Digital BW, The Print

Isn't it more appropriate to assume that William has the image looking how
he wants it on screen but is unsatisfied with the print?

William, you say you are using the 9600 but what is your print workflow and
ink?

Steve


> From: john dean <deanwork2003@...>
> Reply-To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 13:08:59 -0000
> To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: [Digital BW] Re: B/W on the 9600
> 
> William,
> 
> Just as in darkroom printing, an image like the one you are working on
> is a challenge of subtlety to achieve the ideal balance of light and
> dark, texture and smoothness. In my opinion, great black and white,
> regardless of the form, has to be sculpted and rarely prints itself.
> 
> What I do with a file like this, is first make a background copy in PS
> to clik on and off to gague my progress, then I go into the shadow
> areas and with the dodging tool set to about 5 or below with a fairly
> large brush, and start dodging with the HIGHLIGHT mode selected within
> the deep shadow areas. This brings out detail within those areas and
> can do wonders. Similarly I often do the opposite in the highest
> regions, burn shadows within the large highlight areas. The latter
> being a much more delicate procedure. This can give you much greater
> control over the total luminance range of a file by allowing max black
> with maximum white while retaining significant detail in those extreme
> problematic areas.
> 
> All this is contingent on your starting with a full rich file (drum
> scan prefered for something like that) in the first place. If all you
> have is noise in those deepest shadows ( which I run into a lot with
> files from the 20D for instance) you are going to have problems no
> matter what.
> 
> After that you can go back and open a curves adjustment layer and
> click on areas that you want to work on with the eye dropper tool, see
> where that occurs on the curve and tweak those values.
> 
> Yes, all this is Photoshop work but to me there is no seperation
> between output and the creative maniulation of that file.
> 
> John
> 
> 
> 
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "William Wilson"
> <wm.wilson@b...> wrote:
>> It's that old B/W trail again, I have a very dark toned image and for
>> the life of me it really sucks when I print on any of my Fine Art
>> papers loosing the subtle tones. I did a lightened version but it
>> looses it's gloomy feel.
>> 
>> My other B/W are contrasty but not quite so dark they look good in
>> print but I suspect I'm pushing the limits of the inks and paper here.
>> Has anyone any suggestions on this image any comments welcomed.
>> 
>> http://img222.imageshack.us/my.php?image=40779su.jpg
>> 
>> Cheers
>> 
>> William Wilson
>> www.impact-imaging.biz