z3100 with 16bit files

[PSQuared7]

Does anybody know if the z3100 will work with 16bit files. It is my understanding that the Canon printers are the only ones that work with this. I know that my Epsons do not. I shoot RAW files only and print many times directly from Aperture or Lightroom. Thanks.

Paul

[rdonson]

Does anybody know if the z3100 will work with 16bit files. It is my understanding that the Canon printers are the only ones that work with this. I know that my Epsons do not. I shoot RAW files only and print many times directly from Aperture or Lightroom. Thanks.

Paul
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Its not a question of the printer handling 16 bit but rather the printer driver or Photoshop plug-in supplied by the printer manufacturer for the particular OS you're using.

[mcbroomf]

I routinely send 16 bit files to my z3100 for print, and I do the same with my epson 4000.  I've done this directly from PSCS2 and though Qimage, both printers connected with USB.

Not sure if this answers your question though.

Mike

[rdonson]

I routinely send 16 bit files to my z3100 for print, and I do the same with my epson 4000.  I've done this directly from PSCS2 and though Qimage, both printers connected with USB.

Not sure if this answers your question though.

Mike
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I'm not sure about the Mac but in Windows I thought the print drivers were limited to 8 bits.  If you send them 16 bits the driver just converts it to 8 bits.  That was one of the advantages of a RIP.  They don't use the manufacturers print drivers and drive the printers themselves and in some cases at 16 bits.

[Charles Gast]

Does anybody know if the z3100 will work with 16bit files. It is my understanding that the Canon printers are the only ones that work with this. I know that my Epsons do not. I shoot RAW files only and print many times directly from Aperture or Lightroom. Thanks.

Paul
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Canons 16 bit photoshop plugin actually scales down to 10bit.

[mcbroomf]

I'm not sure about the Mac but in Windows I thought the print drivers were limited to 8 bits.  If you send them 16 bits the driver just converts it to 8 bits.  That was one of the advantages of a RIP.  They don't use the manufacturers print drivers and drive the printers themselves and in some cases at 16 bits.
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Yes, but I couldn't tell if the OP simply meant to ask if he had to convert a file from 16 bit to 8 bit.

Mike

[cogden]

The value of 16bit printing and the Z3100 still seems very murky for color landscape photographers.

Canon's 16bit (really 10bit) driver has gotten lots of press, but how much practical, naked-eye perceptual difference does it really make on a "typical", large color landscape?  

Oh, did I emphasize the word "color" (ie, I have seen significant differences in 16bit B&W's via a RIP on the Epsons)?

HP has yet to provide an answer as to whether the Z3100 supports/materially benefits from printing a 16bit PS CS3 raster image in "native" 16bit (despite a great deal of effort to get an answer, and finally reaching one of their most senior, specialized tech support reps).

The RIP vendors swear up and down that one can see "big" differences that their 16bit color printing makes (via their RIPs), -- BUT-- it seems that it's really via test prints that primarily consistent of unnatural color gradients.

Of course, the RIP vendors are struggling to continue to show value for their high priced products to the Pro Landscape Photographer doing limited editions (ie, not a high volume print house where RIP features such as workflow, accounting, tiling, user profile mapping, CMYK, Vector-based printing, etc. provide cost saving ROIs). Many of the vendors' differentiation is declining as many of their primary benefits are being included/eclipsed by printer/software manufacturers (can you say PS CS3 "Advanced B&W)?


So, given that it appears that HP's ProPrint Plugin will not include a 16bit driver (see other post)...

1. Does the Z3100 support "native" 16bit printing (ie, not just downsampling a 16bit to 8bit; not using a RIP, etc.) out of the box?
(see the cryptic response to my post 8 weeks ago:     https://h41186.www4.hp.com/country/us/en/fo...5&pageseq=41052

by Charles Gast on 2007-04-16
Under the HP print driver advanced tab there is a "16bit App.Compatibility Enabled/Disabled" option. I don't know more than that.

2. Is color 16bit printing really worth it  - the expense, time, and hassle - on the Z3100 for the majority of "boutique" relatively low volume, high quality, pro landscape photographers?

[Charles Gast]

Nothing cryptic about it. When you go to the HP driver advanced tab there is an option to enable/disable 16bit application compatibility.
What *is* cryptic is that it seems HP has no one available to answer these types of questions for us.
HP owes their high end printing system owners better tech support than this.  Here we are taking stabs in the dark and bouncing things off each other. I was on the phone with HP tech support for an hour yesterday. It was a frustrating waste of time. The guy was not technically qualified and when he left the phone to get me answers he came back with canned replies. I told him I wanted to up to the next higher level of tech support and he said there was no other support available.
This it their self profiliing top of the line photoprinter flagship model.
They need to provide good tech support or they will lose sales no matter how good of a machine it is.

[cogden]

LOL - I just responded to your post on this subject in the HP forums.

Here, by "cryptic" I mean there are still a bunch of unanswered questions (for me anyway). I'm still confused and don't have an answer to the "16bit question."

Are you using Windows or OS X? which "tab" are you referring to?

Any chance you could please upload a screen shot here of what you're referencing?

Unfortunately sounds like "16bit App.Compatibility" is more likely to be a simple downsampling of 16bit to 8bit (although that's total speculation).  

If so, wonder whether there's quality loss using HPs method vs. converting in Photoshop?

[Charles Gast]

Here we are guessing and speculating.       HP needs to respond but they only put out occaisonal technical papers. They should have a moderator on their forum to answer questions. This is no way to treat the owners of their most sophisticated printer.

I am using Windows.  When I go to the printer driver it has the options for selecting color or black and white. There are several tabs to select from at the top of the window. The one on the far left is the Advanced tab and under that one there are several selections possible. It is not real obvious but it is there. Photoshop may or may not do a better job of converting to 8 bit. I would like to find out but it is not likely.  I would also like details on the upscaling the printer uses.  Is it bicubic, nearest neighbor etc.  I can see that it allows up to 2400x2400 resolution but it is my understanding that 600dpi is the max on these so I am interested in the details of what is happening.  We have no way of knowing at this point.

[Mussi_Spectraflow]

The enable 16 bit app compatibility is not enabling 16 bit image support but rather allowing the drive to work with 16 bit APPLICATIONS. In other words it enables you to print from very old software applications, it a backwards compatibility issue.
     As far as 16 bit print support goes I'm not really to excited. The reports from some users that 16 canon drivers gives them better color just doesn't make any sense. There should be no difference in the color be it 16bit or 10bit or 8 bit, if you get different color depending on the path it goes through then somethings wrong. 16 bit files may give you smoother transitions, and for some people this could yeild mild improvemnts, however I think that a properly processed 8bit file is really just about good enough. Still the option would be nice. I'm not sure if the internal seperation technology has the ability to work with this, I'll see if my HP contacts have any insight into this.

Julian Mussi
www.spectraflow.com

[cogden]

16 bit files may give you smoother transitions, and for some people this could yeild mild improvemnts, however I think that a properly processed 8bit file is really just about good enough.... I'll see if my HP contacts have any insight into this.

Julian, that would be great if you could find out from HP once and for all about 16bit and the Z3100.

ColorByte has said multiple times that for me (a ltd edition color landscape pro photographer considering the move from Lightjet/Chromira c-prints), ImagePrint would offer two main advantages:
1. much higher quality profiles and output through them (I'm still not convinced though)

2. much more shadow and hilight detail (for our typical high dynamic range landscapes) via their native 16bit to 16bit drivers

Since all of our work is meant to be framed under "glass", I think we'd be well suited by simply picking and using one or two photo papers (and maybe a canvas for large Giclee underwater and/or critter scenes). As far as I can tell, our images' clarity, detail, and "pop" would be hurt, if anything, by using textured art papers, etc.

In fact, we use non-glare glaze for all our work (and recommend our clients use it as well if they have it custom framed) because we can then make much better assumptions about lighting (ie, few to no glare hot spots). As a result, we almost always print on glossy paper (since the non-glare often "knocks down" any undesirable glossy artifacts).

This is all to say, it'd be great if we can avoid spending the $'s and added complexity for ImagePrint (or other RIP) and still create top quality prints from PS CS3 to a Z3100 (with GE for our glossy paper tendencies).

If we have to pay someone to create the "best" profiles for our 3 or so papers, and then use the Z3100 spectrophotometer to keep it linearized, it's still much less cost and work than the RIP approach.


Any input you get from HP (and/or holes in my logic/approach) would be MOST appreciated!

[ericbullock]

The enable 16 bit app compatibility is not enabling 16 bit image support but rather allowing the drive to work with 16 bit APPLICATIONS. In other words it enables you to print from very old software applications, it a backwards compatibility issue.
     As far as 16 bit print support goes I'm not really to excited. The reports from some users that 16 canon drivers gives them better color just doesn't make any sense. There should be no difference in the color be it 16bit or 10bit or 8 bit, if you get different color depending on the path it goes through then somethings wrong. 16 bit files may give you smoother transitions, and for some people this could yeild mild improvemnts, however I think that a properly processed 8bit file is really just about good enough. Still the option would be nice. I'm not sure if the internal seperation technology has the ability to work with this, I'll see if my HP contacts have any insight into this.

Julian Mussi
www.spectraflow.com
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Here is the "official" response from the developers in Barcelona, Spain. I hope this answers everyone's questions...and clears up what this option actually does.

1.     “16-bit App. Compatibility”.

This options allows printing long plots on applications that use a 16-bit drawing space, that is, applications that use a 16-bit integer to define the coordinates of the objects it draws on the printer´s device context while printing.

If an application that uses a 16-bit drawing space has to print to a large paper, a JIS B0 for example, and with a big resolution 1200 dpi, for example, the driver will report to the application a HORZRES and VERTRES numbers in the GDIINFO structure that cannot be represented by a 16-bit integer. If this is the case, the application will see this number as a negative 16-bit number and the printout will not be right.

To avoid this, when this setting is set to on, the driver will reduce the reported HORZRES, VERTRES,ASPECTX, ASPECTY, ASPECTXY, LOGPIXELSX and LOGPIXELSY so that the application receives a 16-bit number in  the HORZRES. This behavior has the effect of allowing the printing of large paper from these applications at the cost of reducing the output quality.

The list of applications that need this feature implemented follows:

·         PhotoShop
·         Illustrator
·         In general all the Adobe Applications that don´t belong to the Acrobat family
·         Freehand
·         CorelDraw
·         VectorWorks
·         MapInfo
 

Since this feature is vital for the applications that need it, there won’t be an auto option, the feature will always be disabled by default except for these applications, for which it will be enabled by default. This is not a case of worse vs. better, but a case of work vs. don’t work. For this reason, we won’t use a three stage option with auto, enable and disable. We will use an option of enable or disable (default) for the applications that don’t need it and we will set the feature on automatically for the applications that need it.

Bear also in mind that this setting is only needed when the combination of application, paper size and print quality produce a size bigger than a 16bit integer in an application that does not support it. It is not needed for the same application if the size is not bigger than a 16bit integer.

Cheers,

Eric Bullock
Mac Business Solutions
www.mbsdirect.com

[alindley]

The DesignJet Z series drivers do not in fact support a 16 bit color path.  Nor does the ProPrint plug in for Photoshop.  16 bit images can be sent to the Z series through other third party RIPs or possibly third party plug-ins.  On printers that allow embedded web server job submission (Z3100 PS) the EWS will also allow 16-bit jobs to be sent to the printer.

The printer itself however does not have a complete 16-bit color path.  So at some point during processing the image will be converted to 8-bit.

What is recommended for using 16-bit images with the Z-series is:

1. Work with the image in 16-bit
2. Apply the output profile in the application in 16-bit 9HP ICC Profiles support 16-bit images)
3. Reduce the image to 8-bit in the application and then send the file to the printer with out color management.

Those are the recommendations from the Z-Series product division anyway.

[cogden]

Thanks for the helpful update.

By any chance have you tested using PS CS3 to convert to 8bit vs. HP's EWS (I assume since you mention that 16bit jobs can be sent to the Z3100ps via the EWS, that the printer is then doing the 16bit to 8bit?

[alindley]

Thanks for the helpful update.

By any chance have you tested using PS CS3 to convert to 8bit vs. HP's EWS (I assume since you mention that 16bit jobs can be sent to the Z3100ps via the EWS, that the printer is then doing the 16bit to 8bit?
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Unfortunately I do not yet have CS3 So I have not tried.  And you are correct that the printer will do the 16-bit to 8-bit conversion internally if you submit through the EWS.

[neil snape]

Unfortunately I do not yet have CS3 So I have not tried.  And you are correct that the printer will do the 16-bit to 8-bit conversion internally if you submit through the EWS.
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The HP plug do 16 bit screening on the 9180 only, and only on the maximum detail setting for photo papers. So the plug in does have 16 bit output enabled for certain printers. Canon printers, so I'm told accept 16 bit depth images for further processing and are screened at 10 bits.
HP Z printers can be sent 16 bit depth images but are converted back to 8 bit before spooling. The optional PS card can be sent 16 bit directly but as far as I know are cut back to 8 bit which is logical since the rest of the ASIC is 8 data input. The screens as well are , but there may a  bit or two for error rounding> I don't know.

PS. Whether or not there are large differences in output has a lot of variables. Is it the image data or the screening that needs more bit depth is hard to say. One thing is certain , higher bit depth for screening would help transitions with the separations and effects of screening.
But the resources to do so have a huge hit on spool times, lesser on the printer side.