Digital BW, The Print

Hi Tyler,

I wish I could remember where I saw those comments about the dither 
cell size. It may have even been in a discussion in this group, but 
wherever it was, it was a few months ago now. To be accurate, it was 
a comment made by one person only, with others agreeing that they 
could understand why it might be so. The logic was something along 
the lines of this: IP provides finer tonal gradation than the Epson 
driver, but does it by using a larger dither cell size.

> We recently did a comparison of B&W output and IP's quad output 
looked great 

I didn't realise IP could use quadtone inksets or is that not what 
you meant?


Thanks for the extra details about the Epson driver. I just read 
through Bill Atkinson's PDF file about the creation of his profiles --
 that's an eye-opener in itself. I can see how having perceptual 
linearity is ideal, and otherwise it becomes a guessing (or 
measuring) game in order to determine what it costs you. I suppose it 
would all depend upon the slope of the "worst" parts of the transfer 
curve, plus the number of bits of accuracy that are being used to 
represent the values being sent to the driver (out of interest, do 
know the answer to that second point?). Bill's success with his 
profiles tends to indicate that the Epson driver is somewhere on the 
right side of pathalogical in those respects. Still, as you say it's 
a shame Epson didn't remove this hurdle in the first place.

Colour printing is still an open issue for me, as I'm getting very 
variable results. While I'm getting good proportion of satisfactory 
prints, I've learned to dread any image with a strong dominant tone 
(sunsets, shots taken under coloured artificial light, etc). I guess 
I'm changing tack to B&W for a while because a change is as good as a 
rest. Can you suggest any groups or forums where I could find some 
solid information about the different colour RIP options? I've been 
lurking in the IP group but I think I'd be better off somewhere 
that's not devoted to one particular product. Also, is there a decent 
free RIP out there, like QTR but for colour?

Anyway, thanks for all the help so far, and I'll try to go bug 
someone else with my questions after this ;o)

-= mike =-