Digital BW, The Print

Roy,

> Simplicity in concepts is so important that it must be emphasized over
> and over.

Absolutely, but too simple, and the concept can be lost.

> Similarly the human perception of both is also completely
> continuous.

This is the concept you seem to not be understanding.  You can have two
sounds/tones that ARE completely different (as determinable by SOME sensing
device), but YOU perceive them (or some sensory device) exactly the same,
indistinguishable from each other...no matter how hard you try.  That IS the
concept of dynamic range plain and simple.  It is NOT the OVERALL range, but
describes what the PERCEPTIBILITY is within that overall range.  Simple as
that.  It's relative within the range (in the analog case), NOT absolute.
In the digital case, it is absolute.

VERY simple example.  You have one sensory system that can perceive a 1/10th
range difference.  Another that, using the EXACT same range, can perceive a
1/100th range difference.  The one that perceives a 1/100th range difference
has a higher dynamic range.

EVERY sensing device has it's own dynamic range in and of it self.  Film is
a sensing "device".  When you are using a sensing device to sense
"information" from another sensing device, like film and a film scanner.
The dynamic range of the scanner is entirely separate from the dynamic range
of the film.  That also leads to why density range has nothing to do with
dynamic range...as both can "sense" the same density range, let's say, but
their dynamic ranges are entirely different.

Austin