Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Martin Wesley" 
<mwesley250@e...> wrote:
> Herb,
. . .
> This definition is a pretty good one by the way. But what they show 
in their
> examples is more often thought of as contrast differences rather 
than
> dynamic range differences.
> 
> Martin

Martin -- Doesn't that make you think you might be missing 
something?  I mean, you claim to think the page is offering a pretty 
good definition of dynamic range, and then you claim that the 
pictures they've put there to illustrate precisely that concept "are 
more often thought of" as illustrating something different than the 
precise concept they're purporting to illustrate!!!  If it were me, 
I'd start to wonder about the discrepancy.

I'm sorry, and I guess we'll all have to agree to disagree, but I'm 
confident that Austin's definition of dynamic range is the correct 
one.  Of course, that doesn't mean that in more casual use (and maybe 
sometimes even in less casual use) that dynamic range may not be used 
to refer to density range.  And really, the dispute doesn't matter, 
so long as we're careful to distinguish what we're talking about.  
I.e., we should clarify whether we're talking about the difference 
between darkest dark and lightest light, or about the subtleness of 
transitions between different tones.  That's really all that's 
necessary.

By the way, I don't think the reference to "continuous tone 
documents" has anything to do with analog processes being infinitely 
variable.  A continous tone document can be printed by either analog 
or digital processes.  A continuous tone printer is merely one that 
puts down solid colors, not merely making use of dithering different 
colors to give the impression of a single solid color.  Inkjet 
printers are not truly "continous tone", which means merely that they 
dither other colors to create single solid colors (in their case they 
dither cyan, magenta, and yellow, and black).  But the size of the 
dots in inkjets has gotten so small that for any practical purpose 
they can be considered "continous tone" printers.  Some digital 
printers are truly "continous tone", though, like those that use dye 
sublimation technology.  -- Herb