speed-matching a dichroic head

RalphLambrecht said:

Butzi's approach takes the least amount of work to get close.My approach will get you closer but takes a lot more work initially.None work perfect except for starting with a new test strip every time you change contrast,which a concerned printer would do anyway;there is no shortcut to perfection.

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In my mind, the biggest advantage of speed matching is that it allows you to start with a test strip that will likely "bracket" around a good result, in relatively small increments.

Without speed matching, my initial, after contrast change test strip is more likely to be farther off the good result and use coarser steps.

MattKing said:

In my mind, the biggest advantage of speed matching is that it allows you to start with a test strip that will likely "bracket" around a good result, in relatively small increments.

Without speed matching, my initial, after contrast change test strip is more likely to be farther off the good result and use coarser steps.

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Most of those in this thread who did try to speed-match a colour head for b&w seem to use the results to get them close, but do test strips to make sure. I think this is where I am now. I tried the Butzi method with MGIV a while back, with the help of a friend, and it seemed to work although I think I need to redo it with more data points. I just did it again for Ilford Classic which gave me a range of eight contrast settings. This has saved me a lot of paper already, even if it is not a perfect method.

Thanks for all the response you guys.