Owner`s manual

Page 23, Data Sheet 4020, rev: Saturday, October 06, 2007
Before sending ANY file to the printer, take a minute to
check the tone range and neutrality of the print. This is
easily done with the INFO tool in Photoshop.
Place the courser in the darkest, area of the print. Select an
area that you want to print as SOLID BLACK in the
finished print.
Then with the courser in that area, check the RGB reading
in the INFO tool. In the example above, the reading is 12,
11, 10.
That tells you that since the three colors, Red, Green &
Blue are all within 2 units of each other, the area under the
cursor (the red X in the photo) is almost perfectly
NEUTRAL in color balance. If all three numbers were
identical, then the area would be absolutely NEUTRAL
(no color tint… black in this case).
Notice that the numbers are about 10 to 12 units. That is
all that is needed in order to deliver solid BLACK in the
print.
If these numbers read LESS than 10 –12 units…. You
have ―set‖ the overall DENSITY of the image too dark,
and the highlights will be darker than they need to be. So,
go to IMAGE to ADJUSTMENT to BRIGHTNESS/
CONTRAST and lighten the overall image until the
darkest place in the image reads about 10 to 12 units.
If you rake an INFO reading in an area that should be
BLACK, all three numbers should be within 4-5 units of
each other. If they are not, that indicates that the shadow
area has a tint of COLOR in it. The color might not show
up in the print, since that area is going to be black. But,
the fact that the color is there might indicate that your
print is not properly color balanced. Such a slight ―out of
Some Final Pointers on Adjusting The Electronic File
color balance‖ condition might not be apparent on your
monitor screen, but it will probably show up in the print.
It is a good idea to make slight, tweaking, color balance
adjustments until you get INFO tool readings that are as
close to each other as possible.
For example, if the INFO tool readings were: 15, 9, 8….
That would indicate a strong amount of RED color in an
area that should be near-neutral. It would be a good idea
to pull some of the red out of the electronic file before
sending it off to the printer, even though the image on the
monitor might look OK to you. The monitor and your
eyes can fool you. But, the INFO tool never lies. If the
INFO tool tells you that you have a tint of color in an area
that SHOULD be neutral gray…. You can bet that the
color tint will show up in the print, even if you can’t see it
on the monitor.
Remember if the INFO tool reads, 255, 255, 255 the area
is perfectly WHITE… no tone value at all. You would
like to avoid this in most prints. The very whitest area of a
picture should have a tiny bit of tone value in it. Solid
white (255, 255, 255) is referred to as ―spectral‖ white.
That is the shade of white found in ―glare‖ conditions…
such as the catch light in an eyeball from a flash gun, or
the glare of the sun on the hull of a white sail boat.
If the INFO tool reads 0,0,0 the area is perfectly
BLACK… maximum density (D-MAX). You would like
to avoid this in most prints. The very darkest area of a
print never needs to be much less than 10—12 units. If
you ―set‖ your electronic files to read 10—12 units in the
D-MAX areas, the highlights will come out nice and
bright.
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