Digital BW, The Print

Tyler

It finally works very well.

I am not at all refusing to acknowledge the accomplishments of so many.
Rather I am praising the very significant progress this represents.  Other
than Imageprint's ICC approach, this is the first "colour-managed" approach
to B&W tonal range management discussed on this forum in the last three
years.  There have been expressed desires, hopes and wishes - but no
implementation.  Yes we have used colour management tools to do proofing but
not for the much more critical management of tonal range.  In the last three
years (other than the discussion building towards QTR Create ICC) there has
been no progress made in the dynamic management of tonal compression other
than to suggest people do an "s-curve".

QTR Create ICC finally takes knowledge that has been available to the colour
world for many years and applies it to B&W.  This is fantastic.

My point was simply to say that even if one didn't have the ability to
deploy a general, colour-managed approach such as QTR Create ICC, one can
achieve the same result with as much rigour for any given workspace by
deploying a "smart(er) linearization".  It's a pity we didn't.  But in the
end we leapfrogged to a workflow (QTR ICC) that works for any workspace -
all's well that ends well.

Congratulations Roy and thanks very much for all the hard work over the last
year.

Steve


> From: Tyler Boley <tyler@...>

> 
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Steve Kale
> <stevekale@b...> 
> wrote:
>> ...For at least the
>> last three years this is where the B&W community largely stopped (with a few
>> notable ICC colour managed approaches).  What's more, those that maintained
>> a policy of linearising L* provided no attempt to rationalise the tonal
>> mapping from even just one workspace to that of the printer.  I am glad we
>> now have available to us an affordable solution systematically and sensibly
>> managing differences in tonal range.  We are finally making use of what's
>> been known to the colour community for quite some time.
>> 
> This does little to aknowledge the accomplishments of so many that have
> contributed to 
> the current state of the art. I became aware of much of this in 1998, and many
> were 
> probably involved way before. Contributors as diverse as Dan Culbertson, Jon
> Cone, our 
> own Ernst, up to Carl and Roy have been implementing color management, and/or
> using 
> color management tools to move forward digital monochromatic printing. Many
> others 
> that fail to imediately come to mind. I myself made my own CMYK profile for a
> quad ink 
> set, that partitioned, and previewed, back in 2000 I believe, of course
> because of the help
> of many of those people.
> This stuff isn't new.
> 
> In the course of this thread though, I still don't have a good idea of what
> you are trying to
> do. All this stuff works, we can work up a file on the computer, and print it
> getting 
> predictable result on paper. I'm not sure how much more we can ask for in the
> workflow 
> area. What is not working for you?
> T