Digital BW, The Print

Johnny,
I work with a PC with a Samsung 240T monitor that is now about 4 
years old. Recently, I replaced the PC. When I replaced the PC, I 
researched video cards. With my previous Video Card, which was a 
Radeon I had very good control of the colors and and could easily 
use Adobe Gamma and so forth. I had bought the PC and Radeon Card 
prior to becoming seriously involved in digital photography.

However, I found that the 240T monitors size, ability to retain its 
color profile (now even better with the new Adobe Gamma Software and 
Windows Free Software), for more than a week to be to my advantage. 
The Radeon video card works great for dual monitor capabilites and 
works very well with graphics, even though it was only a 64 bit card.

When I bought the new PC, I upgraded to a Radeon All-In-Wonder X600 
with dual monitor capabilities. This card,has 256 Mb of memory with 
a 400MHz engine. The Radeon drivers allow me, if I wish too, to 
manually change Gamma, brightness, and contrast, using the monitor 
properties. I have set my monitor to use Adobe RGB 1998 profile when 
I am using color and Gray Gamma 1.8.icc when using black and white.

I have the GM i1 Photo calibration system. Now, I use it in a 
limited manner for monitor profiling because my monitor maintains it 
calibration very well. I check it from time to time. Also, I have 
found that software calibration is works very well for me. 
Especially, for my black and white pictures.

The i1 is still valuable for me for purposes of printer profiling, 
densitometry, and so forth. Because of the arcane nature of printer 
profiling and densitometry and the like, I am still learning and do 
not feel that confident about using the i1 Photo in that manner. 

So to me the type of video card is important, especially since I do 
very little monitor profiling with external devices and I depend on 
my eye and print results. Along with good hardware, the monitor, 
good software is important. Good software, in this instance is 
software drivers for video graphics cards. I find Radeon's Catalyst 
driver set, which comes with the Radeon cards to be a very good set 
of drivers that work well with graphics intensive software, such as 
Adobe systems software. The Radeon products are meant for PC gamers, 
but gamers require good graphics cards. If you shop wisely, you can  
match these cards quite well with the needs you have in photoshop 
and other software requiring hardware capable of producing good 
graphics, and at a decent price. Price a high end graphics card and 
compare the price and performance using a cost/benfit analysis and 
it is obvious which way you go, especially if cost is an important 
measure.

So a good video card is imperative to getting a good image to the 
screen. It saves me monitor profiling time and increases the time I 
have for work output. I did not initially start buying my hardware 
strictly for photography or graphics work. My purchases were to 
obtain products that in general are useable for all types of work. 

However, I find that this setup works very well and I am sticking 
with Radeon until someone demonstrates a more cost effective product 
that provides the benefits that my Radeon card provides.Incidentaly, 
I also use, as a 2nd monitor, an old 17 inch compact color monitor 
on which to rest my tool pallettes. That monitor was given to me 
because someone thought it was just time to get a new monitor.

I feel I am knowedgeable regarding computer hardware an software and 
how they inter-act. I read the Internet writings of Clayton Jones, 
Paul Rouarke, Scott Kelby, and others who are extremely 
knowledgeable about digital photography and try to combine their 
knowledge with my needs and experience and I seem to be developing 
an acceptable ability to get it right when I shop for computer 
hardware and software. 

In my case, the quality of my finished product has vastly improved 
and now I consistently know when the print is acceptable to print 
prior to printing it.
Luther Hert



--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Johnny Eades" 
<jeades1@s...> wrote:
>
> There is one subject I haven't seen discussed very much on this 
> group, and that is the importance of the video card in the 
> production of the finished product--the fine art print. Does the 
> quality of the finished product improve with the better quality of 
> the video card or not?