Digital BW, The Print

john dean wrote:
> Thank you for that informed dose of reality Roy.
> 
> As for noise in the extremes of scans, I see far less of it in drum
> scans than any digital capture I've worked with.
> 
> But really, I think the reason that this discussion has reared its
> ugly head again is that Cannon is suggesting that with their new
> machines that 16 bit is desireable and perceiveable. Othewise why send
> it over there. ( I wouldn't anymore than I would output 2880 with
> matte paper). We were wondering if there WAS any advantage or whether
> it is just marketing talk. I belive you've answered the question.
> 
> John

The Canons send 10 or 12 bit to the printer. On 11 ink
channels. So not 2x but at most 1.5x 8 bit at the end of the
process. You will need a very good paper to get it visible I
think. Most will praise the more saturated RGB areas though
which has little to do with 8 or 16 bit.

In B&W it is already difficult to get the 256 shades correctly
separated on a good paper. On mat papers I don't get 256
shades right now with my Epson 9000 quad. Of course newer
models will do that much better, 11 versus 3.5 picoliter.

There have been related discussions before. If you use 4 grey
inks on 4 channels with 2-3 droplet sizes and implant the
right dithering/weaving (16 and 8 bit quality is mentioned for
that too) for that setup I still think that can be equal or
better than having 7 channels with 7 quad inks and just one
droplet size used on a printer. A printer that has the 
dithering and weaving intended for 5 hue and 2 monochrome 
inks. I know it works well but I find it premature to say that 
that will still be better than what the three manufacturers 
bring to the market right now. The hardware is probably not 
the limiting factor in the new models, we have to find the 
right modifications to the software I guess.

Met vriendelijke groeten,  Ernst


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