Digital BW, The Print

At 11:30 PM +0000 1/25/06, Roderick Vesper wrote:
>
>You may remember my post about getting a defective R2400.  Well 
>after nearly a month of
>tribulation, I got my new printer.
>
>It was worth the wait.  I am blown away by this thing and I haven't 
>even begun to learn
>how to take control of the thing.  I'm very excited about this.

Congratulations, Rod. Me too.


>Now, of course I'm looking to build myself a nice "digital 
>darkroom."  I am operating on an
>old G3 iMac!  Yikes.  So, I know enough about the computers to know 
>what I am looking
>for.  The main question I have is what kind of monitors I should be 
>getting.  Should I be
>using CRT or LCD?  Can I get a monitor for a PC and use an adapter 
>or is that going to give
>me calibration problems?
>
>And finally. . . (deep breath) if I get a G4 will I need to get some 
>kind of card to drive a
>second monitor?  If so, where should I be looking for that?

I think a better list to get advice about the Mac-specific gear, Rod, 
is the MacEpsonList, which is also a Yahoo list.

Unless you got two video cards (to drive two CRTs) with your G3, I 
think you will need to try to find a new video card for it, but you 
might get one in a new-to-you G4 PowerMac.

I got ATI's Radeon 9200 (Mac Edition) for that because I want to try 
to pair a CRT for a Photoshop "palette monitor" with a 
pivoting/rotating LCD for an image monitor on my old 
PCI-Graphics/Yikes G4, which I think has the same motherboard as your 
(Blue and White?) G3.

I got a 17" Samsung CRT from Dell for the palette monitor. About the 
LCD image display, I'm still undecided. But I think the better 
Samsung's are a great value, whether from Samsung or from Dell, and 
that the better Eizo's are great period. We can't avoid getting 
displays made primarily for the larger Wintel market. I don't think 
you'll need an adapter. But I do think you might find displays which 
will come with software or a pivot/rotate feature which is 
Windows-only. There's some good display advice, and a lot of high-end 
video card advice, on BareFeats.com.

A good place to buy any Mac stuff you need is SmallDog.com. They're 
also willing to give you pre-sales advice on the phone. I'm not sure 
they have used G4 PowerMac's, but I think they do.

Incidentally, the new, MacTel iMac's provide for dual displays and 
seem to me competitive with the old desktops even during these 
frustrating months while we're waiting for some of our applications 
to be "universalized". But I'd keep the G3 to print from for at least 
a while yet.
--
Sam