When Roy says "what happens when you want a different paper?", I think he is referring to what happens when you switch papers if you don't convert to the ICC. This used to trouble me too, and was one reason that I was initially attracted to ICC conversion. You can switch papers and get roughly the same image, allowing for differences between papers. However, if you can manage to print in GG22 without ICC conversion with curves that are perfectly linear for each paper, then you get pretty much the same effect. As a Piezography user, this was only possible before the relinearisation droplet by paying IJM $US99 for each custom curve. The relinearisation droplet solves all that and makes changing papers without ICC conversion a snap. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I understand only too well the benefits of a good screen to print match as a good starting point - to minimise the iterations. But as I tried to explain in that blog post, there's more than one way to skin a cat. The preserve numbers soft-proof gives a good screen-to-print match, as does assigning the ICC rather than converting. I resisted this Cone-esque workflow for some time. but gradually I came to realise what I was missing in the shadows. Once you've converted it's hard to get the detail back in the deep shadows by editing. Better to stick to GG22, preserve numbers soft-proof, and edit the shadows down to where you want them than to convert and try to recover them. So it's not whether you use the ICC, it's how you use it to best effect.
I mention Paul's .acv in that article, although only really to to contrast it to the GG22 work - it's an easy way of doing the exact opposite. In fact I make a lot of use of that ICC. If you find the preserve numbers soft proof too light and the ICC conversion too dark, you can put that PS curve on a layer and have the opacity in the 40-60% range and use it to edit down the shadows to where you want them, with the preserve numbers soft proof as your guide. It allows me to dial in an intermediate rendering. So it's a useful tool no matter which workflow you use. That's probably worth adding to the article.
The idea of doing the same thing by creating a custom ICC with custom dMax and dMin numbers is intriguing, but I think .acv on a layer is more flexible.
I often read the statement that the convert to ICC workflow is more awkward in Windows, but I can't really see it. You just convert to the ICC in PS and save a duplicate then print in QTRGui. Given that neither Mac nor Win allows you to print from PS any more, I just can't see that the workflow is all that much different. Mac allows you to avoid creating a duplicate, but it's still a two program workflow, isn't it?
It troubles me a little that Roy had to read my article multiple times to understand it. I tried to make it accessible to all levels of knowledge. I'm open to comments about what isn't clear.
---In QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com, <roy@...> wrote [relevant excerpts only]:
I mention Paul's .acv in that article, although only really to to contrast it to the GG22 work - it's an easy way of doing the exact opposite. In fact I make a lot of use of that ICC. If you find the preserve numbers soft proof too light and the ICC conversion too dark, you can put that PS curve on a layer and have the opacity in the 40-60% range and use it to edit down the shadows to where you want them, with the preserve numbers soft proof as your guide. It allows me to dial in an intermediate rendering. So it's a useful tool no matter which workflow you use. That's probably worth adding to the article.
The idea of doing the same thing by creating a custom ICC with custom dMax and dMin numbers is intriguing, but I think .acv on a layer is more flexible.
I often read the statement that the convert to ICC workflow is more awkward in Windows, but I can't really see it. You just convert to the ICC in PS and save a duplicate then print in QTRGui. Given that neither Mac nor Win allows you to print from PS any more, I just can't see that the workflow is all that much different. Mac allows you to avoid creating a duplicate, but it's still a two program workflow, isn't it?
It troubles me a little that Roy had to read my article multiple times to understand it. I tried to make it accessible to all levels of knowledge. I'm open to comments about what isn't clear.
---In QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com, <roy@...> wrote [relevant excerpts only]:
I think the workflows fall into two categories -- dumb down the screen somehow
so you edit in the reduced DR that matches the paper, or -- do a correction curve
at print time that gives the best you can do mapping (i.e. something you can
easily learn to pre-visualize). I prefer the later since the former ties the image
file to the specific paper -- what happens when you want a different paper?
But the beauty of digital photography is reducing the trial and fix cycles. Screen toprint matching to me seems like the ultimate goal. ... You will
always need to use your experience to "see" what you will get and will need a minimum
trial/fix cycle. So lets do the best we can.
I've know Paul Roark for a long time and he's certainly someone who knows
what he is doing. He's got a Photoshop curves (.acv file) that he just puts on a
layer above everything else. Turn it on for printing and off for editing. In a sense
it works very much like a printing ICC profile -- just applied for printing.
There generic ICCs are super simple, you can easily make your own with different parameters.
So given that the PC workflow w/ICC is a bit more awkward there have been a numberThere generic ICCs are super simple, you can easily make your own with different parameters.
of workflows to accomplish something similar.
I also read Brian's paper quite a few times to get it all (maybe).