Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

I am using QU on my iMac through Parallels and wish to print to file as a tiff 16bit. Is this possible?
Windows 10 via Parallels on macOS 10.14.1 Mojave.

Any one know if it’s possible to print to file 16 bit tiff from QU??

As far as I recall, Windows ptints 8 bit
Fred

QU prints 16 bit TIFFs at 8 bits/pixel, 16 bits/region.

What does this mean?  QU is optimized for Windows drivers so it prints 8 bits/pixel whether you are printing to printer or file.  BUT, you can't see individual pixels in a print anyway especially at 600 or 720 PPI, so in regions larger than one pixel, color depth beyond 8 bits/channel are reproduced in the print.  In a 2x2 region (300 or 360 PPI), you already have a 10 bits/channel bit depth (1024 shades instead of 256) and by the time you reach a 16x16 pixel region, you are at 16 bits.  So QU will actually reproduce 16 bit color in every 16x16 pixel region in the print.  For reference, a 16x16 pixel region in a 600 PPI print output is a square region of about two thirds of a millimenter (less than three hundredths of an inch).

Bottom line: when you start with a 16 bit TIFF, PSD, or raw photo, you'll get output indistinguishable from 16 bits/pixel from QU even when printing to standard 8 bit drivers and you won't see any posterization or color banding.  It's basically a way to get 16 bit output while still using standard (8 bit) Windows drivers.

Mike

My request is about the option “print to file” as opposed to print to printer.

The above applies to both print to file and print to printer.

Mike

Thanks Mike.