EFI Halftone v. Contone Drivers
EFI Halftone v. Contone Drivers
This will be a nontechnical description from the standpoint of someone who uses these drivers rather than designs them; for the former you'll have to consult tech support on the EFI Proofing Forum.
The halftone drivers have direct access to and control over printer functions such as screening, linearization, and light/dark ink ratios and limits. This allows you to build a "media type" from scratch. This comes in handy when working with unusual materials. The control over screening is useful when printing 1-bit TIFFs, which require a super-hard "dot." Halftone drivers can be faster, too. Halftone drivers in some cases can control extra colors, such as red, green, orange, so for printers that have these one can make true multicolor profiles, such as CMYKOG or CMYKRGB.
Contone drivers work with existing device-level drivers and presets, or media types, with names like "Enhanced Matte Paper," which determine ink limits, screening, and linearization and give limited control over resolution and other quality/speed variables--much like the RGB drivers provided free with printers. The color model and profile type for these drivers is generally 4-color (CMYK), regardless how many inks the printer has--extra colors are merged into the CMYK definitions.
Halftone drivers are very hard to write for printers with extra colors, such as the HP Z31/3200 and the Epson 79/9900 series. The 11880 was apparently difficult as well, and EFI declined to release a HT driver for this printer. EFI's contone drivers work extremely well, however.
Please feel free to contact me for further information or assistance.
Mike Strickler
MSP Graphic Services
Certified Implementer and Reseller, EFI Proofing Products
707.664.1628