Digital BW, The Print

Hi Bernie,

My experience has been much like yours. Like Paul Roark I think much
of it is due to printer differences from print to print. I also think
that it's nearly impossible to accurately judge each different photo
from the screen. Different tonal distributions across a picture cause
the appearance to be different. Even color mmanagement practices only
get one in the ballpark if you are being critical (much better than
nothing however). I too found compression in the shadows to be a
problem (particularly on the 1200,s I use ) requiring compensation.
Each paper needs that attention.They vary even more than silver papers
     
of the past. At the beginning , lacking anything but the photoshop
supplied moniter calibration , I worked exactly as always done in the
darkroom and relied on absolute RGB or density %s to be sure of at
least coming close enough to zero in on final prints. Now I profile
each paper I use up front , use soft proofing , still keep a close eye
on absolute numbers , spend a fair amount of time considering whether
or not I'm really seeing on screen what I think I'm seeing , and then
end up making hard proofs in most cases anyway. The only change I've
noted is that I make fewer gross mistakes and often end up with prints
and proof prints being close enough that if I hung them on different
walls , later on I might not notice any difference between them.
  I suspect that those who say 100% right out of the box are perhaps
less obsessed.
 Best.

Duane


-- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Bernie Ess"
<albatros-@g...> wrote:
> 
> When I started b&w printing on an Epson, I thought one of the
> advantages over the darkroom was that once its well set up, there
> would be no trying and experimenting and that I would have 100%
> predictable results.
> 
> Now, a few hundreds or probably thousands of prints later I find that
> this is
> not exactly the case. On my 2100/UT7 workflow I find the following
> issues:
> 
> 1. My output from the file + Roark curves is roughly, but never
> exactly what I see on my monitor. When I look at the grayscale on my
> flat panel the 100% to 0%
> steps are quite well separated, but in the uncorrected print the deep
> shadows (around 95%
> black) are not well resolved, 95% comes out totally
> black: So I had to make a curve that boosts the deep shadows.
> 
> 2. I often find myself having to do several prints of the same photo,
> because the general "look" of the print is not like on the screen, see
> also my other message about the foliage and trees. 
> 
> 3. The most mysterious thing is that my output seems to vary from time
> to time. Sometimes I find the prints too dark compared to the screen,
> sometimes they are slightly too light.
> 
> Finally its not that different from the darkroom, I would say
> gradually more predictable (maybe even by a large margin, but that is
> probably because my traditional darkroom skills are so poor).
> 
> So, do you have a 100% WYSIWYG workflow?
> 
> Thanks for your input,
> 
> Bernhard