Digital BW, The Print

Tyler,

> I think Roy's earlier post about how various spaces display may be the
> most relevant to you.

Yes, I noted it.

> You state you are linearizing your processes to
> LAB, but the shadows on your monitor in 2.2 are compressed compared to
> your print.

Yes.


> I assume a step wedge printed with one of your processes linearized to
> lab separates to your satisfaction.

Yes, but that is how I designed them.  I think there may be advantages to
that set of target densities, so I intend to continue that for the
foreseeable future.

> Gamma 2.2 will not display those values the same at all.

True.  A custom dot gain curve like you explained years ago is what I've
used for some time to get the monitor to match the print.  There appears to
be a large range of solutions that others have employed to get to what I
think most of us see as one of the top goals -- to get a reasonable match
between the monitor and print.


> It may be worth your time to download Roy's gray lab working space,
> install it, open a step wedge, assign (don't convert) Roy's space to
> it, and see if you get a better match.

Oh yes, I've done that, and it doesn't change the results.

Contrary to the majority of frequent posters here, I'm not sure B&W
photographers need to be burdened with much concern about color spaces, etc.
One attraction of B&W is the lack of concern for color and all its
complexities.  Matching print densities to the monitor's relative
"densities" does not, I believe, have to be very complex at all.  A simple
curve (like your custom dot gain curve) or, even better, a set of sliders,
may be all we B&W guys need and need to know about.  

In a sense, all I suggested with my original post was that rather than a
custom dot gain curve to softproof the monitor, the same thing might be done
at the printing end of the process instead.  In my workflow it could be part
of a curves set with the printing curve.  That way the user would just drag
a curves set from a small carrier file to the file to be printed.  That
seems like a fairly easy workflow.

I suspect that same curve could also do what the linearization overlays in
the rips do -- make profiles for one paper useable for another similar
paper.  That would be a major step is the flexibility of the workflow I use.


Paul
www.PaulRoark.com