How to test if a print was made at 16 bit?

[Mark D Segal]

Perhaps the driver emulation is complicated and printer manufacturers decided that 8 bits was enough for 'most' everyone.  I'm surprised that Epson have not provided 16 bit drivers for their new line of printers but of course LR would have to allow 16 bit delivery to the printer under WinOS as well.

But Epson has provided the 16-bit option for the newest printer of the SureColorPro line, which is the SC-P5000, which I have and operate. It is accessible in the driver for OSX. Whether it is accessible for the Windows driver I can only surmise from checking the Manual. In the Manual for the P5000, in <Printing with Mac> they show a screen grab of the Printer Settings tab that includes the 16-bit checkbox, without explaining it in any text (great manual); in <Printing with Windows> none of the screen grabs show the existence of a 16-bit checkbox anywhere. So I have to conclude they do provide 16-bit drivers if the operating system accommodates 16-bit data in the print pipeline.

[Mark D Segal]

LR appears to do so on the Mac, according to the output I just tried using Doug's target. Smooth as it should be. This again begs the question why a check box for 16-bit isn't necessary for the P800 but appears on others.
Like Photoshop, there's a 16-bit check box in LR. Is there one under the Windows version?

I think I provided one plausible explanation why the SC-P5000 has it - it's an option provided so that if you want to send only 8-bit data you can uncheck it (for whatever reason). If that's true it begs the question why this option is offered on the SC-P5000 but not the P800. The only answer I can think of is that at twice the price, they have to pack in more bells and whistles to make it seem worthwhile, on top of the more obvious things -  the G & O inks, twice the printhead nozzle density, larger tanks, more robust build quality, built-in automatic roll holder, etc.

[elliot_n]

I think I provided one plausible explanation why the SC-P5000 has it - it's an option provided so that if you want to send only 8-bit data you can uncheck it (for whatever reason).

But can you think of ANY reason?

[Mark D Segal]

Less data to handle?

As I said, one would need to get into the heads of the engineers designing this stuff to know for sure.

[Mark D Segal]

LR appears to do so on the Mac, according to the output I just tried using Doug's target. Smooth as it should be. This again begs the question why a check box for 16-bit isn't necessary for the P800 but appears on others.
Like Photoshop, there's a 16-bit check box in LR. Is there one under the Windows version?

Now on this again, never occurred to me to verify because I just leave the highest quality options selected and perpetually active everywhere they exist, but in Lr, there are TWO places for selecting 16 bit (see attached screen grab), the first being in the Lr Print interface, the second in the Epson driver accessed through Lr (OSX). Why both?

[elliot_n]

Less data to handle?

That might be useful if the 8 bit pipeline was quicker than the 16 bit pipeline. But it isn't.

[digitaldog]

Now on this again, never occurred to me to verify because I just leave the highest quality options selected and perpetually active everywhere they exist, but in Lr, there are TWO places for selecting 16 bit (see attached screen grab), the first being in the Lr Print interface, the second in the Epson driver accessed through Lr (OSX). Why both?

Why both in Photoshop?

[Mark D Segal]

That might be useful if the 8 bit pipeline was quicker than the 16 bit pipeline. But it isn't.

Maybe there was a time that certain systems weren't capable of managing 16-bit data, I don't really know. As I said, one would need to get the insight of the engineers who put it there as an option.

[Mark D Segal]

Why both in Photoshop?

Probably the same reason, but what is it?  :-)

[elliot_n]

Now on this again, never occurred to me to verify because I just leave the highest quality options selected and perpetually active everywhere they exist, but in Lr, there are TWO places for selecting 16 bit (see attached screen grab), the first being in the Lr Print interface, the second in the Epson driver accessed through Lr (OSX). Why both?

1) In LR (or PS) you choose whether to deliver 16 bit data to the print driver
2) In the print driver you then choose whether to send that data down the 8 bit or 16 bit pipeline.

[elliot_n]

And neither setting makes much of a difference

[digitaldog]

Probably the same reason, but what is it?  :-)

I don’t know but I appreciate the consistency among these Adobe software products. I can ping Dave P at Adobe.

[Mark D Segal]

I don’t know but I appreciate the consistency among these Adobe software products. I can ping Dave P at Adobe.

Good idea.

[Mark D Segal]

1) In LR (or PS) you choose whether to deliver 16 bit data to the print driver
2) In the print driver you then choose whether to send that data down the 8 bit or 16 bit pipeline.

Yes, but that still begs the question of why you need two commands to achieve the same ultimate objective, and then having the duplication, which prevails if they were set differently.

[elliot_n]

I'm not sure if the objective is exactly the same. It's puzzling.

Printing from Photoshop, the first box is called 'Send 16-bit Data' and the second (in the Epson driver) is called '16 Bit Output'.

If you uncheck the first box, then Photoshop makes the conversion from 16 bit to 8 bit (with or without dither, depending on your Color Settings).

If, instead, you uncheck the second box, then the Epson driver deals with the 16 bit data, presumably making its own conversion to 8 bit. From my tests this conversion is different from both of Photoshop's conversions (dither on, dither off).

[digitaldog]

This is useful?
https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/help/print-job-options-settings.html

[Mark D Segal]

Partially useful - there's no discussion about its relationship with the 16-bit option in the Epson driver for some printers and doesn't indicate anything about inconsistent settings between the application and driver. Another example of these guys needing to get their act together.

[Wayne Fox]

1) In LR (or PS) you choose whether to deliver 16 bit data to the print driver
2) In the print driver you then choose whether to send that data down the 8 bit or 16 bit pipeline.

Possibly. But are you sure LR and PS aren’t just putting these settings there so it can pass them on to the driver?  I just can’t imagine anyone having a need to send 16bit data to the printer but then have the printer send it down the pipeline in 8 bit. If it’s nearly impossible to see the difference between a print using 8bit vs 16bit in both checkboxes, I just don’t see how there would be any visual difference?  And it seems most would rather trust LR and PS to make the conversion because that’s what we do with profiles, so whatever we set in those programs should be what’s sent to and set in the driver by default.

to me its not necessarily puzzling it’s in both places, because one is in either LR or PS and should just be there so it can send that setting on the printer drier, much like it does with application managed or printer managed color.  They also both show up in both places.

What is puzzling is why the setting doesn’t jive.  If I turn it off in LR why is there a circumstance where it’s still on the printer driver. If I select a template with 16bit, toggle the checkbox to 8 bit in the Print Job section, if just hit the print button it’s going to the pinter as 16 bit, because that setting isn’t syncing.  I have to also open the Printer ... dialog box and toggle it there.

I think they are intended to sync.  Seems like a bug to me, unless an Epson engineer would like to explain why it’s working as intended and what use it provides.

[JRSmit]

Thanks.  I've done some research about WinOS printing and it looks as though MSFT provided 16 bit print capability back when Vista was developed well over ten years ago now.  The specification is XPS and drivers need to be compliant with that.  It looks like only Canon has done this but the problem as I've read is that Adobe has not put the feature in LR to do this with WinOS (and I assume PS as well).  It's interesting that the ability to do 16 bit printing in WinOS has been around for so long and never implemented until recently and only by on manufacturer.  Some RIPs can do 16 bit printing in WinOS.  Curious situation.

With my sc-p9000 it appears to be 16 bit as the spool file is twice the size in MB. Windows 10 plus Lightroom Classic cd . The printerresolution image of Bart van der wolf is printed all the way to the 720 ppi limit. Without artefacts as a result of down rezzing or so. However i now have a curious Problem, that is my sc-p7000 , using the same driver version, somewhere in the pipeline the image appears to be converted to 8 bit (or 360ppi) yet printed at 720ppl, with some kind of dithering for the part above 360ppi. And artefacts already well before the 360ppi limit.  In the dithered part you can see the original structure but faintly with a 10x loupe going all the way to the 720ppl limit.

Would this printer resolution test image be a good test for the 8 or 16 bit quest?

[Alan Goldhammer]

Now on this again, never occurred to me to verify because I just leave the highest quality options selected and perpetually active everywhere they exist, but in Lr, there are TWO places for selecting 16 bit (see attached screen grab), the first being in the Lr Print interface, the second in the Epson driver accessed through Lr (OSX). Why both?

I commented on this in an earlier post.  The LR checkbox is the instruction for LR to send 16 bit data to the print driver.  To print at 16 bits you need to have both the LR and driver checked to accomplish this.  LR for Windows does not have a 16 bit check box.  I'm still on the old LR 6 as I have not bought into the subscription service yet.  However, from what I've seen in some Internet research the current version of LR for WinOS does not have this feature yet.  As noted also, only one Canon printer that I've found supports 16 bit printing under WinOS and you need to make sure that the Canon XPS driver is installed.  Here is the most current comment on LR from the Queen herself:  https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/16-bit-printing-in-windows-10