Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Joost Horsten" 
<j.h.j.h@...> wrote:

>To exclude any artifacts in the transformation 
> could you post the original 16-bit Tiff file as well?
 
Hi Joost.
Sorry i couldn't reply sooner.

I'll email the above file to you off-list if that's OK (6.6MB), 
rather than add another version to the Files area of DB&WTP at this 
time.

As for your other points . . .
Unlike you, i started out with a very poor linearization and was able 
to significantly improve it using the test image. (In terms of 
technology, i'm still in the dark ages here.) But like you, i could 
still see some faint banding in the left-hand targets. I'd assumed 
this was something specific to my revised linearization (i.e. that it 
wasn't perfect), but i'd improved things so much i was willing to 
live with this.

But you do seem to have highlighted a more generalised problem than 
i'd thought was the case. In an off-list message Jeff Randall reports 
that he can also see some banding, albeit in a larger version of the 
target which i sent him for an opinion. 

Printing this morning directly from the 16bit original (using the 
workspace profile the image was created in) didn't seem to improve 
the situation, so my first thought was that there was something 
fundamentally flawed in the circular targets. But when i looked 
really closely at the linear ramp below the targets, i found that i 
could see some very faint banding there too, and the location of 
these bands did seem to correspond to those that appeared on the 
circular targets. 

Would you mind checking the linear ramp on your own prints carefully? 
If you can also see some slight banding there, then it may be that 
the circular targets are simply doing what they were intended to do 
(i.e. making things more obvious). 

As for what might be causing the banding (linearization, dithering or 
something else entirely), i'm afraid the explanation will need a 
sharper or more experienced mind than mine. And as for what to do 
about it . . . I mentioned in my original post that i found the 
targets quite unforgiving and thought the important thing was to 
produce prints that we're satisfied with. You were clearly happy with 
your profile prior to printing the test-file, so i'd say that's what 
really matters. I'd hate to feel that you were struggling to improve 
a good profile as the result of an image i'd produced.

Regards.
Graham