As I continue to print my monochrome images on the wonderful Epson 3880 printer using Exhibition Fiber paper, I am finding that I have needed to make a very slight toning adjustment to get them to come out according to my vision.
What prompted this change was seeing one of my photographs hanging on a wall alongside several other monochrome prints at the Louisville show this past summer. It was quite easy to see which images were truly black and white and which had a slight blue or brown tint to them. Mine was one of the “brown” ones.
Now, you may want to tint your pictures for a certain effect, mood, or personal style (say, sepia, for instance), but I was looking for something fairly neutral with good, deep blacks. My photograph, when set in contrast with the others, just didn’t have it. This is something that can’t really be seen when looking at an image in isolation (yes, even with a calibrated monitor) as the eye tends to adjust, but it is obvious in comparison. (Another way of checking for this would be to examine the info numbers in your red, green and blue channels. More on this sometime in the future.)
So what was my toning adjustment? (For the moment, we’ll set aside the effect a different paper might have on the image.) Using Nik Silver Efex Pro 2, I added just a tad bit of selenium toning, starting with their number 4 option on their Toning pull-down menu. The difference was very subtle, but very noticeable, when doing a side-by-side comparison.
You might also like
Leave a reply