Digital BW, The Print

This was originally prepared by me for the EPSON list I caretake, but I
though people here might like to see it.


Versions of PShop earlier than CS only allowed the option of outputting
in 8 bit to the driver.  However, you could still print a 16 bit image..
PhotoShop simply did the conversion to 8 bit, before handing the data to
the driver.. Now, PShop CS CAN output 16 bits to the driver, but only
AFAIK only RIPS can handle the 16 bit data directly, not stock EPSON or
Canon drivers (which are restricted to 8 bit input)

Except in the rarest of cases, like a quad B&W inkset on the rare image
where 8 bit data sent to a RIP caused some visible banding,
posterization,  or other artifacting, I'd say this is not a big deal..
After all  most professional  RIPS don't need to take data from
PhotoShop anyway, and can directly print from a save 16 bit TIFF, etc..

Beyond a RIP as mentioned above, I see no reason to wait even longer for
prints, just to say I used 16 bit..


Some data for my dual CPU WinTel system with 2gB RAM (1.5 gB used for
the system and 512mB of RAM set aside as the first scratch disk -
contiguous disk space on 7200 RPM drives for the rest of the scratch
space):.. All settings and plugins on both versions of PShop are the
same.. (One important thing, these operations were done in the order
listed, you'll see that PhotoShop doesn't like to return RAM.. That's
one reason I say it badly needs some new memory management instead of
feature upgrades. Work with a really big image and you are better off
closing PhotoShop and restarting it if you don't plan on continuing
using images that large, as the rest of your system will still be taking
the RAM hit for the largest image.)

(RAM usage figures are for the PEAK RAM usage during the operation)

Photoshop 7

To Load/Start-up the program:  40 seconds - PhotoShop using 65 mB of RAM
and  a 48 mB Scratch file

To load a 44mB PSD file:  8 seconds - PhotoShop using 153 mB of RAM and
a 217 mB Scratch file

To load a 64mB TIFF file:  9 seconds - PhotoShop using 222 mB of RAM
and  a 233 mB Scratch file

Unsharp Mask Applied to 8 BIT 64 mB TIFF:   3 seconds - PhotoShop using
227 mB of RAM and  a 233 mB Scratch file

Unsharp Mask Applied to 16 BIT 128mB TIFF (16 bit version of preceding 8
BIT 64 mB TIFF):   16 seconds - PhotoShop using 358 mB of RAM and  a 358
mB Scratch file

Conversion from 64 mB 8 BIT file to 128 mB  16 BIT file:    3 seconds  -
PhotoShop using 363 mB of RAM and  a 299 mB Scratch file

Extensis Intellihance Pro 4 plugin running on the 64mB 8 BIT file:    29
seconds  -  PhotoShop using 437 mB of RAM  and  300 mB Scratch File

At no point did PS 7 exceed the RAMDISK Scratch file capacity.



PhotoShop CS

To Load/Start-up the program: 4 min 16 seconds (my recommendation, GO
GET COFFEE!  - actually you could probably grind it from beans and brew
it.. most of this time was spent scanning  plugins) - PhotoShop using
104 mB of RAM,  a 523 mB Scratch file on the RAM DISK,  and  1.4 gB of
contiguous Hard Drive Scratch Space..

To load a 44mB PSD file:  2 seconds - PhotoShop using 238 mB of RAM a
523 mB Scratch file on the RAM DISK,  and  1.6 gB of contiguous Hard
Drive Scratch Space..

To load a 64mB TIFF file:  3 seconds - PhotoShop using 217 mB of RAM a
523 mB Scratch file on the RAM DISK,  and  1.5 gB of contiguous Hard
Drive Scratch Space.. (I'm surprised, but it actually gave back some RAM!)

Unsharp Mask Applied to 8 BIT 64 mB TIFF:   5 seconds - PhotoShop using
309 mB of RAM, a 523 mB Scratch file on the RAM DISK,  and  1.6 gB of
contiguous Hard Drive Scratch Space..

Unsharp Mask Applied to 16 BIT 128mB TIFF (16 bit version of preceding 8
BIT 64 mB TIFF):   12 seconds - PhotoShop using 430 mB of RAM, a 523 mB
Scratch file on the RAM DISK,  and  1.8 gB of contiguous Hard Drive
Scratch Space..

Conversion from 64 mB 8 BIT file to 128 mB  16 BIT file:    3 seconds
-  PhotoShop using 405 mB of RAM, a 523 mB Scratch file on the RAM
DISK,  and  1.7 gB of  contiguous Hard Drive Scratch Space..

Extensis Intellihance Pro 4 plugin running on the 64mB 8 BIT file:    27
seconds  -  PhotoShop using 637 mB of RAM, a 523 mB Scratch file on the
RAM DISK,  and  1.9 gB of  contiguous Hard Drive Scratch Space..

Preliminary thoughts.. Ok, you can see incremental increases in speed of
some operations..  BUT, the hit to the rest of the system is an order of
magnitude higher..  That means I would be more likely to want to quit
PShop CS to use other applications.  Unfortunately, the extended load
time mitigates against choosing to do that..

Whether this upgrade is worth it, is up to the individual user..



Keith Krebs

"Just some guy," caretaker of the Multiverse's largest EPSON printer
User Community (highly recommended by Vogon Poets and MegaDodo
Publications), at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EPSON_Printers/
and  the Multiverse's largest Canon printer User  Community at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Canon-printers
"For the rest of you out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together
guys"

> From: Editor P.O.V. Image Service [mailto:editor@...]
>
> Versions of PShop earlier than CS only allowed the option of outputting
> in 8 bit to the driver.  However, you could still print a 16 bit image..
> PhotoShop simply did the conversion to 8 bit, before handing the data to
> the driver.. Now, PShop CS CAN output 16 bits to the driver, but only
> AFAIK only RIPS can handle the 16 bit data directly, not stock EPSON or
> Canon drivers (which are restricted to 8 bit input)

Somebody with Windows programming experience said in one of these lists that
the Windows API for communicating between an application and a printer
driver only supports 8-bit data.

> Photoshop 7
>
> To Load/Start-up the program:  40 seconds - PhotoShop using 65 mB of RAM
> and  a 48 mB Scratch file
>
> PhotoShop CS
>
> To Load/Start-up the program: 4 min 16 seconds (my recommendation, GO
> GET COFFEE!  - actually you could probably grind it from beans and brew
> it.. most of this time was spent scanning  plugins) - PhotoShop using
> 104 mB of RAM,  a 523 mB Scratch file on the RAM DISK,  and  1.4 gB of
> contiguous Hard Drive Scratch Space..

Huh? I've not seen times anywhere near that long on my comparatively wimpy
machines. On my 1.7GHz P-III IBM A31p laptop with 1GB RAM, PS7 starts in
about 15 seconds, or about 3 seconds if it's already sitting in the disk
cache. PS CS takes aboute 25 seconds fresh, 11 seconds out of the cache. Do
you have a bazillion plugins or something? It sounds like there might be
something hanging the startup process, something that you could fix if you
poked around a bit.

Your other times are impressive.

--

Ciao,               Paul D. DeRocco
Paul                mailto:pderocco@...

> From: Paul D. DeRocco [mailto:pderocco@...]
> 
> On my 1.7GHz P-III IBM A31p laptop with 1GB RAM ...

Correction: it's a P4.

-- 

Ciao,               Paul D. DeRocco
Paul                mailto:pderocco@...

Paul D. DeRocco wrote:

>Huh? I've not seen times anywhere near that long on my comparatively wimpy
>machines. On my 1.7GHz P-III IBM A31p laptop with 1GB RAM, PS7 starts in
>about 15 seconds, or about 3 seconds if it's already sitting in the disk
>cache. PS CS takes about 25 seconds fresh, 11 seconds out of the cache. Do
>you have a bazillion plugins or something? It sounds like there might be
>something hanging the startup process, something that you could fix if you
>poked around a bit.
>  
>
It's likely the vast number of plugins...  AND the VAST number of FONTS 
(maybe 1600?)..  Illustrator always has taken forever to load as well 
(as a result of the fonts)..

PS 7 has a smaller plugin cache, but not by much... 1384 vs 1420 kb.. 
I'm thinking it may be that most of my plugins are still in the PS7 
location and looked for by PS CS in the secondary plugin directory.. PS 
CS has 18  plugin categories (i.e. first order menu choices under 
"Filters") in its own directories, with 61 *.8b? format plugins.. While 
PhotoShop 7 has some 101 categories in its directories, with 671 *.8b? 
format plugins alone.. Can you say "lotsa plugins?"  I've been an 
inveterate player with plugins for years..  Some people collect baseball 
cards, I collect plugins, then rarely use them..

Update: By turning off  the "additional Plugins Location,"  in the PS CS 
preferences, my load time for PS CS dropped to 38 seconds...  Given that 
older versions of PS could end up listing two copies of the same plugins 
when the additional plugins location contained earlier or later versions 
of the same plugin/filter, but PS CS apparently doesn't do that, the 
extra time seems to be involved mostly with PS CS deciding which plugin 
to list (i.e. comparing plugins in the secondary location to those in 
the primary location) and in the extra overhead involved just in loading 
the plugins from the secondary location.
 

>Your other times are impressive.
>
>  
>
Thanks.. I very rarely have context from machine to machine, other than 
in my own little universe of machines here.. It's an old homebuilt 
machine Paul (5 years old!). Bought a good motherboard, a P6DGE 
SuperMicro, in 1998 and kept upgrading it - gotta compliment SuperMicro 
for actually doing upgrades to the resistors to allow eb PIII usage and 
even doing a repair on one of these boards (try finding that kind of 
service from other mainboard manufacturers). Today it even runs dual 
video from an NVidia GeForce4 PCI card and an ATI AGP 8500DV card.   
It's reached its limit with dual PIIIeb 1gHz chips and 2 gb RAM..  I'm 
looking at a dual Opteron mainboard (a TYAN Tiger K8W? 
<http://www.tyan.com/products/html/tigerk8w.html> so I don't have to 
jump to PCI X I/O boards too - although onboard SCSI would be nice so I 
can dump the Adaptec PCI card) as the next upgrade.. Prolly sometime 
this spring or this summer.  That way, I'll be ready for 64 bit...

 
Keith Krebs

"Just some guy," caretaker of the Multiverse's largest EPSON printer 
User Community (highly recommended by Vogon Poets and MegaDodo 
Publications), at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EPSON_Printers/
and  the Multiverse's largest Canon printer User  Community at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Canon-printers
"For the rest of you out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together 
guys"