Digital BW, The Print

Recently I received an email update from Colorbyte Software.   
Daniel wrote that the new driver contained significant updates to 
the IP4 dither.

Well, I figured that this would be a typical upgrade. Boy was I 
wrong! The IP4 software had a dither that upon close inspection 
resembled a herringbone fabric pattern.  This pattern  all in all 
was not objectionable to me, but some people with excellent 
vision could see it without a loup. In addition, from time to time I 
would get an image that would have localized banding in the 
midtone areas of the print.

I installed the new driver and I almost jumped out of my chair. 
Visually and with a 4x loup I could see no dither pattern at all.  In 
fact, there were no dots either, only what looked like a fine film 
grain reminiscent of T-max 100.  

This is extremely good news, and to further add to my upbeat 
assessment, I printed two images that were problematic as they 
exhibited the midtone banding I described earlier. With the new 
driver and dither, there was no sign of the midtone banding at 
all.  All images were printed on EAM and BrightCube Eclipse 
Satine (Which is the past gave me the biggest problems).

The state of the art progresses.

Best regards to all,

Mike