Digital BW, The Print

Ok, here is my 2 cents.

 

Much of the discussion has been about the inks,  bit depth, 6,7,8,12 ink
slots, etc. Some have brought up the idea, of all things, personal
preferences. : )  And two distinct streams of workers coming to this arena;
offset shops and photographic printers. Most photographers that I have
spoken with were rarely happy with their work when it was produced with
offset presses due to lack of detail and blocked up dmax unless done by a
good high end shop. I am most intrigued by the post capture and pre press
treatment of the files that is in our future. I believe it is there that
files are crafted to make great prints regardless of output RIP and printer.
Why? So much attention can happen to a file along the way. One certainly
should pay attention to the final devices to be used, but unless you have
good data no printer will measure up to what some of you seem to be
demanding. 

 

There is always going to be those that look to dots and dither instead of
the final impact of the print hanging on the wall. Some of us have moved
from format, film and tripod to file size, capture mode & depth, gamma and
color space, and sharpening tools. Sharp images were pretty much left up to
the original click before but now the path to paper travels through much
more than a good lens to the paper. 

 

As file capture/creation evolves so will the printers. Before the microscope
and telescopes, we could only guess as to what was there. AS printer/out
device improve the challenge will be how to control the file to match your
vision of the image. Just like we made choices as to film format, or ink on
plate, we will be making noise, grain, sharpening choices to hold or lose
detail. And all of it is happening at once; advances in through put at 16
bit, ink set tone control, speed, flexibility in output. So much of the
opinion is based on limited information. I withheld judgment about print
quality at the show because the quality of light was far from consistent and
the idea of a common workflow would be questionable. I would certainly
expect those displaying prints to show great output, they are there after
all to do just that. Hand them a less than sweet spot file and then see what
happens?  

 

So let's talk turkey.         

    

Eric

 

Eric Neilsen Photography

4101 Commerce Street

Suite 9

Dallas, TX 75226

http://e.neilsen.home.att.net

http://ericneilsenphotography.com

Skype ejprinter

  _____  

From: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Ernst
Dinkla
Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2006 5:54 AM
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Re: the times, they aren't a-changing-so can we
start over again?

 

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

| Dinkla Grafische Techniek |
| www.pigment-print.com |
| ( unvollendet ) |

 



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]