So I was wondering. Do you guys limit your black and white points when printing with photo labs? As per this article http://www.zuberphotographics.com/content/printing/black-point.htm and my own experiences prints come back looking better when there is no true black on the prepared file. I tweaked my own curves adjustment layer to 16,16,16 blacks and 245,245,245 whites.

Someone suggested to me that the printers black point compensation should take care of this ? Anyone experienced with printing can elaborate on this issue? Perhaps outline your workflow. I received the mpix Calibration kit with the TIF file on CD and a print. None of the shadows in the file go lighter than 16. Thanks

The terminology in that article -- "What the Printer Sees" -- is somewhat misleading. More accurately its more a matter of what the printer can resolve. With ink jet printers there are the mechanical variables of dot spread, slur, etc. which will cause patterns > 90% to run together and form a solid. In the highlights its mostly a matter of the difference between the white paper with no ink and the smallest dot the printer can create. Photo-based printers don't have the same mechanical variables.

A printed image will never exactly match the screen, so when preparing files for print anticipate there will be some loss of highlight or shadow detail and overall contrast and compensate for it in the files used for printing by making the print files a bit more open in the shadows, or using more USM than for a screen image. How the files look on the screen will not predict how they look when printed, so like unsharp masking the only way to determine the ideal settings white/ black point settings is to prepare and print test files.

Perceptually we key off the lightest and darkest things in our field of vision to establish the tonal scale. I trick I use when I want the viewer to see more of the shadow detail in an image is to add a mat around the photo which is darker than the shadows. That makes the shadows seem lighter and more detailed by comparison. A mistake many make in studio shots on white is to "nuke" the background to 255.255.255. That's an easy, lazy way to get an evenly lit background but perceptually it will make any white objects in the foreground seem dull by comparison. It's better perceptually to use a darker background which will make the 250.250.250 "paper" white values seem brighter by comparison. 255.255.255 are as valuable as diamonds in photos, especially in very dark or very light objects. In a photo it is contrast which creates the illusion of 3D. When a white background is nuked and the foreground is rim lit the edge detail will disappear.

Very light and very dark areas are the most difficult to reproduce, but also the most critical in creating the illusion of 3D in a 2D photo. Consider black and white cats. Ideally you'd want distinct specular highlights on the hair of both. On the white cat the subtle difference between the 255 specular highlights and adjacent 250 solid hair is critical to the illusion of shape. On the black cat the 255 specular highlights contrasting with the dark hair will create the illusion of shape. The difference between lighting white and dark fur is that white fur also needs a direct source hitting at an angle to create sharp distinct shadow, while dark fur needs to be lit with enough fill to raise the detail in the darker areas to where the camera can record it.

Chuck

well said chuck.