Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Colour Management => Topic started by: William Walker on April 15, 2014, 12:55:27 pm

Title: Print Viewer Question
Post by: William Walker on April 15, 2014, 12:55:27 pm

Hi

I have the opportunity to buy a GTI PDV-2ED Desktop Print Viewer locally at a pretty good price as opposed to getting one from B&H (plus shipping etc. etc.)

I am sure I'm asking a dumb question, but here goes anyway!

Would I be right in thinking that it is ok to do all the proofing necessary making small prints and using a print viewer this size and then making the final print any size - obviously larger?

Thanks!
William

Title: Re: Print Viewer Question
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on April 15, 2014, 01:07:43 pm

Technically, objectively, as measured by instruments, you would be probably right. However, subjective perception of color, contrast and brightness tends to change with size.

Title: Re: Print Viewer Question
Post by: David Sutton on April 17, 2014, 02:08:33 am

Larger prints tend to look lighter than smaller prints. As Slobodan said, there may be other effects. John Paul Caponigro has a free (if you sign up) pdf on it here (http://www.johnpaulcaponigro.com/downloads/technique/technique.php)
Go to "Proofing" and look for "Compensate for scale".

Title: Re: Print Viewer Question
Post by: digitaldog on April 17, 2014, 10:42:58 am

JP's piece is worth reading! That said, I'd have to ask if one makes that big print, the likelihood is it will be viewed in another environment from the booth used for proofing and your eyes will likely adapt to the illuminant. So the booth while not 100% is a good call because you want to ensure WYSIWYG which means some way to view a proof next to the display. That means some kind of booth that allows you to view the two side by side without light spill on the display. And of course, that booth's illuminant may be different than the display so once again, we play the adaptation game again. In the end, you want to know that what you see on the display and what comes off on a print, even at a smaller size is close. They will never match 100%.

Title: Re: Print Viewer Question
Post by: William Walker on April 17, 2014, 04:47:07 pm

Thank you Slobodan, David and Andrew!

I think the bare minimum benefit here is that even a small print viewer will provide a stable starting point which will then allow one to develop one's own compensations over time. Certainly JP's article will save a lot of that trial and error!

Thank you again - I have ordered the Viewer!

Regards
William