Digital BW, The Print

> > My question - Aren't all inkjet printers required
> > to use a dither by definition?
>
> Not really.  Dithering is a process in which two or more pixels
> are assigned
> two or more different colors,

Anthony, what on earth are you talking about?  Pixels have nothing to do
with this, and pixels aren't "assigned" anything.  A dither algorithm takes
pixels as it's input, and outputs DOTS.

There are many references on the web that describe dithering correctly.
One, in particular, used to be available on the Adobe web site....and had a
very good description of how the dither/halftone process worked.  I am not
sure if it's still there now...

> So dithering is not required for an inkjet printer, but many
> printer drivers
> will use it in some modes to produce intermediate tones that cannot be
> represented exactly with a single pixel color.

It absolutely IS required for photographic images.  No, to print TEXT or
other things that are solid color based like that, it is not...but this is a
group discussing B&W image processing...not printing text documents.

> Dithering is common in 256-color modes on computer monitors.

Do you REALLY mean "256 color" mode?  Who on earth uses 256 color mode?  I
HOPE no one in this group...as anyone doing any digital imaging should be
using a mode that is a LOT higher than that.

Austin