Digital BW, The Print

Kevin writes:

> It also seems to me that the printers resolution is
> dwarfed by every other upstream component and I wonder
> whether you could even tell the difference between a
> good lens and an adequate lens in an inkjet print.

In digital imaging (or in digital anything, if it's a process that must
interface with the real world), the endpoints are always analog, and those
endpoints constrain the performance of the entire system.  With respect to
imaging, the weakest link by far is the printing process.  No matter how
good it is, you'll never get the image quality that you captured with your
film or sensor.  It's nice to have density on your slide of 1000:1 or even
10000:1, but you'll never see that on a print; you'll be lucky to see even a
tenth of that.

I don't see this as an argument against using the best equipment all along
the line, but it does mean that any compromise at all on the printing
process will pretty much negate a large part of your investment everywhere
else.