Digital BW, The Print

In th eEpson driver, make sure you are using Gamma 1.8. 

It will print lighter than gamma 2.2.

Gamma 1.5 (if available) will print lighter still, than gamma 1.5.


Just a thought,

Scott


--- 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