Digital BW, The Print

----- Original Message -----
From: "thedigitaldog" <andrew@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, October 12, 2002 11:11 AM
Subject: [Digital BW] Re: 'combed' histograms in 16 bit ?


> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Martin Wesley" <
> mwesley250@e...> wrote:
>
> > You are right but what about all the people who work entirely in 16-bit
> > mode? Or like myself stay in 16-bit as long as possible before going to
> > 8-bit? On a couple of negs I have been forced to stay in 16-bit to get
the
> > tonality I want. Adobe is really missing the need for full functionality
in
> > 16-bit for critical B&W work.
>
> What functionality is missing? You have all the tools (levels, curves,
Hue/Sat,
> resize, conversions, spotting etc) in high bit be it grayscale or color.

Andrew,

Layers and Channels. Without layers and alpha channel masking Photoshop is
seriously crippled in 16-bit mode in my opinon. The ability to maintain
multiple layers in a file and be able to tweak them to get the optimum print
is critical to the way I work. You are also missing a lot tools as well,
Sharpen, Blur and Smudge Tool, Dodge, Burn and Saturate Tool, Eraser,
Paintbrush, Magic Wand Tool, Color Range Select, etc.
>
> Adjustment layers would be nice. More History support would be nice But
you
> can still do all the work that high bit benifits in imaging, change your
mind and
> go back without hosing the data unless you go insane with edits.

You don't have the abiltiy to turn multiple layers on and off to compare one
adjustment path to another. Much harder to get to a good print.

> I'd love to
> see high bit adjustment layers just for the ability to keep track of edits
and
> change my mind. But that wouldn't produce better quality data once you
dump
> the high bit down to 8 bits.

If you had Layers and Channels in 16-bit there would be no reason to ever
drop to 8-bit. A lot of people are struggling through in 16-bit all the way
to the printer.
>
> And of printing direclty out of Photoshop, you don't have to dump to 8
bits
> (Photoshop does this on the fly as you print). With the exception of one
or two
> very high end RGB output devices, I don't know of any that would even
accept
> high bit files if you feed them this data. So high bit is good for doing
editing so
> that you end up with the best 8 bits to output.

If you are using other printer divers such as the Piezo plugin or printing a
high bit file with a RIP this may or may not be the case. Also dumping the
data to 8-bit as it goes to the printer is probably not a problem, unless
there are partitioning curves involved, but I would like to make every
adjustment in high bit before I drop down.
>
> I do want to see more high bit functionality but today, I can do all the
> necessary work that high bit provides advantags for (namely tonal and
color
> corrections).

You can make due but life would be simpler if you had the choice to stay in
high bit mode. This would be the biggest upgrade Adobe could make to PS. Of
course this would require some real programming work on the core of PS I
image and I have heard that PS is not one of their big money makers, so I am
not holding my breath. I wish Picture Window Pro had a decent user interface
and would move a lot of my work to there.

Martin Wesley