Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: alifatemi on January 03, 2014, 06:17:10 am
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in LR for Mac, you can choose 16bit output in Print module, in Windows, you can't; what is the drawback for Windows users?
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in LR for Mac, you can choose 16bit output in Print module, in Windows, you can't; what is the drawback for Windows users?
Hi,
Is that with the same printer driver? Most printer drivers only offer an 8-bit/channel pipeline.
Cheers,
Bart
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I have Windows XPS drivers for my Canon printer that are supposedly 16 bits. This appears as a device of its own.
I have no idea if Lightroom makes any benefit from this, though.
-h
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Sorry I had to mention my printer which is Epson11880.
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An interesting question as there seems to be many opinions about what 16 bit printing brings to the table, many ‘experts’ seem to be of the opinion that advantages are minimal if at all apparent.
As a Windows user all printers I have tried only support an 8 bit pipeline therefore I cannot comment on what I may be losing - if anything. I have seen one example from an Epson 3880 (Mac OS) comparing the same image 16 bit printing enabled and 8 bit. The 16 bit did display a slightly better transition of colour in certain areas, but I had to look very hard and closely to see these differences.
I do not think that the problem lies with Windows not supporting 16 bit print pipeline but rather the printer manufacturers not providing 16 bit print drivers for other than a Mac environment. Windows has had 16 bit print support since Vista and Windows server 2008 and I understand that it was also possible to ‘update’ the previous OS XP and Server 2003 to get that support.
If I understand correctly LR talks to the OS which passes to the print driver and if the print driver supports 16 bit which seems to be the case for many Epson printers (Mac OS only) then you are good to go. The problem seems to be that the printer manufacturers have not bothered to enable 16 bit in their drivers for Windows therefore no choice in LR.
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I bring this up because Jeff Schewe in Digital Print recommends to select 16bit in Mac, so it should be some reasons although he did not give any hint.
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On Mac, select it, don't, you will not see any difference on the print, I can't with the two Epson's I have that support that data. In the future? That's a different possibility. DO edit high bit data! Sending the best 8-bits per color is today sufficient.
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On Mac, select it, don't, you will not see any difference on the print, I can't with the two Epson's I have that support that data.
Hi Andrew,
There might be a small difference between 8 or 16 b/ch when comparing output that was resampled at native 360 PPI and 720 PPI output resolution. When the resampling is left to the printer driver, then all bets are off anyway. Have you tested that as well? It's probably very hard to see either way, unless compared side by side and with a loupe.
Cheers,
Bart
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I know Canon came out with the 16-bit XPS drivers for Windows which has had 16-bit available since Windows Vista. Canon acknowledged better color doing so. Why Epson hasn't began to use the XPS is the question, other than Canon may have more development cash to do so. Canon does make a boatload of printers though for CAD and graphics arts too so that might be why they jumped on the XPS platform so quick.
Here's an interesting article from 2012 on it: http://www.earthboundlight.com/phototips/16-bit-printing.html (http://www.earthboundlight.com/phototips/16-bit-printing.html)
I just wish Canon printers didn't consume so much real estate and weight ("You listening Canon?"). Epson won with the 3880, but the 17" Canon is a monster in size and some are quite deep for any counter-only operation. I can stack three 3880's on a strong wall mount, put one into some former desktop computer wall alcove, but cannot do the same for Canon without ripping out the shelf bracket hardware (No room to go sideways either.). However, if Canon ink is outlasting Epson, probably a better gamut (?), and clogging is less problematic, a new Canon of some sort may appear here and the Epson to become a B&W piezo printer only, or have to go in the trash if I cannot find room for the big Canon.
SG
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Thanks Bart, good suggestion. Perfect timing too as my 4900 is actually able to make prints with all nozzle’s firing. I'll let you know by running a few Roman 16's through.
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Thanks Bart, good suggestion. Perfect timing too as my 4900 is actually able to make prints with all nozzle’s firing. I'll let you know by running a few Roman 16's through.
Thanks, appreciated, it will be interesting. I don't have an Epson, otherwise I would have done it myself.
At 360 PPI there is more color dithering possible, and at 720 PPI the 'finest detail' has fewer colors available for dithering intermediate inkcolors for the finest micro-detail. It might produce a difference between 8/16-bit input, it's hard to predict without actually testing (it depends on the driver's dithering implementation).
Cheers,
Bart
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The Roman 16 Colorful was set for 360 and output to the 4900 both 16-bit then 8-bit (newest Maverick 4900 driver, 16-bit on). To the naked eye, no difference. Under a loupe, the 16-bit is a bit sharper and shows some tiny details not see in 8-bit mostly on edges. Insignificant but different and interesting.
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Thanks friends. by the way, hello Jeff, are you around!?
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It gets interesting if you have a greyscale image partitioned on 6-7-8 ink channels which are loaded with 6-7-8 grey inks. If you count the bits per channel and count the total then an 8 bit greyscale image looks a bit small in definition to the pipeline it enters.
--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
January 2014, 600+ inkjet media white spectral plots.
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Thanks friends. by the way, hello Jeff, are you around!?
Yes...I'm around. I pretty much said what I needed to in the book :~)
The key is if you are printing from Photoshop or Lightroom. The Adobe ACE CMM uses 20-bit/channel precision when doing color transforms from 16 -bit image>8-bit/channel for the print driver. As long as you are using the ACE pipeline, the odds of getting anything significant in the Mac/Epson 16-bit pipeline vs. the Windows 8-bit/channel pipeline.
Having said that, there are a couple of cases where the Mac/Epson 16-bit pipeline can offer some benefits–most notable would be synthetic long toed gradations (which includes both Photoshop grads as well as ACR/LR grads).
I know how to setup an image in 16-bit to show the benefits of a 16-bit print pipeline but it's it's not easy nor straight forward.
However, if you are talking about getting the maximum IQ on prints, and you are on Mac printing 16-bit images, you would foolish not to go ahead and take advantage of the 16-bit Mac/Epson print pipeline. The ony downside to printing in 16-bit is slightly longer print spooling times due to 2x the data. So, it a pure production workflow, that might be a factor supporting an 8-bit workflow.
That help?
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Yes...I'm around. I pretty much said what I needed to in the book :~)
The key is if you are printing from Photoshop or Lightroom. The Adobe ACE CMM uses 20-bit/channel precision when doing color transforms from 16 -bit image>8-bit/channel for the print driver. As long as you are using the ACE pipeline, the odds of getting anything significant in the Mac/Epson 16-bit pipeline vs. the Windows 8-bit/channel pipeline.
Having said that, there are a couple of cases where the Mac/Epson 16-bit pipeline can offer some benefits–most notable would be synthetic long toed gradations (which includes both Photoshop grads as well as ACR/LR grads).
I know how to setup an image in 16-bit to show the benefits of a 16-bit print pipeline but it's it's not easy nor straight forward.
However, if you are talking about getting the maximum IQ on prints, and you are on Mac printing 16-bit images, you would foolish not to go ahead and take advantage of the 16-bit Mac/Epson print pipeline. The ony downside to printing in 16-bit is slightly longer print spooling times due to 2x the data. So, it a pure production workflow, that might be a factor supporting an 8-bit workflow.
That help?
Thnks Jeff but I just can't understand your word here:
" the odds of getting anything significant in the Mac/Epson 16-bit pipeline vs. the Windows 8-bit/channel pipeline"
Does that mean the print quality is the same in both Windows and Mac as far as I use ACE CMM in Lightroom?
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Yes...I'm around. I pretty much said what I needed to in the book :~)
The key is if you are printing from Photoshop or Lightroom. The Adobe ACE CMM uses 20-bit/channel precision when doing color transforms from 16 -bit image>8-bit/channel for the print driver. As long as you are using the ACE pipeline, the odds of getting anything significant in the Mac/Epson 16-bit pipeline vs. the Windows 8-bit/channel pipeline.
Having said that, there are a couple of cases where the Mac/Epson 16-bit pipeline can offer some benefits–most notable would be synthetic long toed gradations (which includes both Photoshop grads as well as ACR/LR grads).
I know how to setup an image in 16-bit to show the benefits of a 16-bit print pipeline but it's it's not easy nor straight forward.
However, if you are talking about getting the maximum IQ on prints, and you are on Mac printing 16-bit images, you would foolish not to go ahead and take advantage of the 16-bit Mac/Epson print pipeline. The ony downside to printing in 16-bit is slightly longer print spooling times due to 2x the data. So, it a pure production workflow, that might be a factor supporting an 8-bit workflow.
That help?
Is that an answer or obfuscation?
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Thnks Jeff but I just can't understand your word here:
" the odds of getting anything significant in the Mac/Epson 16-bit pipeline vs. the Windows 8-bit/channel pipeline"
Does that mean the print quality is the same in both Windows and Mac as far as I use ACE CMM in Lightroom?
You get very similar (but not exactly the same) printing on Mac and/or Windows as long as you are starting with 16-bit images and use Photoshop or Lightroom to print (and use the Adobe ACE CMM). There are a few fringe edge cases where 16-bit on Mac with Epson printers have a very slight advantage-primarily when printing long toed synthetic gradations (it actually shows up with printing from Illustrator with IL created grads).
In the grand scheme of things, it ain't no big deal–if you are using Adobe ACE on Mac/Windows...so, bottom line, if you are Windows, don't worry about it (since there's nothing you can do about it) if you are on Mac, go ahead and use the 16-bit option if you are printing 16-bit images.
That clear?
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Its clear now Jeff but does it worth it to shift to Mac to gain that little more quality if you are a perfectionist? I shift to Mac sooner or latter anyhow :)
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Its clear now Jeff but does it worth it to shift to Mac to gain that little more quality if you are a perfectionist? I shift to Mac sooner or latter anyhow :)
No, there's no compelling reason to switch from Windows to Mac for printing (in fact, I can think of a couple of reasons why printing on Mac is a pain in the ass :~)
Just be sure to start from 16-bit images and use Adobe ACE CMM in Photoshop or Lightroom (I don't think you can change the CMM in Lightroom–correct me if I'm wrong).
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...so, bottom line, if you are Windows, don't worry about it (since there's nothing you can do about it)
Does that mean that if I use my Canon 9000mk2 with its 16-bit XPS driver on my Windows 7 64 box and the latest version of Lightroom, my image files are still quantized to 8 bits somewhere?
-h
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It gets interesting if you have a greyscale image partitioned on 6-7-8 ink channels which are loaded with 6-7-8 grey inks. If you count the bits per channel and count the total then an 8 bit greyscale image looks a bit small in definition to the pipeline it enters.
The "Dynamic Range" of the ink splatters is two, is it not? Either ink or no ink. By adding more ink channels (assuming that they are all neutral gray at various intensities) you get e.g. 8 levels. I am assuming that you cannot/should not place several dots of ink exactly on top of each other.
Now, the spatial resolution of the splatter pattern seems to be very high (is it 4800 dpi according to inkjet marketing departements?). This means that the lack of tonal resolution and the abundance of spatial resolution can be traded against each other. 32 dots (each selected among 8 different gray inks) might be sufficient to "encode" 256 different levels, aka 8 bits. You want to do gamma (i.e. nonlinear distribution) and choose a dithering pattern that does not introduce visible patterning. Perhaps you also want to let the low-level spatial details in the original file (if existant) slightly bias the pattern, so the factor probably is larger than 32 in practice and the selection of gray ink for optimal "encoding" may be nontrivial.
4800[dpi]/sqrt(32)[dpp] = 850[ppi]. I.e. that something like 850 unique source pixels can be placed along an inch of paper if you want to do 8 bits of tonal levels and have access to 8 wisely chosen gray inks in a 4800dpi printer. If we increase the number of encoded levels (8 bits -> 16 bits), then the reproducable ppi decreases.
(I have done many shortcuts in my speculations based on lazyness and lack of knowledge. I guess that any one of my steps might be off by a factor of two or more. If they are off by an order of magnitude, it means that I have a fundamental misunderstanding of things, and I'd like to know).
If your image patch contains a high spatial-frequency pattern with large contrast (like a fence), there may be perceptual reasons that 8 bits of levels is not needed. We probably cannot see the difference between the patterns [0 255 0 255 0 ...] and [0 254 0 254 0...]. Thus one does not need to spend as much area encoding those pixels, and a higher spatial resolution is possible. If the pattern is [0 1 2 3 ...], however, gradations are likely to be visible. But on this low-contrast signal, spatial resolution may not matter as much, and more area can be spent doing the best possible dithering.
-h
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Does that mean that if I use my Canon 9000mk2 with its 16-bit XPS driver on my Windows 7 64 box and the latest version of Lightroom, my image files are still quantized to 8 bits somewhere?
Sorry, not familiar enough with the Canon 9000mk2 and the XPS driver...but if it's going through Lightroom using LR Manages Color, I think Adobe ACE in LR would be dropping down to 8-bit at the print head–could be wrong, maybe somebody else famialr with the 9000 can answer.
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Sorry, not familiar enough with the Canon 9000mk2 and the XPS driver...but if it's going through Lightroom using LR Manages Color, I think Adobe ACE in LR would be dropping down to 8-bit at the print head–could be wrong, maybe somebody else famialr with the 9000 can answer.
http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/products/printers_multifunction/professional_photo_inkjet_printers/pixma_pro9000_mark_ii#DriversAndSoftware
This file is a printer driver for Canon IJ printers. XPS printer drivers support 16-bpc printing, which enables more smooth gradation printing than the current drivers (8-bpc printing).
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Does that mean that if I use my Canon 9000mk2 with its 16-bit XPS driver on my Windows 7 64 box and the latest version of Lightroom, my image files are still quantized to 8 bits somewhere?
-h
I am pretty sure Mr Schewe is right. Having considered several printers this one included my conclusion (and I could easily be way of the mark!) is that you must go through the optional XPS driver to print in 16 bpc and it seems that this option may be limited to using the Canon Easy Photo print application and letting the printer manage colour.
If I understand correctly there are two drivers available for the Canon. The first is the standard driver that must be installed for the printer to work and the second is the XPS driver which is optional and allows 16 bit printing via Windows. My impression is that the XPS drivers work with Canon Easy Photo Print as 16 bit, but will not work alone as the main printer driver.
Therefore unless you can actually select 16 bit printing in the main printer dialogue the XPS driver will not be used and instead LR or PS will use the standard 8 bpc driver
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I am pretty sure Mr Schewe is right. Having considered several printers this one included my conclusion (and I could easily be way of the mark!) is that you must go through the optional XPS driver to print in 16 bpc and it seems that this option may be limited to using the Canon Easy Photo print application and letting the printer manage colour.
If I understand correctly there are two drivers available for the Canon. The first is the standard driver that must be installed for the printer to work and the second is the XPS driver which is optional and allows 16 bit printing via Windows. My impression is that the XPS drivers work with Canon Easy Photo Print as 16 bit, but will not work alone as the main printer driver.
Therefore unless you can actually select 16 bit printing in the main printer dialogue the XPS driver will not be used and instead LR or PS will use the standard 8 bpc driver
My Canon printer will use the xps 16 bit printer when printing via Lightroom or Photoshop. And, I can see a small difference in the detail under a loupe even on an A4 size print.
(http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/2388/ffu1.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/836/ffu1.jpg/)
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My Canon printer will use the xps 16 bit printer when printing via Lightroom or Photoshop.
That's correct. It just requires installing the Print Studio Pro Plugin for Photoshop and/or Lightroom, all downloadable from the Canon drivers download site for the particular OS version and printer model.
Cheers,
Bart
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Well I was absolutely correct with the statement"I could easily be way off the mark!" ;D
Bryan and Bart pleased that you were able to confirm that 16bit available through the XPS driver and Print studio - looking through the Canon documentation I did not find reference to this.
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Well I was absolutely correct with the statement"I could easily be way off the mark!" ;D
Bryan and Bart pleased that you were able to confirm that 16bit available through the XPS driver and Print studio - looking through the Canon documentation I did not find reference to this.
Hi Tony,
An individual cannot know everything, so that's why we share info and opinions.
I believe that the Print Studio Pro plugin was introduced (http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/about_canon?pageKeyCode=pressreldetail&docId=0901e024806563ad) with the new Pixma Pro 100/10/1 line, and also works with the earlier Pixma Pro 9000/9500 Mark II series desktop printers, and the imagePROGRAF iPF8300, iPF6350 and iPF6300 Printers.
Cheers,
Bart
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Hi Tony,
An individual cannot know everything, so that's why we share info and opinions.
I believe that the Print Studio Pro plugin was introduced (http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/about_canon?pageKeyCode=pressreldetail&docId=0901e024806563ad) with the new Pixma Pro 100/10/1 line, and also works with the earlier Pixma Pro 9000/9500 Mark II series desktop printers, and the imagePROGRAF iPF8300, iPF6350 and iPF6300 Printers.
Cheers,
Bart
If a person using a Canon printer will do a google search for xps driver, it is a good chance that the driver is available for their printer. Print Studio Pro is not needed...at least in my case....I do not have this plugin installed.
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If a person using a Canon printer will do a google search for xps driver, it is a good chance that the driver is available for their printer. Print Studio Pro is not needed...at least in my case....I do not have this plugin installed.
Hi Bryan,
I'm not sure what the standard Photoshop/Lightroom print dialog feeds to the XPS driver (I think that was what Jeff was remembering, the standard print pipeline reverting to 8-bit/channel before data reaches the 16-bit XPS driver). The automation plugin should take care of that uncertainty.
Cheers,
Bart
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Are the icc profiles specific to the XPS driver? In other words, do I have to redo all of my profiles if I use this driver?
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Are the icc profiles specific to the XPS driver? In other words, do I have to redo all of my profiles if I use this driver?
No, ICC v2 or ICC v4 profiles should work as usual.
Besides, the regular 8-bit print driver need to be already installed before the XPS driver can be installed, so you can always switch between the two driver versions.
Cheers,
Bart
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Hi Bart,
Thanks for the added information due to yours and Bryans posts and as I have a couple of cheap ink guzzling consumer Canon printers used for non critical colour printing I took the opportunity to check for new drivers and if XPS available for mine.
Sadly the Print Studio Pro plugin is not compatible with my printers but the XPS driver is and after downloading and installing is available as an option.
When I have the time and a suitable image I will run a test or two to see what differences I can see 8 vs 16 bit, still not expecting a great difference due to limited inks and the fact that these are very cheap printers – costs nearly as much to buy ink refills (2 cartridges) as to buy a new printer!
Where I did see a difference was between two prints sent to me from an Epson 3880. The subject a section of a flower running from red through orange to light yellow. The 16 bit image displayed a smoother transition of colour throughout – slight but still observable without needing a loupe. The 8 bit image lost these smooth transitions and appeared to have a granularity to it. Could not really reach my own conclusion based on another’s testing and in fact when viewed at a normal distance for the final print size I could not differentiate which was which.
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No, ICC v2 or ICC v4 profiles should work as usual.
Besides, the regular 8-bit print driver need to be already installed before the XPS driver can be installed, so you can always switch between the two driver versions.
Cheers,
Bart
Thanks. I wasn't looking forward to redoing all of my profiles. I did install the XPS driver and noticed that you can select which driver to use. I also have the PrintFab driver installed and it does required different profiles from those produced from the Canon drivers. The dithering patterns produced (and the colors used in the pattern) for the same printed color are quite different.
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That's correct. It just requires installing the Print Studio Pro Plugin for Photoshop and/or Lightroom, all downloadable from the Canon drivers download site for the particular OS version and printer model.
I see that other posts have touched this, but anyways...
The Canon XPS driver appears as a secondary printer, freely accessible from any application, even without installing that plugin.
Now, it might be that the data is converted to 8 bits then back to 16 bits, although that seems like a sort of strange situation (why would Canon expose a 16-bit printer driver to any application if their application is the only one who can make use of it?)
I am using only the XPS driver and Lightroom, without the new plugin, but I have never done the tests to see if I am getting >8 bits.
-h
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Having installed the XPS driver for the Canon printers and not yet trying an actual 16 bit print I had a look in LR Print module to see if a 16 bit checkbox had been revealed similar to that found in LR for Mac under Print Resolution and Print Sharpening.
No 16 bit option found, so again an assumption on my part that LR has to be told that you are going to print in 16 bit by checking the box as per Mac versions. No 16 bit checkbox therefore the XPS driver is not being recognised or the application does not support it within a Windows environment and is actually using 8 bit pipeline as already surmised?
Perhaps with the Pro printers and Print Studio Pro plugin the behaviour is different and I would guess tha the 16 bit checkbox would show in LR?
Maybe this sheds some light on the subject http://forums.adobe.com/message/5627047
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Hi Bryan,
I'm not sure what the standard Photoshop/Lightroom print dialog feeds to the XPS driver (I think that was what Jeff was remembering, the standard print pipeline reverting to 8-bit/channel before data reaches the 16-bit XPS driver). The automation plugin should take care of that uncertainty.
Cheers,
Bart
Hi Bart,
Thanks, I learned something new. I did a crude test by creating a 16 bit prophoto Granger Rainbow (thanks to Andrew Rodney's instructions I found online). I printed this A4 image two times from Lightroom 5.3 using the Lightroom print module. In Lightroom, on one image I selected the Canon XPS driver that should provide a 16 bit print pipeline. Next I printed the same image in the same manner as the first except this time I chose the standard Canon (8 bit) driver in Lightroom. I used the same print preset, so all other settings remained the same. The third image was printed using Canon's Easy-PhotoPrint Pro with the XPS (16 bit) driver selected. All prints were printed on Canon Photo Paper Pro Platinum on my Canon MG 6200 series printer. Now, I am not claiming that this test is conclusive in any way technically, but there is a definite difference in the print from the Lightroom Plug in. There are a few areas where the colors printed are different...actually the areas that are different have colors that are not present on the other prints. The prints printed from Lightroom are identical regardless of which driver was selected. The only thing that I am not sure of is if there could be a difference in the colors printed between 16 bit and 8 bit, or is this a difference brought on by the Canon plug in?
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The "Dynamic Range" of the ink splatters is two, is it not? Either ink or no ink. By adding more ink channels (assuming that they are all neutral gray at various intensities) you get e.g. 8 levels. I am assuming that you cannot/should not place several dots of ink exactly on top of each other.
In the past I have done some computation on cell sizes that represent a pixel. I did not have that in mind but droplets can vary from 3 to 5 sizes, there are the diluted Light Cyan and Light Magenta and up to 3 monochrome inks can be used. That and the resolution make up the pixel cell size.
It was more the other end of the pipeline I had in mind. For color 24 bit goes at least into the printer if it has say 7 channels. If that printer is customised to grey ink only and the ink dilutions/partitioning is done well so every channel contributes, then a 16 bit greyscale image should not have to go through a bottleneck. Not in the application, not in Windows, not in the driver and not in the printer. I do not claim it will use the 24 bit optimally but I doubt it will fall back to 8 bit when the droplets hit the paper.
Even with 4 channel deskop models and black only printing the quality of B&W increases considerably when the 4 channels are loaded with black ink and printing is done in color mode. Photoshop curves to get an even distribution on all channels. Banding disappears compared to black only mode and one black head. True, more a hardware limitation controlled by using more nozzles but if 16 bit has to deliver both ends of the pipeline should be optimal. Paul Roark developed several choices of custom inksets for 4, 6 and more channel printers. A lot can be done with PS curves (and profiles made with them) and the driver color mode.
The quality difference in the print between 8 and 16 bit printing is probably more pronounced in B&W with printers sketched above than in color prints were the printer hardware is near the edge of its capacity.
--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
January 2014, 600+ inkjet media white spectral plots.
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Hello -
I'm getting very confused!
So the upshot from this seems to be if you're using Windows, and you don't get
the "16 Bit" checkbox in the LR print module, then it's uncertain whether or not true
16 bit printing is taking place??
Is this right, or have I missed something in the thread?
I have Canon 9500ii and windows vista. Up to now in Lightroom I have been choosing
the printer name with XPS suffix and assuming (doh!) that was sufficient to switch to
16 bit printing. (Incidentally when I do this my hard drive begins to grunt and groan even
more when LR is preparing to print, suggesting something (?) is happening).
This for me raises the question whether I'm even printing in 16 bit from Photoshop, since,
again, no checkbox is visible in the print dialogs - even though most online tutorials seem
to indicate clearly that it needs ticking.
Can any kind soul help me out on this last bit?? What reasons might there be why I can't
see a "Send 16 bit data" checkbox in PS? (Sorry, I have CS5).
I'm wondering if I should update the printer driver. But I don't know how to do this, and I
can't find any true guidance online, or (more to the point) in Canon's own literature.
Again, any help much appreciated.
Confused, but also very, very frustrated, mainly with the level of instruction available from
Canon! Should it really be this hard to achieve? I know many will say that 16 bit is not necessarily
a big deal for prints, but that aside, it's not like this is a weird, obscure thing to want to do --
Canon are very happy to trumpet the possibility of 16 bit printing.
Thanks
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As far as I know, and I do not know everything, you need to download (if it is not already on your Canon cd or already installed) and use the Canon Easy PhotoPrint Pro Plugin software. This will allow you to use the 16 bit print pipeline through the Canon plugin. Without this plugin, you are only printing with 8 bits directly from Lightroom irregardless of which printer driver you choose in Lightroom.
With a loupe, you can definitely see more details in a 16 bit print vs an 8 bit print. But, you have to use a loupe. I can not see the difference at a normal viewing difference, but since I know more detail is there, I choose to print it...haha.
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Thanks Bryan - and yes, I'm with you on that....
and in fact there are plenty of aesthetic reasons for doing it - for instance I like
the idea of reproducing sweeping landscapes as large as I can manage to print,
such that when you go right up to the print you can see all of the things going on
in the landscape.... a tractor two miles off working in a field, ants busy under
yonder rock, and so on and so forth.
Yes, I have the Canon plug-in installed but when I print from CS5 either by normal
or 'Easy Print' I still don't see the "send 16 bit output' tickbox. Looking online it seems
that this should be visible and needs to be ticked. (Perhaps I better go back and find
a link).
As I say, my thinking is that since it seems that LR possibly only offers 16 bit tickbox
when 16 bit printing is actually available, the same may be true of PS even with plug-in
installed. (Or maybe its a mac thing and isn't programmed into windows).
Still, if you can get 16 prints, great. I can't remember have you posted your set up?
Do you see and check a tickbox anywhere??
EDIT - ah, I see you posted a screen shot and no tick box.
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And I forgot to mention -
There seems (on the basis of my hasty googling) to be an opinion floating around
the net that even with the the Canon plug-in, in Windows to get 16 bit you must
allow management by printer not application.
Adobe are raking in enough cash, it seems to me that they ought to do the decent
thing and make available a clear statement - for the average person - of what can
or can't be done, and how.
There is some discussion of this issue on the Adobe help forum(s) but to my mind the
responses are very technical and hardly answer the basic questions.
Of course I may have missed something, but as said, I started to feel frustrated at
the wealth of conflicting opinion coming at me.
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Thanks Bryan - and yes, I'm with you on that....
and in fact there are plenty of aesthetic reasons for doing it - for instance I like
the idea of reproducing sweeping landscapes as large as I can manage to print,
such that when you go right up to the print you can see all of the things going on
in the landscape.... a tractor two miles off working in a field, ants busy under
yonder rock, and so on and so forth.
Yes, I have the Canon plug-in installed but when I print from CS5 either by normal
or 'Easy Print' I still don't see the "send 16 bit output' tickbox. Looking online it seems
that this should be visible and needs to be ticked. (Perhaps I better go back and find
a link).
As I say, my thinking is that since it seems that LR possibly only offers 16 bit tickbox
when 16 bit printing is actually available, the same may be true of PS even with plug-in
installed. (Or maybe its a mac thing and isn't programmed into windows).
Still, if you can get 16 prints, great. I can't remember have you posted your set up?
Do you see and check a tickbox anywhere??
EDIT - ah, I see you posted a screen shot and no tick box.
No, there is no tick box in my version of Canon PhotoPrint Pro that I use with CS5 and Lightroom 5.3. I have to select the Canon XPS driver in order to get 16 bit printing. I am not sure if it was discussed in this thread or earlier, but I think the reason that Adobe does not allow 16 bit printing directly from Windows is due to the fact that in order to print 16 bits in Windows you have to use the XPS Print Path. XPS is actually an open source competitor to Adobe's own pdf format. I think the XPS print path was introduced with Windows Vista.
I do not have any inside information, so take what I have said above with a grain of salt and verify it for yourself...or maybe someone with more knowledge on the subject that I will chime in and either correct me or verify what I have said.
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I believe Bart provided the answer for 16 bit printing Windows via LR or PS and that is to use the Print Studio Pro plugin along with the XPS drivers. Support for this plugin is limited to the Pro series of printers and the 9000 and 9500MkII so you should be good to go.
http://www.canon.co.uk/For_Home/Product_Finder/Printers/Inkjet/Professional_Photo_Printers/Print_Studio_Pro/
AFAIK once you use the plugin from the PS Automate menu or LR Plug-in Extras menu you are leaving the control that these two applications offer and the printer driver is managing all aspects of print output.
No idea if Adobe will implement 16 bit printing from Windows in the future as to do this requires XPS drivers from the printer manufacturers to communicate with Windows and use the XPS path and I think that Canon maybe on their own producing such - perhaps not a priority?
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Now, I am not claiming that this test is conclusive in any way technically, but there is a definite difference in the print from the Lightroom Plug in. There are a few areas where the colors printed are different...actually the areas that are different have colors that are not present on the other prints. The prints printed from Lightroom are identical regardless of which driver was selected. The only thing that I am not sure of is if there could be a difference in the colors printed between 16 bit and 8 bit, or is this a difference brought on by the Canon plug in?
Well for one thing, I don' think Canon supports Black Point Compensation or at least a few years ago when I had a Canon it didn't. I have no idea what's changed since then.
There was a recent discussion about using Epson drivers on Mac with 16-bit data here. I can see a slight difference under a loupe. If I found out I couldn’t use that path, I wouldn't be disappointed, the differences are pretty tiny.
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Printer manages things not much use to those of us who want to use
profiles then!
Thanks for the info both. We'll see how things look when I've done some
test prints at A3+
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I use the Canon XPS driver on my 9000 II since that option appears in Qimage Ultimate when the printer options command window comes up.
I have noted in the past that with the Adobe software, and even QTR RIP software for B&W, that prints appear far softer than what comes out of Qimage so I use that as my final "print tuner" software for the Canon XPS driver. Finely detail items like hair and grass really are different. QU seems to do far better print sharpening when you place a print from Adobe or QTR side-by-side to one made out of QU, imho. Even the Epson shows better detail over the other two software's so I don't use either as a printer control software at all now.
SG
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Printer manages things not much use to those of us who want to use
profiles then!...
The Print Studio Pro plug in allows the selection of icc profiles and rendering intent so perhaps this not a problem. But is it able to actually match what you see on screen in soft proofing in either LR or PS is for me the $64,000 question.
I did not think that Qimage able to utilise 16 bit in Windows as I understood that Mike Chaney had no plans until Windows supported native 16 bit printing and the XPS path not considered such? So I guess again that although the XPS drivers in use that only 8 bit data is being sent? Has this now changed?
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Support for this plugin is limited to the Pro series of printers and the 9000 and 9500MkII so you should be good to go.
http://www.canon.co.uk/For_Home/Product_Finder/Printers/Inkjet/Professional_Photo_Printers/Print_Studio_Pro/
For those that do not have a Canon Pro series printer, the Canon Easy-PhotoPrint Pro plugin is available for many Canon printers and all in ones. It also allows 16 bit printing via the XPS driver.
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I believe Bart provided the answer for 16 bit printing Windows via LR or PS and that is to use the Print Studio Pro plugin along with the XPS drivers. Support for this plugin is limited to the Pro series of printers and the 9000 and 9500MkII so you should be good to go.
http://www.canon.co.uk/For_Home/Product_Finder/Printers/Inkjet/Professional_Photo_Printers/Print_Studio_Pro/
Ah, I hadn't noticed this plug-in supports profiles. Looks good in fact.
To my mind it's a replacement for the more limited Easy Print Pro software.
And for me it's a bonus to be able to print from LR. Plug-ins etc or no, I've never been able to get a satisfactory print
via PS. Obviously I'm doing something wrong, but I could never get to the bottom of what.
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For those that do not have a Canon Pro series printer, the Canon Easy-PhotoPrint Pro plugin is available for many Canon printers and all in ones. It also allows 16 bit printing via the XPS driver.
Did you mean Canon Easy-PhotoPrint EX as Easy-PhotoPrint Pro is only for the Pro range of printers AFAIK? For me the issue still remaining is having to step outside of LR or PS and using the Easy PhotoPrint application to manage print output.
...To my mind it's a replacement for the more limited Easy Print Pro software.
And for me it's a bonus to be able to print from LR. Plug-ins etc or no...
It will be interesting to see if you get any improvement and if PhotoPrint Pro actually allows you to get a WYSIWYG match to your LR or PS soft proofed version i.e. your carefully crafted adjustments in the soft proof version in LR are actually correctly honoured once output via this plugin.
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It will be interesting to see if you get any improvement and if PhotoPrint Pro actually allows you to get a WYSIWYG match to your LR or PS soft proofed version i.e. your carefully crafted adjustments in the soft proof version in LR are actually correctly honoured once output via this plugin.
Yes, that for me is the highest priority. I'll report back when I've done some printing.
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Well for one thing, I don' think Canon supports Black Point Compensation or at least a few years ago when I had a Canon it didn't. I have no idea what's changed since then.
There was a recent discussion about using Epson drivers on Mac with 16-bit data here. I can see a slight difference under a loupe. If I found out I couldn’t use that path, I wouldn't be disappointed, the differences are pretty tiny.
The Canon 16-bit PS printing plugin for their large format iPF series still doesn't support Adobe CMM, AFAIK, so no BPC for that otherwise superb utility. The plugin has been available for years now, so why this fault has not (or maybe cannot?) be corrected beats me.
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The Canon 16-bit PS printing plugin for their large format iPF series still doesn't support Adobe CMM, AFAIK, so no BPC for that otherwise superb utility. The plugin has been available for years now, so why this fault has not (or maybe cannot?) be corrected beats me.
They could use their own CMM with BPC, they don't have to use ACE to use BPC. That would get the results far closer than without from two different CMM's.
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Did you mean Canon Easy-PhotoPrint EX as Easy-PhotoPrint Pro is only for the Pro range of printers AFAIK? For me the issue still remaining is having to step outside of LR or PS and using the Easy PhotoPrint application to manage print output.
The plug in that I have installed is Canon Easy-PhotoPrint Pro. It works with my Canon MG6250. Easy PhotoPrint EX is the standalone printing application. Easy PhotoPrint Pro is a Lightroom/Photoshop plugin.
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The plug in that I have installed is Canon Easy-PhotoPrint Pro. It works with my Canon MG6250. Easy PhotoPrint EX is the standalone printing application. Easy PhotoPrint Pro is a Lightroom/Photoshop plugin.
Thanks. While being aware of the differences standalone v plugin a search for the PhotoPrint Pro version only revealed info. stating that this for the Pro version printers. Having two everyday Canon consumer models iP4000 and all in one MP4950 the XPS driver is available but not PhotoPrint Pro just EX - seems Canon may not be interested once a printer reaches a certain age.
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The Canon 16-bit PS printing plugin for their large format iPF series still doesn't support Adobe CMM, AFAIK, so no BPC for that otherwise superb utility. The plugin has been available for years now, so why this fault has not (or maybe cannot?) be corrected beats me.
The workaround for the BPC issue is to convert the image to the appropriate icc paper profile in Photoshop before exporting to the Canon iPF print plugin.
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The Canon 16-bit PS printing plugin for their large format iPF series still doesn't support Adobe CMM, AFAIK, so no BPC for that otherwise superb utility. The plugin has been available for years now, so why this fault has not (or maybe cannot?) be corrected beats me.
Adobe never updated the CMM to 64 bits so 64 bit versions of Photoshop can't offer this for Plug-in's like Canon's. RelCol with BPC is available in older 32 bit versions of Photoshop with their plug-in. Buy since BPC is included with the Perceptual intent (which is the intent most people use), and because you can convert with RelCol wBPC before printing, it's considered a low priority. I wouldn't expect to see a change.
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The workaround for the BPC issue is to convert the image to the appropriate icc paper profile in Photoshop before exporting to the Canon iPF print plugin.
I don't understand this, Jerry. I would convert my 16-bit PP-RGB color space files out of ACR to my icc paper profile in PS's Edit > Convert to Profile dialog (which includes BPC choice)? I tried this and the image changes radically - as if displaying a PP-RGB image in sRGB color space, and would need much soft proofing to print acceptably. Checking/unchecking BPC makes no apparent difference in preview. Converting a color space to a paper/printer profile just makes no sense to me.
Pete
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Hi everybody!
This is my first post here in the forum, although I'm reading already for a while to learn about printing.
I will start with my conclusion after a real test: indeed, Lightroom sends 8 bits data to the XPS driver. But the XPS is capable of 16 bits printing, when it gets them (from e.g. Print Studio Pro).
I found to this thread after experimenting a banding issue. I printed a BW picture with a quite clear sky, which resulted a perfect test for banding (you can see the picture here: https://flic.kr/p/rnMFte)
I printed the picture in my new Canon Pixma Pro-1 (BW output) from LR (5.7.1, Windows 8.1 64 bit) using the XPS driver. I like LR for printing, since it's very easy to use and has the advantage of setting the resolution following the procedure of Jeff Schewe. To my surprise, as soon as I saw the print out of the printer I saw the banding! :o May be my mother would not detected it at a glance, but it was definitively noticeable with a bit of attention, no need to pixel peeping nor magnifying glass.
Since there was also a small surface defect , I had the excuse to print the picture again. This time I exported a 16bit TIFF file, I've open it in Canon's DPP and printed using Print Studio Pro plug in (XPS driver selected, BW output). The result: no banding!
I hope LR 6 comes with a solution. Meanwhile I will have to export those pictures prone to show banding. I will try to do a test (but not in A3+ this time... €€) using the Print Studio Pro directly from LR, so I can save a bit of time.
regards,
Santiago