Digital BW, The Print

I would try some other papers, I personally found EEM to be a pretty 
flat paper, not able to give good saturated blacks, sort of milky 
gray in the dark areas. I would give velvet fine art a try, I have 
been very pleased with this paper. 

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Steve Kale 
<stevekale@b...> wrote:
> Use the QTR Grey Lab and QTR Matte/Photo paper ICC profile 
workflow that has
> been descibed many times here.  You should, if your monitor is 
correctly
> profiled, get accurate softproofing and prints.
> 
> 
> > From: ap0izner <ap0izner@y...>
> > Reply-To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> > Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 02:42:18 -0000
> > To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> > Subject: [Digital BW] Contrast / brightness settings problem w 
Epson 2200
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 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
> >