Digital BW, The Print

> 
> That is the one I thought you were using when you did your measurements
> (21step)...but that's not a 256 step wedge.  What's the 256 step wedge you
> are referring to?

Well a gradient in 8-bit is just the same as a 256 step wedge.  It not labeled
as such but it does have all 256 levels (some do appear to be doubled) and
far as I can tell there's no dithering between levels.

> 
> BTW, do Rourke's "curves" print "more than 1000 tones" also?  

No real idea, but it is a more difficult question because there are so many
different curves and they were all hand done and were somewhat limited
by the max number of points in a PS curves.

Here is Jon's
> response...of course, it doesn't answer the question...
> 
> "So if it could not and the smoothing was a bit choppy and the transitions
> between tones was coarse and the eye could see all the breaks between the
> overlapping inks and stuff like that - would you then say that PiezoBW looks
> bad and it would need more tones to overcome those bits, and we would be on
> the other side of the sun in a parallel universe doing the exact same thing
> but just not as good and having a different discussion as to why we don't
> use more tones than 256 so that the screening is not apparent, and the
> overlapping inks is not noticeable, and that scaling is improved, and that
> vignettes and blends are not blemished with digital artifacts and....... ;)"
> 
> Sigh.  I don't believe you need 1000 tones to do any of this...that under
> 200 would be perfectly enough.  

Well I suspect that 200 would be just barely enough and would have to be
perfectly placed to be good enough.   Let's say that 100 tones are humanly
discernable.  Seems to me that you need at least one more tone between
each pair.  If two tones are discernable then a gradient from one to the
other will have a posterized noticible transition.  With a tone in between
you can smoothly go from one to the middle and then from the middle to
the other tone.

That's why I'm curious what Rourke's curves
> do...as people say they can see absolutely no difference in the same image
> printed with Rourke's curves and Piezo, except Rourke's curves give a darker
> black if I remember right...  I think you see where I'm going.
> 
> Austin

Roy