Digital BW, The Print

BH,

> I did a series of tests with my printer, a 1270 using the Epson
> driver.  Short answer: 360 or 720ppi print noticeable better
> than any other resolutions.
>
> Long answer:
> I'm fairly picky.  I usually don't enlarge beyond 4-5x in the darkroom.
> I look at prints from 6" away.
>
> The _image_ resolutions I tested were: 840, 780, 720, 660, 600, 540,
> 480, 420, 360, 300, 240, 180ppi, 8-bit grayscale images printed from
> Illustrator.  I created the different resolution versions by starting at
> 840ppi, and downsampling to each successively lower resolution in
> Photoshop.

How do you know the downsampling isn't causing the visual difference in the
printout?

> My test  image had some thin slightly diagonal lines
> (wood joints) which helped identify differences.  The thing that
> immediately stands out is moiring(?) in these lines at image resolutions
> other than 360 or 720ppi.

What was the actual original image scan resolution?

> Anyone else have experiences to support/contrast this?

My tests show that scanning at the native optical resolution of the scanner,
and resizing the image without decimating the image (resampling) yields
noticeably better results than resampling.

Did you try printing one with no resampling?

Regards,

Austin