Digital BW, The Print

OK, that makes it even easier.  Since you are not calibrated, I can be
somewhat casual with the paper and curve selection.  Please don’t take that
the wrong way, owners of spectros like to think they are indispensable
tools, while some may think we dispensed our money like fools. :-)

I ran BO at 2880 dpi, with OEM/PK ink, since that is what happens to be in
the 2200 right now.  I printed on both matte and semigloss; yes PK on matte,
since it is just a sharpness test.  No huge difference, so I’ll talk about
the matte print.

The BO is sharper than QTR, more so near graphics like lettering, less so
where the local contrast is less, and not at all sharper in low contrast
areas like sedimentary canyon walls.  Everywhere QTR has more detail,
although it appears softer, which is not a big surprise.

On matte, the warm BO ink against the cold paper white exaggerates the
contrast even more than the image file.  Also, as Clayton said, the tonal
response of BO enhances high contrast graphic type features, so unless you
had a similar hockey stick shaped ramp in QTR, you should not expect the
same thing.

All that aside, I don’t think it is so straightforward to make a curve and
sharpening operation that will make a two tone (K/LK) print like 2200/QTR
and a 2200/BO print look identical.  The BO has higher local contrast at the
expense of detail, and it’s a function of the amount of local contrast.

With a boost in contrast, and more sharpening applied to the QTR image, I
expect the difference to be less.  Well, I just tried the sharpening part,
and for dark graphics against light backgrounds or the inverse, QTR looks a
little sharper than BO, but for light against mid-toned backgrounds it is
oversharpened.  Without a loupe, this sharpened QTR print looks similar in
sharpness to the lightly sharpened BO print.

I hope this answers some of your questions.

Best regards,
John Moody

-----Original Message-----
From: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of djon43
Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2005 3:28 PM
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] QTR vs BO sharpness

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "John Moody"
<moodymz3@y...> wrote:
>
> Sure, I have a bunch of things going on here, but I was planning
to fire up
> the 2200 anyway.

Thanks John!

I'll plead primative here...no i1 and no photo website (hmm..maybe I
could do it on photo.net).

Lacking the i1, what I'd most like is your subjective impression of
the relative sharpness of BO Vs QTR using a highly sharp-detailed
image and your most standard QTR curve, without adjusting to match
BO...

I'd most like to know if I've got a local problem (with the printer
or QTR itself) or if we're talking about a workflow issue, *such as
creating sharper images from QTR than it wants to create when it's
linear.*

My goal isn't to fix any fault in BO. My impression is that BO's
LACK of linearity is a virtue, sharpness-wise, but I prefer QTR's
tone control.

I'm using OEM pigs and, for example, EEM  and Kirkland. I'm printing
everything at 1440.




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