August 13, 2012
ivantheboneless-blog asked: Hi Tony – I have an involved question and it might be more time then you have to answer, but I will ask it anyways. If it’s too much to answer – no worries. I am so confused about the curves. Did you make 100 squares of percentages from black to white, print it out on your inkjet printer and then visually equated the values to your stouffer scale? So that step #2 on the stouffer scale equals the 16th value of gray on your inkjet scale?
I did make squares of percentages, but 50 squares (at 2% intervals) instead of 100. I then printed it out on the Pictorico, OHP Transparency film using my Epson 1400 printer with the Clarion Inks. I used a Densitometer to measure each square to get a numerical value of the percentage of black ink that was equivalent to the numerical value measure from the the Stouffer step guide using the Densitometer. So, yes 16% of black ink is equivalent to step #2 on the Stouffer step guide. Before I had the Densitometer, I just “eyeballed” it by using a couple of index cards with a hole punched in each to isolate and compare the different ink squares with the Stouffer steps to try and find the match by eye. Not ideal but it puts you in the ballpark.
