Digital BW, The Print

Hello Chatzebussi,

>For aesthetical and practical reasons I am a fervent believer in
>BO-printing,too.

There are lots of us!

 
>Today  I again came across your favourite conversion method
>http://www.cjcom.net/articles/digiprn7.htm
>similar to Russel Brown's one mentioned in Katrin Eismann's 
>standard work "Photoshop Restoration and Retouching"
>I seem to remember that you have tried the PS plug-in
>http://www.theimagingfactory.com/
>"Convert to B&W"  some time ago yourself (In the meantime this 
>has become my standard conversion tool). 
> 
>What's the main difference, please - not talking about the price, 
>of course. Does it have certain advantages? 

I tried the plugin demo back when I first began using digicams and was
trying to get the Tri-X look (which I never accomplished with any
satisfaction and eventually abandoned).  I remember that the results
weren't convincing enough for me to want to pay the money.  It may be
a fine conversion tool, it just didn't give me what I was looking for
at the time, so I'm not in any way suggesting it's not a good tool.  I
subsequently tried lots of techniques and settled on the one I wrote
about because it seemed to give the best bang for the buck (comparing
complexity/time/effort to results).  I can't really give a comparison
between the two.  I hope this helps.


>In one of your recent posts you quite rightly pointed out that 
>the megapixel war will come to an end very soon and that other 
>sensor features will become more and more important 

Actually I didn't say exactly that.  I was expressing my agreement
with what someone else said, and I don't seem to remember "very soon"
as being part of the idea.  I don't have a particular timetable in
mind for the ideas I was discussing.  Here is the actual quote from my
post:

"Someone pointed out that once the MP race hits diminishing
returns they'll turn to improving the DR and other attributes of the
sensors themselves. I agree..."



>I for one am longing for smallish high ISO sensors of course.

They are certainly geting better at it.  For a pocket cam I just got a
new Casio Z-750 (7mp on 1/8 chip) to replace my Z-50 (5 mp on 1/2.7
chip), which is a bit over a year old I think, and the difference is
huge.  For the first time I actually have a usable ISO 400, and these
cams are the size of a deck of cards.  Amazing.  They keep getting
better and better and I think it will continue.


>Any suggestions?

Nope.  Just keep experimenting, that's what we're all doing.  

Regards,
Clayton


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