Digital BW, The Print

Todd,

nicely done and nice of you to take the time to post it with examples etc. 

Here is the catch, as I see it, though: You won't see the benefits of the 16 bits 
until.... they become obvious!  What I mean is that unless there are areas that 
visibly posterize in an 8bit image as a result of whatever tonal moves are 
done to it, there will be no visible benefit to the 16bit workflow. 

For example, if you chose a smooth, grainless sky whose final gray values go 
from 8% to 12% over a large stretch of a big print, you are likely to see 
posterization if you manipulated in 8bits unless the original scan needed no 
adjustment. Grain, or other texture (such as skin in your example) would mask 
this posterization. In that case you have to resort to 16 bits to avoid as much of 
it as possible, and you may still have to add some noise at the end if all else 
fails.

So, how about an addition to your treatise: While your conclusions so far are 
valid for the subject and size you have chosen, you may add another example 
where a narrow part of a gray ramp is given the 8 vs 16 bit test and show how 
both histos and visual results compare?


Antonis

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., Todd Flashner <tflash@e...> wrote:
 It's by no means meant to be
> exhaustive or conclusive, and I expect it should raise more questions than
> it answers, but it's meant to encourage testing and the sharing of results:
> 
> 
<http://www.ourwebmaster.com/piezography3000/20020106ToddFlashner1.h
tm>