Digital BW, The Print

Josh,

>... So where should a guy like me (someone new to
>digital b&w) go to learn about histograms in relation to our craft?
 
There are lots of good books on digital printing, in general.  Although I
contribute to some of these books, I, frankly, find it almost impossible to
learn software from a book.  I see them as references only.  As such, I keep
the latest Photoshop manual within reach.

I assume the alternatives to Photoshop have similar functions.  As a
practical matter, Photoshop ("PS") is defining a large part of the language
we now use.  If full PS is too expensive, I'd buy the PS Elements or Picture
Window.

I think this forum is a living, real-time book that is way ahead of the
printed versions.  On the other hand, I think the Yahoo search function is
so poor that I'm going to be exploring alternatives to this forum this year.
The ability to tap into the emerging competition between Google and
Microsoft (and others) with respect to searching data bases is going to be
something I want to take advantage of.

The way I like to learn software is play with the most important functions
and see what they do.  Just exploring the items on the drop-down menus
reached from the top PS bar gives you an overview.

What initially fascinated me the most in Photoshop was the Unsharp masking.
With the monitor at 100% magnification (double click the magnifying glass),
seeing what the various settings did amazed me.

With the histogram, the basic idea is to fully utilize the dynamic range of
the file and printing medium without clipping off the highlights or shadows.
Pull up a file, go the Image, Adjustments, Levels, and the histogram
appears.  Hold down the Alt key while sliding the end points and see the
image visually indicate what you'll be clipping off.  

If you want to fully utilize the dynamic range of the medium (and I do and
so did A. Adams), prints should have some pure black (0 on the 0-255, 8-bit
digital scale, but also referred to as 100% in terms of the ink load) and
very little pure paper white (255 on the 8-bit scale, and 0% ink).

You can also slide the middle point.  This is like changing the gamma.  You
can see the effects on the monitor.  I prefer to use the curves function for
these types of adjustments, however.

At any rate, learn by diving in.  If you have a cheap but good printer like
the C86, inks (MIS EZ), and papers (Costco glossy and Epson Enhanced Matte),
it won't cost much to just start printing.

Enjoy.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com