Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Austin Franklin" <darkroom@i...> wrote:
> Roy,
> 
> > So, how can we here is our niche, talk about coming up with a new idea,
> > new concept of what "dynamic range" means?
> 
> No one is coming up with any new concepts...  "We" are merely pointing out
> that the term has been "misapplied" in this "field", and that it attributes
> a different property than, though is loosely related to, density range.

Austin,

I think Todd's "lost in the trees at points and loose sight of the woods"
quote is right on.

> 
> > We a just a part of a large
> > community of imaging that long time ago has defined and has commonly used
> > this term to mean sometime very specific.
> 
> Can you show evidence of this?

I think the Ansel Adams book and the Real World Scanning references were
pretty relevant.  I'm glad to see you have read the scanning book.  You
quoted one sentence that contained "dynamic range describes the actual
limits of how many tones the scanner can really differentiate from light to
dark".  You seem to be associating:  dynamic range <--> how many tones,
when I think the real association is:  dynamic range <--> actual limits.
Reading just this one sentence might be a little ambiguous, but read the whole
paragraph.  Immediate following this sentence is the staircase example:
dynamic range <--> height of staircase,  bit depth <--> number of steps.
Later on he compares a scanner with "enormous dynamic range but only
256 steps" and a scanner with "lots of tiny steps and tiny dynamic range".
There's no way to interpret these two examples to mean dynamic range
is a measure of number of tones or steps!  
Do you wish to claim that this book and the three guys who wrote
it are wrong and misuse and misdefine the term??

If you look at the Adam's book there's a diagram that explicitly shows
"dynamic range".  He's talking about exposure and shows very clearly
dynamic range going from about Zone I to Zone IX saying its the "useful"
range of light values in the scene.  He even mentions how this dynamic
range of light values maps directly into the range of "useful" densities on
the negative.  Would you like to claim he's all wrong, too?

Please consider your position as it relates to these references.  These
are both very explicit references to dynamic range as it relates to imaging.

Regards,
Roy


> 
... monitor stuff snipped

> 
> Austin