Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Antonis Ricos"
<antonisphoto@y...> wrote:
...
> Otherwise, I suppose all this can be accomplished in Photoshop as well

Yes, it's easily accomplished in Photoshop, with the below caveats.
Ernst may have some reason for doing it outside of Photoshop, not sure
about that.
Photoshop actually doesn't have full 16 bit capability. Not sure why,
but all of the theoretically possible hi bit levels are not available
in Photoshop. If you can create a true 16 bit file, as soon as you
open it and save it in PS some levels will be thrown out, even with no
editing.
So if you are really picky about this, I supposed an alternative app
for conversion may be usefull, particularly if you can spool it to the
RIP outside of PS, as Ernst is doing.
On the other hand, a true one channel to four channel conversion of a
high bit gray original may already be less than ideal, since it was
probably edited and saved in PS to begin with. Therefore the three new
identical channels will also be slightly less than full. If some other
method of conversion stretches the levels out a hair via noise or
whatever, that's a different story.
This is all just yakking, I doubt the difference between a hi bit PS
file and a true hi bit file is worth fretting over, but it erks me a bit.
For info on PS's idea of hi bit, see Bruce Lindbloom's site.
Tyler