Setting black and white points in photoshop in preparation for printing?

[Ligament]

Howdy All,

This may be a very basic question to many of you but please indulge me.

I just watched this video on setting optimal black and white points when preparing an image for printing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eToQ1yqm5E8&list=UUKWZQiPb0KaeX8i0UCp2M2g

Ian Barber is suggesting setting a black point of 7 and white point of 247 to preserve printing detail in shadows and whites and avoid going to paper white. I understand his suggested values of 7/247 are based on his specific epson printer, paper, and inks.

I'd like LuLa's opinion on this topic. Is this generally good advice for those of us who outsource our prints vs. print in-house? Is this information I should ask printers prior to sending them a file or is this something a printer generally will do as part of the pre-print optimization at their lab?

Thank you!

[Schewe]

I'd like LuLa's opinion on this topic.

This is my opinion, not "LuLa's" but I couldn't give a rats ass about the numbers…soft proof the image and SEE how the image looks. The numbers are the numbers but seeing is believing.