Block Proofing

[wolfnowl]

Hi Folks:

There's a 17-minute video on John Paul Caponigro's blog site on using a gradient mask in Photoshop to help with proofing prints.  It's similar to the old step wedges we used to make in the darkroom, but it's an idea that can be used for more than just exposure.  I think it's a really good idea...

Mike.

[francois]

Thanks for sharing. Very interesting!

[bill t.]

I like the way he just accepts that screen and print will never quite agree, and that there are ways to deal with it besides freaking out over imagined color management issues.

That technique reminds of the teststrips that I (and many others) used to make under the enlarger while the metronome ticked away. 2(move) 4 (move) 6(move) 8(move) 11(move) 16(move) 22(move)...

[Justan]

^^ ah memories,^^

Thanks for the tip, Mike!

[bill t.]

There are, however, significant downsides to those kinds of techniques.  Most basically, you might wind up with deep stacks of hard to understand control layer gizmos.  For instance, when you have gray masks on adjustment layers, the actual effect of of the control is somewhat obscure...it is less effective overall than with a white mask.  With several of those things in effect at the same time it starts to become difficult to understand what control is actually controlling what effect.  Adjusting one single partially masked control can require making compensations on several others.

I use the shadow masking trick a lot, but usually starting from a luminosity mask.  The catch there is that you may find it necessary to create reverse masks to control otherwise easily managed stuff like highlights.  And that inevitably leads to situations where in order to do just one more thing, you may need to regenerate several masked layers that weren't exactly right to start with.

There are other issues with hard edged shadow masks that may create artifacts in print sharpening.

But for relatively simple images as shown, those are good techniques.  But there is still no truly free lunch.

[Justan]

Is it possible to dl the video? my broadband connection only lets me see about 10 seconds before pausing long enough to drink a cup o joe.

I didn’t see a link to the video….

[Justan]

> … But for relatively simple images as shown, those are good techniques. But there is still no truly free lunch.

Bill,

Thanks for this elaboration. With my meager but growing PS skills I'm finding that filters often contribute to unexpected results. Multiple filters definitely complicate the process. Then there is the often vast difference between the way something appears on the LCD compared to the way it prints.

I'm gonna give the above techniques a try. Up 'till now I've been copyng a 2” x length slice of the image and exporting it to make test strips......

[bill t.]

> … copyng a 2” x length slice of the image and exporting it to make test strips......

Me too.  Sometimes I copy the same strip onto multiple, slightly offset layers, each with its own different clipping-masked Curves or other adjustment layer.

JPC's wedges might work pretty good on say 4"... test strips, maybe with a more limited range of grays than from full black to full white.  But I still don't much like the idea of control layers with overall gray masks.

[wolfnowl]

Is it possible to dl the video? my broadband connection only lets me see about 10 seconds before pausing long enough to drink a cup o joe.

I didn’t see a link to the video….

Try this page: http://revision3.com/pixelperfect/proofing

There's a 'Download' link on the right side.

Mike.

[Justan]

Try this page: http://revision3.com/pixelperfect/proofing

There's a 'Download' link on the right side.

Mike.

Thanks! I grabbed it last evening (took almost an hour to download) and will look at it this weekend. I'll post back after i get a chance to play with it.

[howardm]

the info in those videos is pretty good but everything else (the media player, annoying 60 second MTV intro and the host) conspire to make it all tough to sit and watch.