Digital BW, The Print

Hello Steve,

I have several responses to your comments, I'll try to organize them
in a way that makes some sense.  First, please understand that I am
not suggesting that you are wrong in anything you say.  I was
initially trying to make the case that many people don't have the
time, or inclination or money or whatever to get into a fully
calibrated color managed system.  In trying to explain it, and partly
because of your remarks about my suggesting 1.8 for the driver
setting, I got into the technical details.  In trying to lessen the
length of it I left out one part which I realize now has added a bit
of confusion and contributed to your missing my point.  So let me try
again and see if I can put the ball in the basket this time.  

I get the feeling that you are so into the technical part of this that
you miss the human side, so allow me to first explain my point of view
in this great endeavor.  My approach in writing the articles is to
help raw beginners and non technically minded people get started with
an easy, effective and non intimidating approach.  I write software
for a living, and I know that there are computer users out there for
whom it is a challenge just to turn it on and off correctly.

The same exists in photography.  There are many photographers trying
to get into digital BW printing for whom the level of work which you
revel in is simply beyond comprehension, at least in the beginning.  I
know there will be many users who will move on from my approach to
other workflows once they get their bearings, but there are also many,
as my email attests, who find it an effective and satisfying way to
work and stay there. I also get many emails from people who say they
struggled for months trying other approaches discussed here and were
frustrated to the point of quitting until they tried my approach, and
finally are able to make good prints without having a nervous
breakdown.  

I am trying to provide an entrance ramp for beginners.  The UT inks
with sliders are also an easy approach, but they require a
significant investment in ink and dedicating a printer to BW, so I
consider that to be beyond BO in over all terms of an entrance fee to
BW printing.  I am currently working on an article recommending a
modified UT7 inkset as the next step beyond BO.  I'm saying these
things in hopes you will understand where I'm coming from in all
this.  

As for my technical approach, I arrived at my settings by accident, it
seems, after a months long trial and error process based on complete
ignorance and desperation (I was one of those who for whatever reason
could not make anything else work well), and also by one of the quirks
in how PS works.  Also please understand that three years ago the
technology was not as developed and the level of discussion here was
not as evolved as it is now, so I could not find the solution I
needed, and by chance, reading about BO somewhere else, tried it and
was surprised by the good quality.  I then began exploring this
avenue.

I approached my search just like solving a puzzle in Myst.  I was
confronted with a "black box" mechanism that I did not understand, so
I began to systematically push buttons and turn knobs to see what
happened, and took notes.  After about nine months I arrived at the
things I now use and describe in the articles.  I found it to be very
easy and effective and helped me to make beautiful prints with a
thinking process very much like darkroom work.  When I published it on
the web site I immediately got lots of positive feedback from others
who had also been desperately struggling.  And it continues today - I
regularly get emails from people thanking me for providing an easy way
into it.

Now for the technical stuff.

>you wont get immediate WYSIWYG for no other reason than your 
>monitor can display a much darker black can you can print.  This 
>is a simple fact.

Yes, of course.  This is a given, widely understood, and beyond (I
thought) the need to be restated.



>With Same as Source, the image profile is passed through to the
>printer unchanged.  Alter the image profile and that different 
>image profile gets passed to the print driver.  With Same as Source 
>all you are doing is telling Photoshop (and Photoshop only) to not 
>do any profile conversion prior to sending the print to the driver. 
>Same as Source doesn't mean "send no profile" - it means send the 
>same profile with which the file is tagged.

Yes, you are saying, with different words, exactly what I was saying.
But I think you missed the point of it.  The effect of this is that
the image profile can be changed to something else in the Assign
Profile window, and it will change the screen image without changing
the print. This allows us to change the screen image to more closely
match the print, producing good WYSIWYG and making the work much
easier, quicker, etc. This is the main thing that gives my approach
its flexibility to be tailored to anyone's system, no matter if its a
crummy monitor and/or graphics card or a high end calibrated system. 
It is the key to the kingdom for us dummies who either can't
understand the theoretical stuff, or are too lazy, or for whatever
reason can't/won't/don't want to go there.



>I was referring to people generally setting their workspace and
>tagging their B&W images as Gray Gamma 2.2...The profile with 
>which the image is tagged is a fundamental starting point.

Ok, this is the part I left out, and I realize it left a gaping hole
in the logic, so I'll try to fill it in.  After I discovered I could
change the screen image for better WYSIWYG I began exploring that more
deeply.  I realized the need for a more finely tuned custom profile,
but found I could not create a profile that would appear in the
picklist in the Assign Profile window.  The only way to do it (AFAIK)
is to create it in the Color Settings window and assign it as the
default Gray Working Space.  Then it will appear in the Assign Profile
picklist.

This solved my immediate problem, but also confused me at first
because I couldn't understand why a color image converted to BW after
this setting was introduced, looked the same as the initial image
converted earlier with, say, GG2.2 as the Gray Space, yet when the
profile for the DG18 image was changed to GG2.2 the screen image went
haywire.  I didn't understand at first that the initial conversion was
mapping the image pixels to that gray space.  Over time I discovered
several other things which led me to my current suggested settings,
and here we get to the crux of the matter (and for which I have no
theoretical explanation - it just is).  The main point is I found that
if the original conversion was done with GG2.2 gray space there were
two disadvantages:

1) the initial print, the point from which all further work commences,
was not nearly as nice (basically darker with significantly lower
contrast) as when I began with a gray space in the middle of the range
of available choices, DG 20%.  I also found that setting the driver
gamma to 1.8 (again, the middle of the available range) produced a
better initial print than 2.2 or 1.5.  So by beginning with a DG20
gray space and using driver gamma 1.8 I got images that required less
radical work to achieve the final result (and back then it was 8-bit
for much of the work, so the better starting place made a real
difference).

2) the initial GG2.2 print was not as close a match to the screen
image as was the DG20 print.  So DG20 gave better WYSIWYG right out of
the starting gate.

So using 1.8 with DG20 as the starting place produced the best initial
print and the best WYSIWYG, which resulted in an over all quicker and
easier time of it.  That is why I recommend these settings.  It is the
best of the canned profiles offered by PS.  For my own setup, I
perceived the need for a DG18 curve for even better WYSIWYG, and was
pleasantly surprised to find that that the resulting initial prints
were a bit better than DG20.  So it seems like there is a "sweet spot"
that can be found, and I suspect it might be slightly different
depending on monitor and graphics card.

This approach does a remarkably good job.  All my work since I reached
that point has been relatively easy and intuitive.  I basically set it
and forget it (although on occasion I will change the image profile to
DG15 or 20, after initial conversion, to get better WYSIWYG, usually
on very high or low key images).  When I work I think very much like
in the darkroom, in terms of a traditional S-curve.  I don't concern
myself with all that other stuff.  Yes, the screen image isn't perfect
WYSIWYG, but I found that I quickly adapt to it and can work quickly
to get the results I want (I'm sure a good soft proof workflow for
this would be even better).

I can't explain any of this in theoretical terms.  I am simply sharing
an approach that I find works very well.  And now after 2+ years of
feedback from many others who say it works for them, I am confident it
isn't just a quirk of my particular system or something.  The ability
to fine tune the image profile for better WYSIWYG allows users to
adjust the system to get the best results on their own hardware, so it
has flexibility for anyone who is inclined to explore it.


>I am glad it works for you.  But as I have simply suggested WYSIWYG 
>is not possible on a well profiled decent monitor 

Theoretically this is true (and it is also not possible on a crummy
monitor <g>), but it doesn't mean we can't get close enough to work
quickly and effectively.  Many of us have been doing it for a long
time.  This really points up the difference between theorists and
practical realists.  It's like the story about the difference between
a mathematician and an engineer.  The mathematician walks out of the
meeting in disgust saying "It can't be done", and the engineer gets
the contract and says "That's close enough for all practical
purposes".  I think you are so deeply immersed in the theory that you
don't see the whole picture (so to speak <g>).

I'm not suggesting that calibration, color management and soft
proofing can't make things even better, but am just trying to get
through to you that photographers don't have to go down this
hyper-technical avenue in order to make beautiful BW prints quickly
and easily with a minimum of fuss and bother.  Lots of people are
intimidated and put off by the technical discussions that take place
here, and many of them find their way to my articles and are relieved
to find an easier approach.  Here is a comment that is typical of
things I receive on a regular basis - this came in last night, an
excerpt from a longer message:

"As a digital newbie I find that the technical end of digitally 
producing a photo print can be overwhelming...Much of what has been 
written...goes completely over my head...I find that your approach
resonates deeply...the most straightforward. Thanks for sharing the
result of your effort. It is greatly appreciated."

You say that your approach is easy, and I'm sure it seems that way to
you.  What I am trying to get through to you is that it is NOT easy
for many people who are not so technically inclined as you are.  Paul
understands this and has been working mightily to create easy
no-brainer approaches - his EZ and UT ink systems are a remarkable
achievement and we all owe him a big debt of gratitude.  In my own
bumbling way I have found another simple and easy approach that works
extremely well.  So all I am asking is that you don't discount other
approaches that are different from the high-tech approach.  As Paul
said, there are lots of ways to skin this cat.

Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm