I think I know what is causing my banding problem - software or firmware bug.

[Gary Hair]

The 200ppi source and the Gold Method are the better results, in my opinion. What you want out of the picture determines which you prefer. For most of what my customers want, the Gold Method would be the better option. That said, I use PhotoGrav and get results similar to the Gold Method.

[Robert Silvers]

I'm not overly impressed with any of them.

My goal was to compare line screens at various DPIs with each other and with error-diffusion. I can work on other issues like shadow detail now.

[Bruce Dorworth]

Robert, is this not what I said a few days ago? That it was an issue with the DPI.

I guess if you have your own ideas of what is causing your problem, then you should exhaust those option before asking for advice.

Bruce

[Rodne Gold]

A laser is not a a photo printer - that it can do pics is a huge bonus , but you ain't gonna get what you would out of a cheap 300dpi laser printer.
We use photgrav for pics , no fiddling and they come out great on whatever substrate (Gold method basically mimics what Photograv does)
But then again , we aren't tinkers.. I have a commercial operation so need to do it right 1st time.

[Robert Silvers]

Robert, is this not what I said a few days ago? That it was an issue with the DPI.

I guess if you have your own ideas of what is causing your problem, then you should exhaust those option before asking for advice.

Bruce

The machine ran out of memory without giving an error. I can't find where you said that was a potential problem. If you did, let me know. The manufacturer told me that after I asked them what it could be, and my tests verified it. This thread being here may help the next person.

[Robert Silvers]

A laser is not a a photo printer - that it can do pics is a huge bonus , but you ain't gonna get what you would out of a cheap 300dpi laser printer.

Yeah. Last night I used my laser printer to compare line screens to diffusion dither. It was interesting. At 300 DPI the 100 line screen had serious quantizing error. The 75 was not bad. I liked the 50-60 the best - which is actually what 300 DPI laser printers tend to use.

The diffusion method was ok after I lightened the source image, but it was very noisy - and I can't say that I preferred it.

It appears that most of the marketing efforts touting frequency-modulated half-toning methods only compare them to "standard" line-screen sizes and then use a press with high resolution to show a how an FM image is better. What they don't do is use the highest screen that the printer was capable of. That is misleading but seems to be unnoticed.