Digital BW, The Print

on 3/28/02 1:22 PM, Martin Wesley wrote:

> For my
> work I couldn't live with just 256 shades of gray and would still be
> sloshing around in the dark.

Hmm. Next time you're working a grayscale image on your computer change your
monitor from millions of colors to 256 shades of gray and tell me if your
image looks any worse for wear. And unless you are printing from images will
full histograms, end to end, I'd presume your images to have less than 256
shades of gray. 

I suppose one could create a white to black gradient in Photoshop, and
posterize it into as many steps as they want, print it, and see how many
steps they can distinguish. I'd bet somewhere beyond 100 or so either the
printing system or our perception would begin to break down. However, any
system that can reproduce Tyler's Zees successfully can handle the 100 tones
that comprise it, so we know at least that much IS possible today.

Todd