Try to reduce the contrast as much as possible while still in grayscale mode.
Bitmap, by definition, looks at every pixel and if it is 128 or higher grey it makes it black. If it is 127, it makes it white. Thus two nearly identical greys are treated as opposites.
By increasing the contrast, you have more control over the changes, and can get the image so it doesn’t have any of these mid range greys, so the final art should look better.
(It’s gonna look choppy no matter what, but with a high enough resolution, it should be okay.)
HUm, I think Don meant his first sentence to read: Try to _increase_ the contrast as much as possible while still in grayscale mode.
Thank you for your suggestion! Interestingly, I got the best, relatively speaking, results by reducing the contrast by 60%, then increasing the Brightness by 40%. Then, I adjusted the Threshold to give me some control over the black and white balance. It isn’t perfect, but I am aware that bit maps are inherently troublesome. Another fly in my ointment is that there is some reverse text in the image. So, changes that made the text and lines look better, filled in the reverses. A delicate balance.
Thank you again.
BC
Right Nomad, brain cramp.
William,
do you really need a Black-on-White file (a Bitmap in
PhS nomenclature) ?
In many cases it would be much better to leave this
image in Grayscale mode. Then it would consume 8 bits
per pixel.
If this image should be used in the context of a desk-
top publishing program like PageMaker or InDesign then
the document can be exported as PDF with ZIP 4 bits per
pixel. Lossless, highly compressed. It’s still a Grayscale (16 levels) but the file size will be rather small (much smaller than 50% of the uncompressed Grayscale).
Such an image would look fairly smooth.
Alternatively one can use a HIGHER resolution ‘Bitmap’ with CCITT compression (export to PDF, not by PhS) .
Best regards –Gernot Hoffmann
Dear Gernot,
Grayscale would be fine, except that I need dark, solid lines, not gray, for printing purposes. Even in grayscale, my attempts to make the lines darker produced results comparable to converting to a bit map. Is there a remedy for this dilemma?
Thank you for your suggestons.
Bill Clifford
I would play with a curves adjustment layer, leaving the image greyscale.
Dear Bill,
exactly for printing purposes – if you don’t worry about the file size – a Grayscale, even with only 16 levels, would be much better than a strict Black/White file (‘Bitmap’).
If you provide a Grayscale (4 bits or 8 bits per pixel,
compressed or not compressed), the rasterization will be done by the RIP = Raster Image Processor at the Service Provider.
This doesn’t slow down the workflow.
Perhaps you thought that you had to do the rasterization in advance ?
Normally, one delivers composite or grayscale images, and the rasterization is done on RIP level (computer to film, computer to plate, where ‘computer’ means ‘file’).
Best regards –Gernot Hoffmann
I’ll give it a shot and let you know.
Thank you!
BC
