A long time ago I launched a query as to the use of inkjet printers for the non-professional printing of anaglyphs. On the whole the answers were doubtful if an inkjet print was possible, the heavy ghosting being the main obstacle.

In October 2010 the same issue was discussed, with an insightful reply by JR which, however, did not refer to private inkjets but was oriented towards professional or commercial use.

Then in December 2010 Mike Beech asked a similar question again. D.W. Kesner wrote he had gained good experience with an Epson printer and non-glare paper. He added that when you save to jpeg you must set the chroma sub sampling off (1x1x1). Shahrokh spoke for the Gamut test with Photoshop (View ? Gamut Warning) to find out which colours would have to be changed for printing, then re-tune those colours. Shahrokh was for changing the image's RGB colours to CMYK then re-tuning the changed colours in the CMYK mode and finally changing back again to RGB which meant all the colours could be reproduced by inks now ? yet Craig reported that the ghosts were now worse than before. Dariush suggested reducing the cyan value by 50% as the cyan ink was too dark. Shahrokh finally decreed that in his opinion crowded anaglyphic pictures came much better in prints and those anaglyphs with a solid bright background maintained their ghosts in print. In conclusion every opinion that had been proffered was counteracted in some way by objections.

I wonder if some of you are still interested in the issue. In the last few days I did a first test series to find out if there were any solutions to be found. The test took a parallel stereo (# 00) for its base. This image was then converted to various anaglyph variants using SPM. I am stating first that all images are pretty flawless on my monitor. (I know that all monitors are different and most seem to produce more ghost-ridden appearances than mine ? but that doesn't matter for the time being.) Most variants had the common feature of a floating window (setting: 3% throughout). A few images had a fuzzy board.

Though it may be futile, in a sense, as the monitor pictures do not fully resemble the printed ones, I put the 20 images to the photo file (?Test Series JV?), only for a short time so as not to cram the space permanently. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/anaglyphs/photos/album/593688729/pic/list

My evaluation is based on the the width of the ghost stripes and their visibility. It goes without saying that my evaluation is subjective ? as everyone else's would be. The results are somewhat surprising in several respects. First, the choice of a category (Grey ana, Half Colour ana &c) does not make any difference to the quality of the print. Second, the minus (?20) values of Easy Adjustment as a rule are far inferior than the neutral (0) ones, and these again are inferior to positive (+20) values. From quite a number of statements by other people and also from my own experience so far it had seemed that the opposite was true. Third, the images where a fuzzy board was added exactly reverse the result gained with floating windows in that the minus value is better than the neutral and far better than the negative values.

In spite of my findings, I am not quite sure what to make of them. Before I start another test series I would like to know what this panel's opinion is (if there is anyone who is patient enough to read this longish post). Has anyone done similar tests? ? J.V.

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