Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Master B&W Printing
Tips for creating stunning monochrome prints
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This Article Features Photo Zoom |
PRINTER SETTINGS
Here's something you might have overlooked. Setting a printer driver may not be the pinnacle of photographic excitement, but it's really important, especially if your printer offers specialized settings for black-and-white.
 Here's an example of a very basic, but useful test print technique. We divided the image into five equal zones. We chose vertical strips rather than horizontal so that each zone would have similar, comparable content. (For some images, depending on the subject and composition, horizontal strips may work better.) Then we adjusted the Brightness of each zone as follows, from left to right: +150, +75, 0, -75, -150. Printing this image lets us see what the final result will be with our ink and paper combination. You can work this technique on a gradient, meaning if you prefer -75 Brightness, but think it's maybe a little too dark, repeat the process with settings like -25, -35, -45, -55 and -65 until you feel like you've dialed in the right setting. |
At the most basic, you should check that you've set your printer to its highest-quality setting and selected a paper type that most closely matches the paper you're using. Photo printers designed for enthusiasts and professionals usually will have even more controls to fine-tune their output. It's worth your time to review your printer's user manual to be sure you're taking full advantage of the printer driver.
RESOURCES
Canon
www.usa.canon.com
Epson
www.proimaging.epson.com
Hahnemühle
www.hahnemuhle.com
Ilford
www.ilford.com
Moab
www.moabpaper.com
MAKE A TEST PRINTCanon
www.usa.canon.com
Epson
www.proimaging.epson.com
Hahnemühle
www.hahnemuhle.com
Ilford
www.ilford.com
Moab
www.moabpaper.com
Even with a well-calibrated system, what you see on screen is going to be different from what you see in print. A backlit screen is always going to have more pop than a print. The adjustments you've made to your image to prepare for printing—brightness, contrast, shadows, highlights and the like—may look great on screen, but not translate as well in print.
Make some test prints. One of our favorite techniques is to divide an image into sections, apply different adjustments to each section and then compare the results in the final print. This does add an extra step to the workflow, but it's worth it. It may end up actually saving you time, as well as ink and paper. You'll want to do this for every combination of image, ink and paper.
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