Digital BW, The Print

Bruce, Mark, Tyler, Gary, Hogarth, Eric, 
Thank you I have been pouring over your responses.

Several friends of mine live and do their printing in relatively
remote, rustic locations and would live nowhere else. One on the
Oregon coast and another in rural Pennsylvania. 
Perhaps I am a bit of an unusual case. These are just two of the
service bureaus that are with 10 minutes drive of me.

http://www.aandi.com/digital.html

http://imagexperts.com/index.asp?p=1867

In the earlier days of film, as recently as the 70's, 80's & 90's,
there was no way to present even a remote semblance of the concept of
pre digital darkroomed files, in the standardized color space, as is
possible today. And that is excluding the vagaries of developing of
the wet negatives, etc. It may be an over statement to say that color
spaces are without wiggle room today, but in the film days one could
almost assume that  that I am 

I have re-visited the above two locations, acquired samples of the
huge variety of canvas, linen, zillions of watercolor and fine art
papers, transparency production, etc.,  they have, felt the vibes, and
so on. 
I have been doing my own inkjet printing for so long that I had to
reacquaint myself, almost. And yes, I could or anyone else could do
this all on a one by one – walk my feet in the door basis and discern
and decide. But the beauty of on line interactions among aficionados,
as we have here, is the interchange of viewpoints, ideas, experiences,
etc. that would otherwise not be possible.

I learned film photography, many years ago, literally at the feet of
the then top names in European photojournalism. I learned digital
photography on-line at a much faster (relatively immediately) rate.
The point is that this interchange is of value and cognizance to me. 

Perhaps a holdover, but I considered that the 2200 and the7600 and
9600, etc. would be close enough, ink gamut and color wise, that my
digitally "completed" image would be fairly universal. I am learning
otherwise. 

I had recently considered that the evolution to recent has provided
for doing almost all of the prepping and darkroom work prior to the
delivery of the file for printing. At the above sites, the impression
is implied that one could do roughly that. I now see the broader view
and appreciate the responses. Thank you.
Jerry

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Mark Carstens
<mathdude5@c...> wrote:
> On Aug 25, 2005, at 7:22 AM, John Moody wrote:
> 
> >  Of course you need a good profile for the paper and your 2200,
which  
> > you would want in any case.
> 
> Jerry,
> 
> John's point is well taken. If you're trying to "proof" with a 2200,  
> then a reliable profile is essential. That said, you will still have
to  
> apply adjustments, subtle or otherwise, to the image before you output  
> to the larger format. It sounds like you do mostly color(?) work and,  
> though I have used a 2200 for going on three years to print smaller  
> editions of my color work, sending the images out for printing on the  
> Epson 7600/9600 has been an adventure. Image tweaks, which, depending  
> on the tonal range and color gamut of the image, can be significant,  
> are needed to make the output just as pleasing from the larger format  
> printers as the 2200.
> 
> In short, I don't consider my 2200 to be a spot-on reliable proofing  
> device for the larger format Epsons, but that stands to reason, as the  
> 7600/9600 printers have a vastly different internal design, and far  
> less variation between individual printer output. Short of moving up
to  
> a 7600 (or now the 4800 as they are supposed to be a smaller version
of  
> the 7800/9800, i.e., same inkjet scheme, etc.), it's been the next
best  
> thing. A custom profile for your 2200 can get you closer to what
you're  
> looking for in reliability, but it will only narrow the differences  
> (between the 2200 and larger format) rather than eliminate them  
> entirely. YMMV.
> 
> In the end, it depends on largely on the quality of the profile  
> (customized for your printer versus generalized for all 2200s?) and  
> probably even more on what you need to see in the final output to feel  
> satisfied. Personally, I have been far happier with an on-site printer  
> (for the reasons stated by others elsewhere in this thread) than I was  
> when every file went straight to a service bureau's Lightjet. In my  
> book, control is everything when processing images digitally (or  
> traditionally, for that matter).
> 
> Just for perspective, you might download the these 2200 profiles and  
> compare them. Once you've loaded the profiles, open an image in your  
> image editing software, do a flatten/Save As and then either view in  
> proof colors (or "convert to profile" ) and look at the different  
> profile interpretations. It's a real eye opener. Yahoo's message
format  
> may truncate the links, so you may have to copy and paste.
> 
>  From the Epson site (they are part of the driver download):
> http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support/supDetail.jsp? 
> BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=14402&infoType=Overview
> 
> Bill Atkinson's 7600/9600 profiles made for Epson:
> http://homepage.mac.com/WebObjects/FileSharing.woa/wa/default? 
>
user=billatkinson&fpath=Epson%209600%20Profiles&templatefn=FileSharing1. 
> html
> 
> Nick Wheeler's epson 2200 profiles (for HPR, EEM and Epson Semi-matte):
> http://lenscraft.com/profiles/wheeler/2200/
> 
> A bit long-winded, sorry. Hope this helps.
> 
> Mark
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]