Digital BW, The Print

IMO, calibrating the monitor makes life much easier.  You can always 
try Adobe Gamma, included free with Photoshop. It's a "eyeball" type 
monitor calibration, but in my experience can get you pretty close 
without the added expense of a puck system.

HTH,

Doug

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Ben Rosengart
<yahoo.com@n...> wrote:
> Dear all,
>   I'd like to get some more rigor in my printing process, and I just
> don't know where to start.
>
> Which is more important -- to calibrate the monitor, or profile the
> printer?  Or are both necessary?
>
> Is it possible/useful to go to a "color-managed" (really
> luminance-managed, I suppose) workflow without a densitometer
> or monitor calibrating device?

Yes, it is possible, and for some of us, preferable.

This is only my opinion, and that of Dan Margulis, author of
Professional Photoshop, but I don't think much of monitor calibration,
etc.  It's more important to rely on the numbers in the Info Palette
in PS.  In fact, he's a proponent of being able to color correct using
a grayscale monitor, though I'm not sure where you'd find one of those
these days.

Personally, no matter how much time and money I spent on monitor
calibration, etc., I'd still trust the numbers more.

I highly recommend his book(s).

My .02..........

Mark