Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Austin Franklin" <
darkroom@i...> wrote:
snip
> How do you feed in 256 graytones, and now claim that each ink now has 256
> graytones...that's a huge leap of something, and, at least to me, makes no
> sense.
Austin, it is simple, there are a number of ways. You simply duplicate 
the channel and print through a multiple channel driver. With a 4 
channel RIP as I use, it's all done in Photoshop, there are a few 
different techniques. But no information is lost when duplicating 
channels. Very easy in 8 bit, 16 bit a little more complicated.
I think part of the lack of connection here is that you see before you 
a single channel grayscale file. All of my comments regard the use of 
multiple channels to multiple inks. Specifically how the Piezo driver 
is doing it invisibly I have no knowlege of, but again, it is a 
multiple channel driver driving multiple inks. Assigning different 
portions of tone (even the same tones) from a single channel file to 
the different channels (and their subsequent inks) is accomplished one 
way or another whether you like it or not. It is also clear that each 
channel is being heavily manipulated, you can't assign the inks to 
their proper parts of the scale for a dotless look without doing so.

The whole subject of driver/printer interpolation beyond the 
manipulation of multiple inks I haven't even touched. But it may be far 
more relevant than my BS.

> Well, I'll go back to my claim that 1) it doesn't produce 1000 tones, that
> is physically impossible, and 2) that we can't distinguish them anyway...

So then, what were we talking about???
Tyler