On Wed, 21 Nov 2001 14:29:19 -0500, you wrote: >Canon BJC-620 Properties > --Graphics and Color > --Halftoning > --Smooth, patterned, solid. > >Of course Canon does not know what they are talking about.
I agree. But it's probably just semantics - the word "halftone" was once specific to a certain process, and as the process evolved, the word "halftone" has come to describe a group of processes which produce rather different results on the final printed piece. Nowadays, "halftone" is a very generic term which describes a variety of dot generation methods and patterns. BTW, my cheap old HP desktop inkjet also offers a choice of halftones - Dithered or Random. Dithered actually simulates conventional halftone better than Random, although Dithered produces crappy photo quality. > >No 3 (nor 4, nor 6) ink printing device is capable of printing shades of >color. I don't want shades of color. I want one single color. Black would be fine, or solid Magenta, Yellow, and Cyan, if the dot structure would be the type I desire. >A RBG Printer does not print one color. You will always get a red, a blue, >and a green dot. So your test is meaningless. No, the test is not meaningless. If I specify 50% black, the inkjet could turn off the blue, yellow and magenta droplets, and spray a pattern of black ink droplets that cover 50% of the image surface. That would be a good start for my needs - next I would also want the dot structure to emulate the dot pattern of traditional halftone dots. Right now, a 50% black inkjet print contains a high percentage of blue and red in the image, which makes the proof useless as a comparison to the press sheet because the press sheet will only contain black ink. An inkjet manufacturer could modify their hardware and software to output traditional halftone dots. But it hasn't been done yet. Maybe it's because the market for such a device is small, or because the current random droplet generation of inkjets is better for photo-realistic reproduction. Maybe it's because inkjets produce single-size droplets, and combining those tiny inkjet droplets to produce the larger dot pattern of a traditional halftone screen is problematic. Please understand - I don't want phjoto-realistic reproduction - I don't care if we agree or disagree on the usage of the word "halftone" - I just want an inkjet printer that will output the cheesy dot patterns of traditional halftones used in litho printing. Like a comic book, only with a finer line screen. > >If your customers want to see traditional 0, 15, 30, 45 degree halftone >color separations they are not going to get them from a digital pritner, We produce traditional halftone dots with many models of digital (laser) print heads, but they are driven by dedicated screening boards. I just can't get these same conventional halftone dots from an inkjet, at least not from the ones I've been able to review so far. but >to say digital printers don't use halftones indicates little understanding >of the nature of printing. I agree that inkjet printers use a droplet pattern that can be called "halftone". I'm saying I want to find an inkjet printer that will produce the structured array of halftone dots that, to differentiate from the droplets of the inkjets we all know and love, I prefer to call "conventional" or "traditional" hafltone. I like the fine, random, stochastic dots of inkjet printers for photo reproductions, but I need something quite different. > >Credentials (as if needed): I was at one time a stripper/platemaker in the >printing trade. > Good, so you know about conventional halftone dots. BTW, I've been in printing since 1960, and I've trained, hired, fired, and retired many a stripper/platemaker in the intervening years. I could offer more credentials, but that would be beside the point. I do understand printing, but maybe my wording of the original post was less than perfect. My main focus now is finding things that work, and what I want is an inkjet printer, preferably an Ethernet-capable Postscript printer, that can generate the cheesy, comic-book like, single color, traditional halftone dots. Anybody know of one? -- John Mustarde - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
