Digital BW, The Print

Cleavis,

The idea is that the more you can do in 16-bit before dropping down 
to 8-bit the better.

I scan in 16-bit and do general levels and curve adjustments before 
moving to 8-bit. This way the adjustments in 8-bit will not be as 
extreme and fewer tones dropped.

You can also work around by creating a duplicate of the file and work 
on that in 8-bit. You can then create adjustment layers and when you 
have everthing the way you want it, things like levels and curves can 
be saved an then applied to the original 16-bit image.

Give this a try and then print both the 16 and 8-bit images and see 
if there is a difference in the final print.

Martin Wesley


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Cleavis" <lyonscox@m...> 
wrote:
> Question...after two snip & copies - 
> 
> ...The point of this is to use the 24 bit mode and put the lines at 
> different points to smooth out the transition. I'm not a fan of 8-
bit 
> adjustments (or the non-partitioning workflow if a 4-ink printer is 
> being used) because they result in more visible artifacts...
> snip from Paul Roark I believe?
> 
> ...(off list snip from Ron Harris webpage cited earlier, I liked 
> reading that)
> ...Software: My choice for a digital darkroom program is the 
standard 
> one, Adobe Photoshop.  Once the image is scanned into Photoshop, it 
> consists of a bed of pixels.  If the resulting image is an '8-bit' 
> image, each pixel will be one of 256 shades of gray.  A "12-bit" 
> image would have pixels with 4,096 possible shades of gray.  These 
> shades of gray, of course, make up the tones in the image.  If the 
> pixels are small enough, then the image appears to be continuous.  
> The printer cannot generally make use of 4,096 shades of gray, but 
> having this much information in the file while working with the 
image 
> until it's ready for printing helps to keep the image from being 
> degraded as it is manipulated in Photoshop...<end snips> 
> 
> BACK TO THE QUESTION given this 'info'...When I bring something 
into 
> photoshop 5.2 IT won't let me utilize most of the controls other 
than 
> levels in 16 bit mode...so if you must immediately convert to 8-bit 
> to manipulate why bother scanning higher??? Especially if chances 
are 
> 256 greys are going to do it any way since the printer range is 
maxed 
> out?
> 
> Tbanks Cleavis
> (whose fav book often is "Questions of Hu") :-)