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Author Topic: 16 Bit Printing  (Read 48037 times)

William Walker

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16 Bit Printing
« on: April 25, 2014, 10:23:02 am »

I am interested to know what the latest thinking is regarding 16 bit printing.

Everything I have managed to find seems to be a bit dated and the general opinion of those articles it that there is/was no visible difference in prints printed in 16 bit as opposed to 8 bit.

Is the situation still the same or is there new information available showing that 16 bit is superior?

Thanks
William
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digitaldog

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Re: 16 Bit Printing
« Reply #1 on: April 25, 2014, 10:53:01 am »

It's superior under a very, very strong loupe, viewing a print who's OS and driver support passing that data. That means Mac OS. And in the case of the loupe test, it was on an Epson 3880/4900. This was discussed here rather recently (I'd say this year) if you want to search the forum posts.
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Scott Martin

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Re: 16 Bit Printing
« Reply #2 on: April 25, 2014, 11:51:32 am »


Still the same. High bit depth printing (let's say this because some printers actually only support 10, 12 or 14 bit internal processing) has always had advantages that are very, very hard to see. This coupled with the fact that checking 16 bit printing checkboxes sometimes screws up color management translates into a situation where we have to ask "Is this worth it?". High bit depth has huge advantages for image processing especially when big adjustments are made - that where we need it. But once our images are adjusted and sharpened and converted to they print space does it make sense to send it to the printer at high bit depth? Not much. For the masses, it just slows things down and creates the possibility of something going wrong. Those that choose to use high bit depth printings need to keep an eye on their prints and make sure nothing is going wrong, but there is some satisfaction in doing all the things needed to make the very best prints possible.

And just to clarify some details, Canon's iPF PS print plug-in made high bit depth printing without a RIP first possible in 2004 and it's completely flawless and reliable. Lightroom's 16 bit printing checkbox has been particularly prone to causing color space conversion problems with some but not all printers.


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chichornio

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Re: 16 Bit Printing
« Reply #3 on: April 25, 2014, 12:50:43 pm »

I often do 16 bits printing using the EWS of my HP z3200ps. And there is very visible difference for me. The prints are sharper, and you get more gradients and better transitions on subtle images. Hope it helps.
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Scott Martin

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Re: 16 Bit Printing
« Reply #4 on: April 25, 2014, 12:55:39 pm »

And there is very visible difference for me. The prints are sharper, and you get more gradients and better transitions on subtle images. Hope it helps.

Smoother transitions and gradations are what I see when printing granger rainbows but as to why bit depth might improve sharpness is beyond me... Sometimes I think there's a psycho semantic nature to these visual analyses..
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digitaldog

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Re: 16 Bit Printing
« Reply #5 on: April 25, 2014, 01:04:57 pm »

Smoother transitions and gradations are what I see when printing granger rainbows but as to why bit depth might improve sharpness is beyond me...
It shouldn't but we have idea what the driver may be doing above and beyond sending just a higher bit depth.

When I asked Epson engineers several years about this, why the differences at the time were so visually tiny, they said that with that current driver technology, one wasn't expected to see a difference but what they could do in the future might change.
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Scott Martin

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Re: 16 Bit Printing
« Reply #6 on: April 25, 2014, 01:32:07 pm »

When I asked Epson engineers several years about this, why the differences at the time were so visually tiny, they said that with that current driver technology, one wasn't expected to see a difference but what they could do in the future might change.

When the whole 16 bit printing debate came up years ago Canon was unusually generous providing information about what they were doing on their printers to make this possible. They talked about their LCOA processor that allowed for high bit depth handling (not quite 16) on their iPF pritners and one could do a quick test with a granger rainbow with 8 and 16 bits in their PS printing plug-in and see the results. They mentioned that the costs involved to make this happen would prevent them (or anyone else) from doing so on a sub $1000 consumer printer. When I brought this up to Epson and questioned them on what internal bit depth handling they supported and on what printers they were very quick to say "no comment" which seems interesting. When asked directly if they had full 16 bit internal image handling on the 3880 they were quick to say "no comment" and did so with a devious smile! The Print Academy Evangelists were quick to say 'all Epson printers have 16 bit internal handling' but I'd love to hear more details straight from Epson on this.

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digitaldog

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Re: 16 Bit Printing
« Reply #7 on: April 25, 2014, 01:38:10 pm »

The Print Academy Evangelists were quick to say 'all Epson printers have 16 bit internal handling' but I'd love to hear more details straight from Epson on this.
Not all but all the Pro versions do on Mac. And again, visually the differences sending 16-bit data with and without the check boxes do produce a tiny difference that requires a loupe (at least for these old eyes).
Not sure a Granger Rainbow is the best approach, certainly depending on the working space. That comment kind of goes along with the images used for testing differing profile packages. Indeed, the Granger Rainbow is useful in some respects, not in others.
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Scott Martin

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Re: 16 Bit Printing
« Reply #8 on: April 25, 2014, 01:54:49 pm »

Not all but all the Pro versions do on Mac.

It's just interesting that when pressed, Epson higher ups won't confirm this!

The processing power needed to process high bit depths increases exponentially I'm told. So 10 bit processing is computationally about twice as 'expensive' and 8 bit processing, and 12bits twice and expensive as 10 bit processing, etc. Canon was really forthcoming about saying they felt (12 or 14 bits - I forget) was the sweet spot that they choose to developed for. So for Epson's non-employee evangelists to come out and say all their printers have full 16 bit internal processing even though the drivers at the time they were made couldn't deliver 16 bit data, seemed questionable. And then when these same evangelists started bashing Canon for having only 12 or 14 bit internal support it felt like a lot of clever marketing speak without any transparency.

Not sure a Granger Rainbow is the best approach, certainly depending on the working space. Indeed, the Granger Rainbow is useful in some respects, not in others.

Of course, and my evaluation images contain a variety of images including the rainbow. My point was that when toggling between 8 and 16 bit modes on the iPF pritners the difference was most noticeable on these rainbows.
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shadowblade

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Re: 16 Bit Printing
« Reply #9 on: April 25, 2014, 01:57:28 pm »

You can achieve 16-bit printing in Windows with a RIP, though.
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Some Guy

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Re: 16 Bit Printing
« Reply #10 on: April 25, 2014, 02:23:02 pm »

You can achieve 16-bit printing in Windows with a RIP, though.

I'll add that Canon updated some of their XPS (16 bit) drivers on April 11, 2014 and posted them for Windows for some printers.  No specifics as to what was done though.  Wish they would say more as to what was done.  Might be time to redo some profiles made with prior issues and see what if any shows up using them.

SG
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William Walker

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Re: 16 Bit Printing
« Reply #11 on: April 25, 2014, 02:52:05 pm »

Thank you for all the info!

Would it be fair to sum it up in this way:while the effects might not be easily noticeable, if you have the capability, print 16 bit?

William
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digitaldog

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Re: 16 Bit Printing
« Reply #12 on: April 25, 2014, 03:33:32 pm »

Would it be fair to sum it up in this way:while the effects might not be easily noticeable, if you have the capability, print 16 bit?
Absoulty! All my files are high bit (16-bit). If I'm printing from Lightroom or Photoshop, I check the little 16-bit box in the driver, why not? And I've as yet never seen any difference in the color and thus the need to alter a profile at least printing this way to an Epson.
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Scott Martin

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Re: 16 Bit Printing
« Reply #13 on: April 25, 2014, 04:56:53 pm »

Would it be fair to sum it up in this way:while the effects might not be easily noticeable, if you have the capability, print 16 bit?

The potential problem with this is that you might print for the next 6 months before realizing: "wait a minute, everything seems a little off". I've been to enough people's studios that have experienced this - and when we unchecked this one checkbox and saw the color they were supposed to see all along, they were furious. Furious that the solution was so simple, that it took them so long to figure it out and furious that that checkbox was the problem all along. 

If people call saying "My color is a little off when I print from Lightroom" the answer is always to uncheck the 16 bit printing checkbox. Seems like this problem is mostly with some Canon printers, but I haven't kept tight notes.

So I tell the masses to be careful and double check their print quality if they use it, and to leave it unchecked if they want to be sure they don't have problems. People usually fall into two camps - one group is detail oriented and wants to be thorough and use this checkbox, the other group is oriented towards the productivity of their image making and wants to minimize failure and doesn't use the checkbox.

I'm a print quality geek but even I think, realistically, you're not missing much by unchecking it but you are ensuring a reliable printing workflow.
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digitaldog

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Re: 16 Bit Printing
« Reply #14 on: April 25, 2014, 04:59:15 pm »

If people call saying "My color is a little off when I print from Lightroom" the answer is always to uncheck the 16 bit printing checkbox. 
All printers or just Canon? Because I've never heard nor seen this with an Epson. And when I measured the differences between using the check box on or off to the Epson, the dE values were so tiny, it was due to noise one expects from a Spectrophotometer between two readings (IOW, well below 1dE).
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Scott Martin

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Re: 16 Bit Printing
« Reply #15 on: April 25, 2014, 05:25:48 pm »

All printers or just Canon?

Well I work with a diverse base of clients that use everything under the sun, and that checkbox is causing problems for a number of them. Although I haven't drawn a direct correlation to what printers, off the top of my head I can think of several that are using Canon printers...
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digitaldog

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Re: 16 Bit Printing
« Reply #16 on: April 25, 2014, 05:38:30 pm »

Well I work with a diverse base of clients that use everything under the sun, and that checkbox is causing problems for a number of them.
Just sayin, not on my radar nor reported to me by my diverse base of clients. It would be useful to get to the bottom of it, but I have no experience with it being an issue, that's all.
The issue that's pissing me off in terms of LR is 'corrupted' display profiles that wack the previews only there and V4 profiles that cause the app to barf. It's reported often on the Adobe UtoU forum.
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Scott Martin

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Re: 16 Bit Printing
« Reply #17 on: April 25, 2014, 05:45:22 pm »

Barfing apps! I can see the icon animation in the dock right now, LOL!
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Re: 16 Bit Printing
« Reply #18 on: April 26, 2014, 06:42:34 am »

I can testify that 16-bit printing on my Epson 7900 from Photoshop CS6 (MAC OS 10.8.2) consistently destroys the colour management. And it isn't subtle. After a week of terror and trials I found that it was the 16-bit box that was responsible for the onset of colour management problems when I upgraded my OS to the current version. It looks like the software uses sRGB as the printer profile; as I said, not a minor problem. Before this problem I had always used 16-bit printing, at least ever since it was available. VERY upsetting.
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Re: 16 Bit Printing
« Reply #19 on: April 26, 2014, 04:52:57 pm »

I print 16 bit out of LR.  I can certainly see the difference.  I'm printing from D800 RAW files.  BUT.. I only really see the difference on images where there are nice smooth gradients.  Like a sky.  16 bit always makes the gradations smother.  My color management never has any issue.  It's about as exact to what I'm seeing on screen as I can get.
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