Digital BW, The Print

> From: wwodets <odets@...>
> Reply-To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 22:31:12 -0000
> To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: [Digital BW] Re: ICC Soft Proofing -- The issue . . .
> 
> Steve -
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Yes, I too noted that the Epson profiles do not allow simulate ink
> color.
> 
> My display calibration is good (i1) at 65K/2.2.

FYI this is likely a good part of why you like to use Simulate Paper White.
D65 is a very bright white.  I have my display set to D50.  Initially it
looks like a very dull display but you get over that very quickly.  With a
D50 display there is only a "slight" difference to paper white for good
matte papers with Simulate Paper White (paper substrates are better at the
white end than ink on paper is at the black end).  (Photo papers are a whole
different story because they are really blue.)  Try it for a while and see
what you think.  Some commentators will say the white point of a calibrated
display is not so important because your eye adjusts to white differences
very quickly but seen as this is the sensitive end of the equation for you I
suspect that shifting your monitor white point to coincide more closely with
the ICC spec (you illuminated the profiling target with D50 lighting) and
your print viewing conditions may help.  Give it a whirl.

The gamma you calibrate to is much less important because colour management
takes care of any differences and you are better off simply using the
display's native gamma so that the display itself has less hoops to jump
through.

>I am viewing the 
> monitor in a semi-darkened room, which makes the blacks more intense,
> and they are quite good I think.  My print viewing is at 5K (measures
> actually 4950) and 450-500 lux.
> 
> I am going to try working up a new print from scratch with the soft
> proof and simulate ink color and see what I come up with for a
> print.  It will be too contrasty I think, an effort to comensate for
> the "unrealistically" weak monitor blacks shown in soft proof.  I'll
> see.
> 
> Having just looked at the Epson canned profile for VFA (which allows
> paper white without ink black), I might just use that!  I need the
> paper white for a good soft proof and I don't need the paper black.
> 
> I am surprised that a profile itself dictates these PS settings--
> sounds like differences in the format rather than just the correction
> curve.  But I don't know what I'm talking about on this score.

I don't think it's the profile dictating but simply whether the info in the
profile is all there or not or all there in a manner which allows it - if
that makes sense.