Digital BW, The Print

Steve,

>...
> The unfortunate reality is that the paper isn't as white 
>and the black isn't as black.

I'm sure there will always be less than a perfect match between monitor and
paper print.  However, I'd be curious to see what the real world differences
are.

If you have a good spot meter, put a full screen image on your monitor that
is half 100% black and half 0% white.  With the room lights set as you
usually work, and wearing the clothes that you'd usually wear, measure with
your photographic spot meter the white and black halves of the image.  I'd
be curious what values you find.

What I've found with my CRT is that just like the glass over my prints, the
reflections off the monitor significantly reduce the dynamic range that is,
in the real world, accessible to me.

LCDs have a brighter white that will make them, as a class, brighter.  What
happens to the other end of the range, however, is not clear to me.  

Additionally, try the same spot-metering experiment with real world prints
in typical viewing environments.  What I've found is that my monitor and
print ranges are not that different.  

Our spectrophotometers' and other instruments "perfect" lighting and
"viewing" conditions exaggerate the actual viewable ranges of many media.
That is, I believe, why many say matte prints with a dmax of 1.65 often look
better than a glossy print with a 2+ dmax.  In the real world the
reflections wipe out the blacks we work so hard to achieve.  (Thus my
no-glass display preference, but that is another story...)

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com