Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Steve Kale 
<stevekale@b...> wrote:
> to listen to what colour experts such as Bruce Fraser have to say. 

If you take a look at what Mr. Fraser wrote in his book, you'll see 
that he says linearizing a printer is very important! I'd quote the 
page, but the book is at home, and I'm not there.

Having proper linearization is the foundation of getting good prints, 
after you get far enough away from linear, a profile can only bring 
you back so far. That's why one of the first things you do when 
working with a RIP is linearize the ink output. It is so 
fundementally important that Epson decided to check each x800 before 
it ships (or so they claim), and why HP built this measurement onto 
their newest flagship printers (dj130 and others). It isn't to 
provide printer to printer matches, it is to provide the highest 
quality print possible from that printer/ink/paper combination. The 
ability to do this has been a long time coming, and one reason why so 
many professional printers have purchased a RIP in the past, since 
that was the only way to accomplish this adjustment.

Well, I've said more on this topic than I really care too. I should 
have simply thanked Ernst (again) for tipping me to another useful 
tool and gone away quietly. My opinion, this Colorbase tool is 
absolutely invaluable for the artist that wants to best output 
his/her printer can give with non Epson inks and papers. Epson may 
have intended this for Epson inks and papers, but everyone can now 
benefit from their wisdom. And Colorbase is not intended to replace a 
custom profile, only to make that profile more accurate.