Digital BW, The Print

"It comes back to sheer information density, and a 256 shade
gray-scale can never quite reach it"

According to Fred Picker in one of his darkroom videos, a maximum of about 
50 distinct shades of gray can be printed on silver based photographic paper 
in a tradional darkroom. Now Fred wasn't always the most reliable source of 
information and I have no idea how he did the test to make this 
determination (he did say he had tested, he just didn't way how). But 
assuming he's right on this one, if the great darkroom printers could make 
the prints they made with 50 or so shades of gray to work with, what's the 
problem with 256? Or was Fred just wrong (I never cared enough to test his 
claim myself)? Or is digital printing just so different from darkroom that 
it's an apples and oranges comparison?

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steven Karafyllakis" <stevekphoto@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2006 3:23 PM
Subject: [Digital BW] Re: the times, they aren't a-changing-so can we start 
over again?


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]
>





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