Digital BW, The Print

Hello Ted,

How do you set up your soft proofing? That's the only way to get 
WYSIWYG. Roy Harrington has posted in one of his messages a LAB 
Grayscale work space, and that is what I use for both the work space 
and proofing space. My print and monitor images match, allowing for 
dry down to be just a tad lighter than when it comes off the printer. 
Try this and see if it works. Make sure your monitor is calibrated. I 
use Gray Gamma 1.8 and 5000K to allow me a longer tonal range in the 
lower Zones and viewing under an Ott-Lite.

Your friend in Photography,

Johnny


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "tgos3" 
<egosfield@c...> wrote:
> 
> Hi --
> This my first post to the group.  I have spent a fair bit of time 
> looking through previous posts and 'files', as well as relevant QTR 
> and UT2 website files, help files, etc.
> 
> I have done B&W gelatin-silver printing for about 40 years, using 
> Zone system for the last 20 or so.  I used to use Ilfobrome, 
> Gallerie, Seagull, and Dektol.  Now I use a Windows XP Pro, a 1280 
> with Epson inks, profiled in PhotoCal 2.6 for color, unprofiled for 
> G2.2 sisngle black printing, and a Spyder monitor profile on a CRT 
> monitor.  Have been almost happy with single tone Epson black, 
except 
> for the nasty dither pattern in the high values.  Tried the 
> ImagePrint RIP demo, but still had metamerism,(faint magenta) 
> although the dither is much less obtrusive.  Don't want to spend 
the 
> bucks for an obsolescent printer with dongle and still have 
> metamerism.
> 
> Sprang for UT2 inks, which i used up (well, there's a bunch of 
Eboni 
> left over) in a day of experimenting and printing.  When viewing 
the 
> 21 patch file, from 90% to 50% seems pretty compressed, as do the 
> patches on a printout. I only have a transmission densitometer, so 
I 
> couldn't measure them.  My UT2 prints certainly do not have the 
> contrast in the shadows that i could achieve with single black, or 
> with ImagePrint.  Reducing the ink limit and gamma in QTRgui didn't 
> really solve the problem, since the blacks got weaker without the 
> shadow contrast problem being solved.
> 
> I tried Epson HW Matte, Archival Matte, and Arches Hot press 
> watercolor.  I tried setting paper type (and presumably ink 
deposit) 
> to Photo Paper, Matte Heavyweight, and Photo Quality Glossy Film 
> (which was the best).  I tried printing both with QTR and using 
> Paul's curves in Photoshop.  (eventually had to reinstall my 1280 
> driver due to software nastiness/printer hang)  I played a bit with 
> Gama setting using the Epson driver to print at 1.8 or 2.2.  I 
tried 
> carbon, neutral, and cool curves in photoshop.
> 
> For some images Carbon looks nice, but still the low densities are 
> pretty muddy and flat looking by my standards, using UT2 inks, when 
> the gray mode print looks good on the screen, and has printed fine 
> using other ink/apps.  I was able to make new files that printed 
> better, by making the print look 'too light' in G2.2 mode on the 
> screen, before RGB/curves were applied.
> 
> I tried making a PS Working Space custom file to change the gray 
> scale image on screen, but even with 'preview' checked i can not 
get 
> the image to update on the screen in real time.  PS seems to be set 
> up to have reflection density values entered numerically, although 
i 
> can move the curve.
> 
> Before i order any more MIS inks, i am interested to know whether 
> people have had to change their images to adapt to UT2 inks, as one 
> would, say, to a new paper/developer combination, or have they been 
> able, using stock Ruark curves, to get 'good' prints, matching the 
> G2.2 monitor image of the unmanipulated files that have printed 
well 
> in the past.
> 
> At this point i am tempted to wait for the new Epson printer 
> announced in Japan, which supposedly prints tritone blacks.  
> Basically I want a good Dmax and invisible dither in the lightest 
> tones below paper white.  I think the stock Epson black ink looks 
ok, 
> although the UT2 colors are ok with me too.
> 
> So far UT2 'caliberation' has been more expensive and time 
consuming 
> than it would have been for wet printing with a new combination ;-
)  
> Kinda frustrating that at this point in digital printing we still 
> don't have a conveniently achievable WYSIWYG method to print high 
> quality B&W.  I am perfectly willing to believe this is entirely 
due 
> to user error and inexperience on my part, since so many others 
seem 
> to be happy with their results.  I'd love to hear what I am doing 
> wrong.
> 
> 
> Ted