In the old days of photography, one had to contend with dangerous chemicals and slow difficult to handle equipment. In the very early days, to take some photos, one had to have a mule to carry all of the items needed to take a few photos. But today, it is very different. With software such as Lightroom and Aperture, one can be the photographer and the processor and produce beautiful prints in the comfort of your own home.
However, you do need to ensure that you have a consistent 16 bit workflow from the image capture, through to image editing, and finally to the print output. This means that you need to capture your images in the RAW format. You must shoot in the RAW format to make a visible difference in the final printed output.
Of course, when making a decision to purchase a digital camera, you need to look at the number of pixels the sensor will capture. Most low end digital cameras, the consumer models, will not take RAW images, so those cameras cannot even be considered. You need either a very high end prosumer model or preferably, a DSLR. 6 Mega pixels is the very minimum number, but you need to be considering more.
Currently, only the Macintosh operating system supports 16 bit printing. This may change in the future, but for now it is Mac only. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 and Apple's Aperture 2 are the premier software packages for producing 16 bit prints. Remember, 8 bit images will not have sufficient image data to produce an effective 16 bit print from the ink jet printer. What does that mean?
Here is the math formula which allows you to figure the number of colors possible; 8 bit images capture a maximum number of brightness values for each of the three primary colors, Red, Green and Blue of 256 different values. This means we have a possible 16.8 million colors.8 million. The human eye can see approximately 11-12 million colors. However, if we look at 16 bit images, each pixel has a possible brightness value of 65,536 values. So, if we multiply 65,536*65,536*65,536 and get about 280 trillion colors, a little more than what the eye can perceive.
So, will all these extra colors really make a big difference on the final print. In most situations, it will probably not make a lot of difference between 8 or 16 bit printing, but when you need to show off your best work, the 16 bit offers smoother gradations, especially in subtle areas such as sunsets. 16 bit printing offers unique advantages, and where there is a large color gamut in the image 16 bit printing offers the advantage of better gradations.
