Digital BW, The Print

Thank you,Amadou, for thinking up and providing us with this very 
interesting evening. 

For those of you who haven't followed the discussion, we were first 
supposed to print a fully manipulated, sharpened image with an 
embedded profile on Photo Rag 308. I naturally assumed that all 
these prints would end up looking pretty similar.

My print was done on the Epson 2400 with no rip, and with a 
downloaded Hahnemuhle profile. I assumed that this print would serve 
as the control, with the more sophisticated systems providing more 
subtle, somehow better, prints. However, this is not what turned 
out. In fact, the standard prints showed a surprising amount of 
variability.Actually,someone mentioned that the manipulated prints 
looked more alike than the standard prints. As Dave Tobie mentioned 
above, the Epson 2400 print looked about as good as most. Recall 
that these prints had no user imput other than setting up the 
printer parameters.

So, I'm a bit puzzled about what this all means. Perhaps, one of the 
more knowledgable members can comment on what we found.

Evan













--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Eric Neilsen" 
<e.neilsen2@...> wrote:
>
> It was difficult to make any absolute judgments about the print 
quality due
> to a number of factors; size of room, number of prints, and 
quality of
> light. What did strike us was that we did indeed have many 
different looking
> prints. We left behind the Version A prints, those that were to be 
printed
> straight, to allow for a print exchange type distribution of the 
image for
> inspection. I got in very late last night from the trip, but will 
post some
> shots that I took of the prints handing on the walls. I will need 
to catch
> up on business so it may be tomorrow or the next day before that 
happens. 
> 
>  
> 
> I didn't take any notes other than visual inspection that night. 
There was a
> variety of print quality presented that night for sure. I for one 
was very
> glad to have made the effort to be there and to meet the folks 
that were
> also in attendance. It was however, too short an event and too 
long a table
> to really talk to everyone but still a very enjoyable night. 
Thanks for
> putting it together Amadou !!!!! 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> I am sure that we can all make gray scale ramps from our settings 
if that
> truly would mean something. However, as a silver printer for many 
years, I
> know that there are many ways to skin a cat, and file prep for 
printing will
> vary as does negative creation and printing still do in the land 
of silver.
> It will always still be in the hand and eye of the human element  
(aka the
> printer) to truly make the call as to where to place certain 
values.  There
> was no information collected on the prints, or by me, as to 
whether any
> calibration equipment was used and if so what kind. 
> 
>  
> 
> More on the event later, 
> 
>  
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Eric
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Eric Neilsen Photography
> 
> 4101 Commerce Street
> 
> Suite 9
> 
> Dallas, TX 75226
> 
> http://e.neilsen.home.att.net
> 
> http://ericneilsenphotography.com
> 
> Skype ejprinter
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>