Digital BW, The Print

Clayton and Roy, greetings.

Clayton, thanks very much for all the work you've posted to your pages -- 
very helpful indeed.   I noted that you remarked that Merlin needs an adjustment 
curve because of its contrast characteristics.   Have you any clue what that 
might entail for users of QTR, especially those of us on the 7600/9600 
platform?   Roy, any thoughts on this question?

Best to all --

Sanders McNew.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hello Sanders,

>Clayton, thanks very much for all the work you've posted to your 
>pages -- very helpful indeed.   

You're welcome.  Glad it's helpful.


>I noted that you remarked that 
>Merlin needs an adjustment curve because of its contrast
characteristics.   Have you any clue what that might entail for 
>users of QTR, especially those of us on the 7600/9600 
>platform?   Roy, any thoughts on this question?

Roy is the better one to answer that.  I don't use QTR and as I
mentioned in another post, I have some questions about using variable
tone systems on these other papers.  Certainly any such system that
relies on paper profiles has to take into account both the color and
the contrast differences.  

Merlin seems more different than any of the others because it's a warm
paper that renders ink cool, plus its long curve.  Both are
unconventional characteristics.  It's a really neat paper that opens
up a lot of possibilities, but seems like it might be a challenge to
profile.  So I'm as interested to hear Roy's answer as you are. 

Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Clayton Jones" <cj@c...> 
wrote:
> Hello Sanders,
> 
> >Clayton, thanks very much for all the work you've posted to your 
> >pages -- very helpful indeed.   
> 
> You're welcome.  Glad it's helpful.
> 
> 
> >I noted that you remarked that 
> >Merlin needs an adjustment curve because of its contrast
> characteristics.   Have you any clue what that might entail for 
> >users of QTR, especially those of us on the 7600/9600 
> >platform?   Roy, any thoughts on this question?
> 
> Roy is the better one to answer that.  I don't use QTR and as I
> mentioned in another post, I have some questions about using variable
> tone systems on these other papers.  Certainly any such system that
> relies on paper profiles has to take into account both the color and
> the contrast differences.  
> 
> Merlin seems more different than any of the others because it's a warm
> paper that renders ink cool, plus its long curve.  Both are
> unconventional characteristics.  It's a really neat paper that opens
> up a lot of possibilities, but seems like it might be a challenge to
> profile.  So I'm as interested to hear Roy's answer as you are. 
> 
> Regards,
> Clayton
> 
> 
> Info on black and white digital printing at    
> http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm

Hi Sanders and Clayton,

First, Clayton, thanks for the paper review.  The number of good papers
these days has made it hard to keep up with.  I'm still mostly a Photo Rag
user but other choices are worth looking into.

I've never used Merlin paper and I'm not sure what you mean by unusual
contrast characteristics.   But the idea with QTR is that you get to 
"linearize" the output.   If the paper somehow absorbs the ink more or
less and the tones are not evenly distributed, with a densitometer you get
to measure the actual print results and make a correction curve that
gets incorporated into the QTR profile so the same file can be printed 
without significant modification.  Its also possible to vary the total amount
of ink that gets layed down on the paper.

BTW, while QTR can do variable tone inks etc. you could use QTR for BO 
printing to take advantage of the ink limits, linearizing and softproofing. 

Roy

Hello Roy,

>First, Clayton, thanks for the paper review.  The number of 
>good papers these days has made it hard to keep up with.  

Yes, it's hard to choose, especially for someone just coming into it.
I hope the article will help people get a good overview and not be
mindboggled by all the choices.


>I've never used Merlin paper and I'm not sure what you mean 
>by unusual contrast characteristics.   

When I first tried it it seemed to have an extended midtone range. 
Carl Schofield sent me a plot of it and indeed, it has a longer
straight line section with more abbreviated toe and shoulder.  This is
quite different from all the other papers I've tested, and it is
really nice for some images, giving an extended range, sort of
platinum-ish look (hard to describe, but distinctive).  As for color,
it's even more unusual because its paper color is upper-medium warm (4
on a scale of 1-6 among all the papers I tested) but renders Eboni
very cool, almost as cool as Condor.  So it has an unusual mix of cool
darks and warm highlights, the effect of which varies according to the
dark/light mix of the image.  Depending on the image, these effects
can be quite beautiful or simply not work at all.  You just have to
try and see.

The combination of these things makes it unique among the papers, and
it occurred to me that a profile for it would probably be unusual. 
I'll be curious about anything you have to say if you try some.


>BTW, while QTR can do variable tone inks etc. you could use QTR 
>for BO printing to take advantage of the ink limits, linearizing 
>and softproofing. 

Now _that's_ a thought.  Even though I'm not inclined to tinker with
profiles and such (one of the reasons I like BO) I might get a Windows
version when it's ready and fiddle with it.  Who knows, maybe I'll
like it <g>. 


Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm