You can always apply your curve at 100% view to do away with this illusion…
Either your image is a bitmap still, not grayscale, or your image is in grayscale mode, but composed of only 100% black or 100% white pixels, and in effect, still a bitmap. Any curves won’t effect these pixels.
Try blurring the image slightly (.2 – .5 pix) or better yet, upsample 2 times (from 300 to 600, or 400 to 800, etc) using bicubic or bicubic smoother and then try your curve. You can downsample when you’re done if you’re trying to keep the file size down. Be mindful of the fact that you may want this file to be a bitmap when you’re done, for optimal print quality. In that case, upsample to 800 – 1200 ppi at the size you’ll print, apply your darkening curve, and then change the image to mode… bitmap… using 50% threshold.
J
How can you apply the curve at 100% view?
How can I adjust things so that the line drawing I see on screen is the same boldness that it will appear when printed? I’ve had a book printed professionally at a digital printers, and the drawings have printed lighter than they appear on my monitor? Some drawings appear faint in adobe but pprint very clear and visa-versa
How can you apply the curve at 100% view?
View… actual pixels
How can I adjust things so that the line drawing I see on screen is the same boldness that it will appear when printed? I’ve had a book printed professionally at a digital printers, and the drawings have printed lighter than they appear on my monitor?
If you’re printing with a digital printer, you should be getting a proof, period. A press proof. Then you adjust the pictures. Until you get a feel for how they will look on screen vs on press, you should be getting pricing based on a two-proof cycle. One to see how your first guess turned out, and another to see that your changes were correct.
Re my comment in post 1: "Be mindful of the fact that you may want this file to be a bitmap when you’re done, for optimal print quality."
I would not send bitmap files to a color copier. Maybe someone can speak to the brands/processes that handle bitmaps better than grayscale (if any).
If this is a common format (fine line art) for you to output, it might be good for you to run some proofs that consist only of test images and decide for yourself what resolution and thickness of line look best. They’ll be worth the money.
J
