Digital BW, The Print

The first thing I would recomend is to calibrate your screen and 
printer if you haven't done so as of yet. I would recomend 
colovision the web site is www.colorvision.com read the product info 
and decide what will fit your pocketbook and printing needs. The 
best souliton that also works with a rip will set you back $900.00 
but if you are really trying to calibrate your monitor with the 
printer, paper and ink then the price is worth the results.
Michael Fleming
michaelflemingphoto.com
--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "ap0izner" 
<ap0izner@y...> wrote:
> 
> 
> Hello everybody,
> 
> I have been a silent reader of this group for couple of week, so 
let 
> me introduce myself before asking the question. I am form Toronto, 
> Canada (although originally from Russia) and have been doing 
> photography for the last five years and with strong accent on b&w 
> photography for the last two years. I still have to learn many 
> things, so all criticism is welcomed. 
> 
> Up until a month ago, I was doing all my printing in the lab and 
now 
> I finally got my first printer – Epson 2200. Overall, I am very 
> happy with it and have no complaints, except some of the aspects 
of 
> printing bw pictures is still a mystery. Couple of days ago, I 
tried 
> Quadtone RIP, which solved some of my problems (thank you Roy!), I 
> am still playing, but there is one thing that has me worried.
> 
> It seems, that although my monitor is properly calibrated (no 
> problem during color printing) bw prints, come out much darker 
than 
> on the screen and with significantly less contrast. It also seems 
> that some of black shifts into dark grey. Because of that my 
> workflow currently looks like this:
> 1.	After output sharpening I bring up contrast +15 and 
> brightness +10
> 2.	Then, using curves, I do a two points cut out of black (to 
> preserve black)
> 3.	After that I do the print using QRIP. I review the print, 
> compare it to the screen and mark areas that I have to dodge or 
burn 
> to make the image look like the original screen image.
> 4.	I proceed with dodging and burning and do another test 
> print. Once finished testing, I do the enlargement and finally 
> proceed with large print.
> 
> It seems to work, but I wonder if there is a good way to simplify 
> this by adjusting printer or RIP settings to proper brightness / 
> contrast levels.
> For additional info, I print on Epson Enhanced Matte paper with UC 
> inks. In QRIP I found that Ilford Heavy Paper / UC-EEnchMatte 
> combination works best for me.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Alexander Poizner
> http://thingsdream.com