Digital BW, The Print

justinflorentine wrote:
> Anyhoo, I'm a PC user who shoots exclusively on 35mm Nikons.  I
> bought a Nikon Coolscan 4000 and an Epson 2200 for my digital
> darkroom.  Like most others, IU use photoshop.  Now I'm trying to
> grok color management, more specifically ICC (or is it ICM?  what's
> the difference?) color profiles.  I ran through the adobe gamma
> wizard in my Win2K control panel to make sure my monitor was
> accurate, and to generate a profile.  I did this, but now I'm not
> sure at which phase of my workflow to apply it.

The monitor profile is only for the monitor -- think of it as sitting
between the image in its RGB working space (AdobeRGB?) and the
screen. You should now have an 'adobe gamma loader' program in
your startup folder, which makes sure the monitor profile is applied
to everything you see on the screen.

> 1) Scan on nikon cs 4000.  No gain adjustment, no auto-exposure,
> 14bit RGB scan.  Level adjustments to be done in PS.

Use the histogram tool in Nikonscan. On some images you should
adjust white point, black point, and/or analog gain, to make sure you
capture everything before going to Photoshop.

> 2) Do I immediately apply my monitor profile to the image?  I would
> think that this would make my future changes relative to the monitor
> profile.  Is this correct?

No. See above.

> 3) Adjust levels, crop, and darkroom fun.
>
> 4) Adjust DPI/image size, print to the 2200.  Now when I do this, do
> I use my monitor profile as the source, or would that be
> double-profiling?  If not, what do I use for the source profile?  The
> target profile is the Epson 2200 that came with it, but I suspect I
> should be using a paper/ink specific profile.  Is this correct?

See Ian Lyons's website ( www.computer-darkroom.com ) for some
good step by step instructions...

> Is this a complete enough workflow?  I feel like I must be missing
> some steps, but that could just be freshman uncertainty...

You seem to be off to a good start. Keep asking questions.

Peter Marquis-Kyle
www.marquis-kyle.com.au

> The monitor profile is only for the monitor -- think of it as 
sitting
> between the image in its RGB working space (AdobeRGB?) and the
> screen. You should now have an 'adobe gamma loader' program in
> your startup folder, which makes sure the monitor profile is applied
> to everything you see on the screen.

The Gamma loader is in the folder.  As for the colorspace of the 
scanner, I'm not sure.  Nikon Color Management was off by default in 
Nikon Scan (3.1.2)  Do I need to turn it on?  I saw many posts 
earlier saying most folks disable most of the bells and whistles, but 
I can't really understand how that helps get more information from 
the scan.  

> Use the histogram tool in Nikonscan. On some images you should
> adjust white point, black point, and/or analog gain, to make sure 
you
> capture everything before going to Photoshop.

I didn't have to touch the analog gain, but I did have a problem with 
the previews.  Upon further examination, I saw that the auto-exposure 
was disabled in the preview, but not the scans, making for a dramatic 
difference between the preview and the scan.  Now I'm getting great 
scans.


> See Ian Lyons's website ( www.computer-darkroom.com ) for some
> good step by step instructions...

Wow, that article on color management is fantastic.  VERY HELPFUL,  
Thanks!