Any Forum Member with Experience "Qimage One" for Mac

[The Hat]

Why do all the experts reckon that using a 16 bit driver gives them a much better photo !

Yes Mac do offer that option but yet it makes not a jot of difference whether you use the 8 or 16 bit driver, because the results are going to be the same, I know of no inkjet printer that will output using 16 bit.. So why all the kerfuffle about it..

 

[Tony4597]

I tend to both agree and disagree about 16 bit printing and what it may bring to the table.

Most experts I have had any contact with seem to be of the opinion that 16 bit brings nothing to the table and switching the option on is a waste of time as print comparison show zero difference, at least as far as photograpic image acquisition goes. It could be possible that some computer generated gradients would benefit but I have never tried as I do not work within a 16 bit pipeline

I can only speak about Epson drivers which are 16 bit compatible, but would assume Canon drivers would be the same.

But the problem is (or at least used to be?) no Windows print drivers support 16 bit printing and therefore applications such as Photoshop and Lightroom cannot send 16 bit data to the print driver.

As you noted Mac OS natively supports a 16 bit pipeline and applications such as Photoshop and Lightroom have options to switch this on.

Mike Chaney the author of Qimage put out a challenge some years ago asking for examples from anyone to find any photographic image where 16 bit printing produced a better visual result than 8 bit, stating you will not find any! AFAIK no one took up the challenge. Further to that he stated that he had no plans to support 16 bit until Windows itself supports native 16 bit printing.

Again AFAIK Windows even Windows 11 does not offer 16 bit print pipeline.

But to throw in another fact Qimage has included a simulated16 bit/channel print pipeline from v22(?) onwards! Claiming even smoother prints from 16 bit photos. One day I may find an image and the time to try it out
in hope I might go

Has anybody tried this:
As 8 bit images normally have several bits of noise in them (dither) the effect is such that 16 bit or 8 bit printers make no visible difference. But the 16 bit printer path can be demonstrate by printing a gradient over a tiny RGB range, say from RGB 127,127,127 to 135,135,135 made in a 16 bit Photoshop file