Digital BW, The Print

Mr. Campbell described an experience very similar to mine.  Printing 
these days is SO much easier than what we used to have to do.  Even 
so, I find that even though my prints always come very close to what 
my monitor leads me to expect, I often need to print 1,2, or three 
more times to arrive at what I really want.  Looking at an image on a 
monitor is just so different from looking at that image on paper.  
Maybe the fact that I was well into my 50's before switching from 
chemicals will forever prevent me from achieving the one print and 
done workflow that seems to be current ideal.

I might add that following Mr. Brooks' instructions in Shutterbug 
some years ago for adjusting my monitor, and making some rather minor 
use of Color Controls in the Epson driver, are all I've ever needed 
to get my old, but very good Viewsonic to accurately predict my 
print.  For me at least, spending hundreds of dollars for various 
hardware and software to "calibrate" my workflow has not been 
necessary.

eric perkins


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-- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "B. Campbell" 
<bellis60@v...> wrote:
> I've been reading this thread without understanding some of ithe 
technical
> stuff but the basic gist seems to be complaints about the 
difficulty in
> getting a first print to match a monitor, thus sometimes requiring 
that a
> second print be made.
> 
> I'm perhaps coming from a different perspective than some 
participants
> because I don't photograph or print for a living but the notion 
that this is
> a problem surprises me. It wasn't unusual at all for me to go 
through ten or
> fifteen iterations in a darkroom to get my final print. For my 
first try at
> printing a negative in my darkroom my usual output for a print I 
planned to
> exhibit was roughly one final print per three to four hour darkroom 
session,
> sometimes  longer. And most of that time was spent doing drudge 
work like
> setting up the chemicals, jiggling trays, moving dodging and 
burning tools
> around, washing, toning, drying, cleaning up, etc. Of the three or 
four
> hours, maybe a half hour at the most was spent doing anything 
creative, the
> rest of the time was manual labor any idiot could have done if 
properly
> instructed.
> 
> So I'm supposed to be concerned that after maybe a half hour to an 
hour of
> creative work on the computer to get the image to look right on the 
monitor,
> I sometimes have to push the print button twice to get a final 
digital
> print?
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "David B. Brooks" <fotografx@m...>
> To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> Cc: <dlruckus@y...>
> Sent: Sunday, October 17, 2004 12:44 AM
> Subject: Re: [Digital BW] How reliable/ precise is your b&w print 
workflow?
> 
> 
>