Digital BW, The Print

I'm saying that no matter what the characteristics of the driver (this includes it's linearized 
state) a profile to profile conversion will make those unique characteristics nearly 
irrelevant. Therefore the particulars of the linearization standard become less important. 
This can be witnessed by the wide variety and undesirable non-linear nature of Epson 
drivers, but when well profiled will all print very much the same given ink/media similarity. 
Obviously at a certain point of "bad" behavior a profile conversion will only be able to do 
so much, and it breaks down.
Given your extreme example, if the badly behaving device is well profiled, some of those 
problems will be taken care of at the profile conversion point, and what isn't I can deal 
with in soft proof. Clearly though, "linearizing" that behavior out to begin with would be 
best...
I'm just saying in a CM workflow, the standard becomes less important, the profile 
conversion will become very important. In a non CM workflow, obvioulsy everything 
changes.
T
--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Steve Kale <stevekale@b...> 
wrote:
>
> Hi Tyler
> 
> All I meant was that one could have a transfer function that didn't make
> sense (say, clipped the bottom 1/3 of the pixels) but the wysiwyg would
> still work.  We need to construct a transform that correctly implements a
> sensible, rationally defendable, approach to the dynamic range compression
> and then make sure the soft proof is done properly.  Getting wysiwyg doesn't
> tell you whether you have sound starting point based on the "science" of it
> all or whether that that "science" has been correctly deployed.  I think two
> goals need to be met and the first could be regarded as more important:  1.
> a sensible automated management of tonal compression, and 2. a good soft
> proof.  We've had 2 for some time.  1 is a new arrival and is embedded in
> the calculations done by QTR Create ICC prior to writing the ICC profile.
> There'd be no sense having to always correct stupid tonal compression even
> if we could clearly soft proof its damage.  Clearly it is automated and
> while based on a very sensible approach it does obviate the need for human
> subjective approval and, if necessary, tweaking.
> 
> Steve
> 
> 
> > From: Tyler Boley <tyler@t...>
> > Reply-To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> > Date: Sun, 23 Oct 2005 18:49:44 -0000
> > To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> > Subject: Re: [Digital BW] ICC v. Transfer Function in Epson driver
> > 
> > --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Steve Kale
> > <stevekale@b...> 
> > wrote:
> >> 
> >> That gets a bit circular doesn't it? The first question is does the scaling
> >> make sense and then the second is whether the soft proof implementation was
> >> done correctly.  One could get a match between display and print but still
> >> not have a visually appealing result in print.
> > 
> > Lost me there. It seems to me the point of much of this (I admitt to ADD with
> > regard to 
> > this thread) is to get to a point of wysiwyg. When that is in order, now it's
> > up to you to 
> > make it pleasing. That's the way it's working here anyway.
> > 
> > ...
> >> I still have a tough time with the soft proofs though.  The black point
> >> shift on screen seems excessive....
> > ...
> >> (BTW it is interesting to note that the dynamic range we can achieve in B&W
> >> on photo paper now exceeds a quality display.  You can't soft proof the
> >> print range!)
> > 
> > I think you can (or get very close), and soft-proof's implementation needs a
> > little more 
> > work. I think it's conceptually sound.
> > Tyler
> >
>