Digital BW, The Print

Just a couple of thoughts to add to what Lou  and Steve have
been discussing in this thread:

It's useful to think of what these numbers do to your images before
you make a profile "by the numbers" alone. It's true that steps should
separate equally and that 25 should have whatever separation the aims
dictate from step 26.

But think of what your image has down there. The IJC aims often
have too much shadow detail for some images. In the case of some
of my scans from Delta 3200, I wouldn't need to show all that grain
"detail" down in the 95-100% range. Rather, I would like some separation
for the sake of tonal continuity, but very little. This doesn't apply
to all images all the time, so some judgment is required.

I would advise that when you have an otherwise good profile, but
with a compressed shadow in the 24-25-26 area, you print a sample
image first and see what it looks like.

In the past, this issue has caused me to hand-linearize just so that I
can shape the shadows the way I see fit for a given group of pictures.
Fortunately, the IJC curves are easy to move in very fine increments so
that I can hit the lin curve without IJC doing the math. It only takes
a few more rounds of trial-and-error, but is worth it only for high-end
finished results, not for casual proofing and such.

Antonis



--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "johndavidgill2003" <jdgill@l...> 
wrote:

..........

> One question though; When I print the target for linearisation my 
> densitometer reads step 26 darker than step 25 but to the eye there 
> is no difference whatsoever. If I linearise using the readings am I 
> in effect wasting shadow detail by having step 25 and 26 identical to 
> the eye even though step 26 is "densitometer darker"? Would I be 
> better tweaking the inks or the sliders to get a visible difference 
> between 25 and 26 before completing the profile?