Digital BW, The Print

Austin Franklin asked, in part, re. MIS quads:

> My main concern is WYSIWYG...is that the case with your workflow,
> is what is on your screen what comes out the printer? 

Austin, I've been using MIS VM-hex "quads" too, although I've been using
PressReady to print in CMYK mode, and using my own CMYK partitioning
curves to get a split-tone look (cool darks, warm lights) somewhat like
platinum-palladium prints.

I am aware of two ways to get an accurate preview, other than using Jon
Cone's system. Alas, both require a spectrophotometer.

With my CMYK workflow, I use my spectro to measure the L*a*b values of
ink swatches, and to measure dot area curves, then input these readings
into Photoshop as a custom ink setup. Then I use the resulting custom
ink profile to preview my CMYK images *after* applying the partitioning
curves, so I see not only the tonality of the grayscale image, but the
subtle hues of warm and cool grays, on my calibrated monitor. I find
this preview to be spot-on.

If you're using RGB, other list members (like Dave King, Campfire Dan,
and Takichi, I think -- excuse please if that's not right) have reported
that you can print 729 swatches and use the spectro and Profiler Pro to
make an RGB profile (!) for the quad ink set. Then use that profile for
PS preview only -- *not* for printing. I have not tried this method, but
it has been reported to work well, too.

regards,
Richard Wolfson