Guest Blogger Tim Grey: Ink in Bright Areas of Print

Thanks to Tim Grey, best selling author and writer of the Digital Darkroom Quarterly.

Today's Question:


What is the best way to ensure "some" ink will always make it to the paper when printing? Often times, I see highlight areas (specular highlights or maybe even very purposeful bright/white areas) that do not seem to get any ink on the paper and therefore produce a print that does not look its best, especially when viewed from a direction other than straight ahead.

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Tim's Answer:


First, you might reconsider making sure ink covers these areas of the image. It is true that when there isn't any ink on the paper there will be variations in the reflectivity of the print (mostly due to differences between the reflectivity of the paper and the reflectivity of the ink that is coating most of the paper), and this can be a little distracting. However, when the print is behind glass the surface reflectivity is pretty well balanced out, because the reflectivity of the glass overpowers the paper/ink combination.


Still, I do realize this issue can be a little distracting and undesirable in the print. The method I recommend for ensuring at least some ink covers all areas of the paper is to reduce the white output value using Levels or Curves. It is slightly simpler in Levels, so I'll discuss that approach.
Once you have otherwise prepared the image for printing (for example, working with a duplicate of the master image and resizing and sharpening the image), choose Image > Adjustments > Levels from the menu to bring up the Levels dialog box. Move the white slider in the Output Levels section (not the white slider directly under the histogram) to the left so that white values in the image will be re-mapped to a slightly darker shade, thus ensuring ink will be placed on the paper even in specular highlights in the image. As you move this value down, you'll notice that the bright white areas of the image start to get a little drab in appearance. As a result, I recommend only reducing the value by a very small amount, based on what still looks good in the image. Keep in mind that with a very slight reduction there will only be a small amount of ink put to the paper in the brightest areas, so there may still be some reflectivity variation, but they should be very minor at that point.


While I don't address this issue specifically in the "Color Management Made Easy" article that appears in the current issue of Digital Darkroom Quarterly, the article does cover all of the critical elements of a color-managed workflow. You can get more details or subscribe at www.timgrey.com/ddqp/ if you'd like to receive this and future issues of Digital Darkroom Quarterly. The topic of this question is covered, however, in my book Color Confidence.