Digital BW, The Print

Austin wrote:

>> Hi Jerry,
>>
>> I did run tests. Up to 480 DPI you can see differences. The higher the
>> DPI (FILE size) the smoother and sharper the prints look.  Sometimes I
>> have 1200 DPI files, for large prints.  When I make a very small print,
>> I just leave it set at 1200 DPI. The prints are sharper than if you
>> resample to 360 DPI.  I made comparison prints from about 100 DPI to 720
>> DPI (FILE size) once. The bigger the file size, the sharper the print.
>> After 480 DPI though, it takes a loupe to see any difference at the
>> higher resolutions. There is a VERY noticeable difference between 240
>> and 480 though.

> Don't you mean PPI instead of DPI in this reply?  Other than that, my
> experience agree with yours ;-)

Austin and Jerry,

Isn't this improvement that we see at higher resolutions printer dependent?
I haven't done the comparisons between the two, but I suspect my 3000 with
it's larger dots behaves differently than my 1280 with the smaller,
variable-size dots when doing these kinds of tests at the same print
resolution setting. (Assuming the use of the Epson drivers, of course.) Am I
not correct?

Isn't it also true that the older printers were more likely to require file
resolutions at submultiples of the printer's native resolution than is true
of the newer printers? I seem to recall discussions about this on the Leben
list, where the newer printers (beginning with the 1270/1280?) were said to
be far less picky about the resolution of the files being sent for printing.

Tom Keesling
Intelligent Design, Inc.