Digital BW, The Print

David;

> Well linearized output of well optimized images, both at 8 bit, 
have about as 
> many levels as the eye can distinguish. 

This is excatly the assumption I'm questioning; OK, so if you laid 
the steps out in a row, perhaps most people couldn't distinguish 
from one to the next. If you laid out all the tonal steps in an 
average 4x5 or 8x10 neg you certainly couldn't distinguish them, 
they would appear continuous even though theoretically since the 
image is made of dots (silver grain) it isn't really continuous. And 
yet in terms of nuanced subtle gray transitions and tonal richness, 
the difference between an inkjet printed in 256 steps and an 
SG "continuous tone" print from 4x5 neg or bigger, is usually quite 
obvious. It comes back to sheer information density, and a 256 shade 
gray-scale can never quite reach it.


High bit is wonderful to allow for 
> adjustments, be it to capture, process, or output, but once things 
are optimal, 
> it is, for the most part, overkill. So I see high bit more as a 
way to improve 
> problem images or processing or printing than to further improve 
top notch 
> stuff.

I agree with your evaluation in this regard; but one thing I haven't 
gotten clear on yet: does hi-bit equal more shades of gray, or 
simply more control over the existing shades? And if the printer 
driver converts back to 8-bit before printing, how does it help, 
beyond, as you stated, allowing for corrections and more accurate 
mapping of the existing shades?

What I'm suggesting, (wishfull thinking really) is killing the 
sacred cow and setting up a system based on a more continuous gray-
scale of 512 shades. A scanner function that would scan directly to 
B&W in 512 shades. A monochrome digicam sensor that outputs 512 
shades in raw format. Software that supports editing of the files 
without downgrading to 256. And a printer driver that could make use 
of that and deliver at least SOME of the extra info to the paper. 
Remember, I'm looking for headroom, not neccessarily a quantum leap. 


BTW, David, when IS PFP 2.0 going to be released? 

Steven Karafyllakis

 
> C. David Tobie
> Product Technology Manager
> ColorVision Business Unit
> Datacolor Inc.
> CDTobie@...
> www.colorvision.com
> 
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>