Digital BW, The Print

In a message dated 11/23/06 10:32:20 PM, tyler@... writes:


> Amadou's comments about resolution are very important for dimension in 
> photography on
> paper, and I find too much USM can kill all depth very quickly.
> 

I was reading the various comments on this thread, and pulled out a sample 
print I made the other day, as it had struck me has having that illusion of 3d 
previously. It was an environmental portrait printed on an   R220 with Paul 
Roark's UT-3D inks, through the RGB driver, via a PrintFIX PRO 2.0 profile. The 
Italian chef in the image was in the tightest focus, and had also been optimize 
for tonal range, etc, in the image editing stage. Next to him and a bit 
further back, without the direct light, and not in the zone of tightest focus, was 
a his rack of knives; a telling detail for a chef, but not the main focus of 
the portrait. The chef had that illusion of 3d that can make an image jump off 
the page; the background, and the knives, did not. I considered this an 
effective combination, and had never really ponderd it before. Tonal range and focus 
both contribute to the effect. 

But I next had to check off another item on the list: inks. I dug around 
until I found a copy of the same image printed on an Epson k3 printer, with OEM 
inks, and (again) a PrintFIX PRO2.0   profile. So the main difference here was 
instead of a number of tinted gray inks interacting to form the tones here, it 
was predominantly one light gray for highlights and one dark gray for shadows, 
with supporting roles for the color inks as toners. I rather expected that 
the relatively fragile illusion of 3d would be clearly present in the monochrome 
inks image, and missing in the OEM inks image; but, to my suprise both images 
held the illusion in the same areas (subject, and backlit stemware to one 
side) and did not hold it in the same areas (back wall and knife rack). So, at 
least in this case, the "thinness" of OEM neutral printing did not effect the 3d 
illusion, or show (to my eye, at 24 inch examination distance) any real 
difference in detail, smoothness, or color noise. Gosh, you guys almost had me 
convinced. <G>

Regarding Tyler's comments about detail and USM: the image in question was a 
full frame Canon DSLR capture with an L series lens (stepping down in either 
of those areas could well have cost   the image that effect), and was sharpened 
only the amount that I sharpen all my images coming through CameraRAW, no 
output specific sharpening. If it had been even a bit out of focus, and I had 
tried to compensate with sharpening, I'm sure that 3d illusion would have been 
absent, as it was in areas of the image in slightly softer focus.

C. David Tobie
Product Technology Manager
ColorVision Business Division
DataColor Inc.
CDTobie@...
www.colorvision.com


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