Digital BW, The Print

On 3/28/02 5:39 AM, "Austin Franklin" <darkroom@...> wrote:

> Hi Kevin,
> 
>> While the heavy weights take a well deserved breather I thought
>> I'd throw in
>> my two cents.
> 
> One minor correction, I promise ;-)
> 
>> <Geek mode on>
>> Dynamic range has a very specific meaning to people involved in signal
>> processing and designers of optical, audio and many other types of
>> equipment.  That definition is just as Austin has stated.  Dynamic Range
>> (DR) = 10log10 (smallest signal/largest signal).
> 
> Er, you mean largest over smallest...
> 
I intended to write (DR) = -10log10 (smallest signal/largest signal) but
omitted the leading negative sign.  I'm going to blame it on the time of
day.
>> Having said that, it seems to me that a perfectly meaningful and
>> unambiguous
>> (in any ordinary sense of those words) conversation can be had between two
>> printers using "dynamic range" and "density range" interchangeably to
>> describe the range of tones produced by an ink/paper/workflow combination.
> 
> OK, I changed my mind, two...  density range does NOT describe any RANGE of
> tones, it describes the two endpoints only...
> 
OK.  I had hoped to communicate that, in my experience, the increased
precision of the definition does not enhance the description of a print.
The increased precision, in my view, is most often lost in the "noise' of
our casual use of language.  Sort of like a 16bit ADC vs an 8bit ADC in a
'system' with a DR of 24.  Sorry, I couldn't resist the analogy ;).

> Regards,
> 
> Austin
> 
> 
> 
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