Digital BW, The Print

Anthony -- While your "world's cheapest inkjet printer" may have only 
three possible pixel colors, there are lots of color inkjets that 
have only four possible pixel colors (CMYK) and lots more that have 
only six colors (like many of our Epsons).  

My understanding is that inkjets do indeed dither to create colors, 
but that the pixels are so small that for all practical purposes we 
can consider them to be "continuous tone" printers (rather than the 
dithering class of "half-tone" printers).

Dye sublimation printers can print a solid color other than CMYK and 
are truly continous tone, but I don't think inkjets are.  Inkjets 
could be, I suppose, if the inks they spray mixed to form a new 
color, but that's not what happens.  Or maybe it is; I'm sure if I'm 
wrong someone will correct me.

-- Herb


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Anthony Atkielski" 
<atkielski@c...> wrote:
> Not really.  Dithering is a process in which two or more pixels are 
assigned
> two or more different colors, with the expectation that the human 
eye will
> see the two pixels blend into some intermediate color that cannot be
> directly represented in a single pixel.  For example, if you have 
only three
> possible colors for your pixels (in the world's cheapest inkjet 
printer,
> useful for hypotheses like this one), the only way to represent 
more than
> three colors is to dither and hope that the image will be viewed 
from far
> enough away that the dithered pixels will blend in the eye of the 
viewer,
> producing a perception of some intermediate color.