Digital BW, The Print

Hi Pieris.

Like you, I found it easier to profile the papers I,m using with BO
printing by means of curves. It's not just that each paper takes the
ink differently but that the ink itself was compressing shadow details
as you intimated. I used the same 21 step table as is used with the
quad/hextone inks to develope curves. All it serves to do is to be
sure that what I decide a particular tone should be during image
workup is what ends up on the final print. That doesn't help me much
if my "vision" ends up being not so great on any given image but then
what would. It does let me work to a standard where I feel comfortable.
I don't know if the curves would translate to others or not but I
would think so as long as ink,printer,paper etc were the same.
There are many ways to the same end.

Best.
Duane.
 




--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Pieris
Berreitter" <pieris@y...> wrote:
> 
> Clayton,
> 
> Sorry to take so long to get back to your post on this topic. Some
> unfortunate incidents last week put me out of work for a few days.
> 
> I understand what you're saying when you say no one curve can be
> applied to any image to make a black-only print. I also recognize that
> each image needs the careful attention of the printer's craft to best
> represent the aesthetic that the photographer intends. There is no
> one-stop solution for this, and the curve I made is certainly not
> going to help the printer who is looking for such a panacea.
> 
> What I found when I tried BO printing was that the straight printing
> method was giving me very, very different looking images from the FS
> prints I had been making. They had a very sharp toe and very long,
> drawn out midtones and highlights. If I wanted my print to look like
> that, it should look like that on-screen.
> 
> I do not have a perfect WYSIWYG workflow for FS printing but it's very
> good. BO printing with the traditional "just click print" method was
> not giving me what I wanted, especially when I'm trying to compare BO
> printing to FS printing.
> 
> So, for the purpose of (1) WYSIWYG workflow and (2) swapping between
> QTR-FS/Roark-FS/BO and trying to get similar results, I made that
> curve. I'm not saying I have achieved both of these goals yet, but I
> am convinced that profiling curves are necessary to get there.
> 
> Regard,
> -Pieris
> 
> digital darkroom blog: http://www.pmb.net/darkroom