Digital BW, The Print

Hm, so there are RIPs that print 16-bit images... I know QTR uses
8-bit TIFFs and I assumed the Epson printer driver is 8-bit only. I
had assumed 16-bit workflows are only useful during manipulation, and
I guess that's valid unless you have a 16-bit RIP.

Roy made a good point that I hadn't considered: you need to (at least)
double the number of grays we can distinguish between to prevent the
eye from seeing banding in continuous-tone regions.

"Metrology mania" aside, I have so far not seen a case of banding that
couldn't be tracked back to the image file.

-Pieris

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Roark"
<paul.roark@v...> wrote:
> Pieris,
> 
> >How many discrete levels of gray ... do we get out of a quadtone
inkjet?
> ...
> 
> I printed a 256 test chart with the C86 and EZ inks.  My X-Rite (DPT
22) was
> able to measure the difference between all the steps with 2
exceptions.  The
> top and bottom 2 steps were essentially the same. 
> 
> I was amazed at how well the little printer did.
> 
> A more interesting question might be whether the most expensive RIPs can
> match the C86.
> 
> I, for sure, don't have the patience to see if one of the 16 bit
printing
> utilities (like IJC) can separate all those levels.
> 
> Paul
> www.PaulRoark.com