I while ago I was at a tradeshow and a well-known retoucher gave a demonstration. One tip he had was to add low opacity monochromatic noise to the pure white backgrounds to give the printer something to print.

So my question: who adds noise to the white backgrounds?

Opinions appreciated.

That's strange, I understood that was "old" thinking, from the days of early postscript printers. I'd be interested to hear other people's opinions.

I certainly add a small amount of noise to long gradients (eg false skies), just to be safe from banding.

That's strange, I understood that was "old" thinking, from the days of early postscript printers. I'd be interested to hear other people's opinions.

I certainly add a small amount of noise to long gradients (eg false skies), just to be safe from banding.

Me too, and good results.

Same here. I use noise to help banding and to hide my "smooth stuff" in otherwise grainy images. My "old" thinking reminded me of gravure printing, where anything less than 4% would not print, but there would still be better ways of adding tone to blown out areas.

As far as I know, scum dots have never been a desirable quality. And, I don't know any pressmen that have trouble printing white.

Cheers

He said he added this noise to let the printer print something, so it suggests there is a benefit. :confused:

btw, the retoucher is Adrien Hendrickx (from Belgium), so someone who knows what he's talking about.

No one else?

He said he added this noise to let the printer print something, so it suggests there is a benefit. :confused:

btw, the retoucher is Adrien Hendrickx (from Belgium), so someone who knows what he's talking about.

I'd never heard of him, and I'm still not convinced. Sounds pointless to me.

was it in the original photo as pure white?

I've heard this from a lot of retouchers actually.. though personally I've never noticed a big difference. I think a lot of it may have to do with the particular paper/medium you're printing to and the printer you're using.

Kyle

No, I don't think so. If some minimum dot is required by the printer, it should be built into the ICC printing profile, not applied during retouching.