  What specific model are you interested in, BTW?

Regards,

Austin