Photoshop question

From: Judith Terpstra (kiwi1@ALASKA.NET)
Date: Fri Mar 23 2001 - 18:24:02 CST

  • Next message: Tim Au Yeung: "Re: Photoshop question" 

    Message-Id: <200103240016.RAA10378@dns.ccit.arizona.edu>
Date:         Fri, 23 Mar 2001 15:24:02 -0900
From: Judith Terpstra <mailto:kiwi1@ALASKA.NET>
Subject:      Photoshop question
To: mailto:IMAGELIB@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU

    <pre> Hi everyone

    I have a question for the expert Photoshop users in the group. I am working on a newspaper photograph digitization project with a small regional library in Alaska and trying hard to get up to speed with issues such as calibration, and determining appropriate Photoshop settings for greyscale scans (I am a librarian not a scanning expert!).

    We are scanning a collection of 5,000 photographs, the majority of which are Black & White. We are using Photoshop 6.0. on a PC, with Windows 2000 professional version and an Epson 836 XL flatbed scanner. We use Expson Scan II32 and TWAIN 1.75 pro to determine our scan settings. We are scanning the images at 12 bit grayscale at a resolution of ~4,000 pixels along the long side of the image. We are scanning at a high resolution and bit depth for archival purposes,so that the digital image can be output to both an ordinary ink jet printer,and on a high end printer.

    The question we have has to do with determining which working space setting we should use for our gray scale scans in Photoshop 6.0. The default gray scale setting is selected from the Color Settings Dialog box. Should the Gray working space be Gamma 2.2 or Dot Gain 20% or some other setting? We found that we when we used the "Dot Gain 20%" setting the image on the screen more closely resembled the source photograph than the Gamma 2.2 setting. We calibrated our monitor using Adobe Gamma, but of course, this is a pretty subjective evaluation
    (reliant on the ambient lighting, users perceptionetc.).

     From the reading I have done, you should choose as the default setting that which "most closely matches the behavior of your most common grayscale output." (Bouton, Gary. Inside Adobe Photoshop 6). However, as described, we have not scanned the image with a specific device in mind, (although, we DO plan to purchase an Epson inkjet printer so that we can make in house copies of photographs). The default working space profile we select in the Color Settings dialog box applies to newly created files.

    In short, we are puzzled and hopeful that someone out there can shed light on how to determine which setting we should select for gray scale images. All input will be much appreciated.

    I also pass on this fact (which is obvious now that I think about it...) that you cannot calibrate your scanner for greyscale output using a calibration tool such as Monaco EZColor or Agfa Fototune because they are color calibration tools....so you cannot create a grayscale profile for your scanner.

    Thanks for your help.

    Judith

    Judith A.K. Terpstra Information Access 6921 Brayton Drive #210 Anchorage, AK 99507 Phone: (907) 349-7478 Fax: (907) 344-7958

    </pre>

    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Mar 23 2001 - 18:19:47 CST