Digital BW, The Print

At 12:30 AM 2/12/2003 +0000, DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com 
wrote:
>2. The whole notion of
>dots and grain is a different thing digitally than in the darkroom -
>even large format negs start to show grain at relatively small
>enlargements (16x20, for instance) so seeing dots is something they
>will expect and probably not mind. 3. They probably haven't developed
>a sophisticated eye for looking at inkjet prints yet. I say all of
>this just because some of the very very best BW darkroom folks I know
>are some of the very worst digital printmakers, and basically for the
>reasons above. It's a whole different skill, a whole different
>aesthetic, and a whole different sensibility, imho.


I'm a darkroom printer who has been working in image
processing for years.  I was writing inkjet printer drivers
in the 1980's back before most people had even heard
of inkjet technology.   I designed them with selectable
dithering algorithms so you could select the dot pattern
you liked the best  (or disliked the least) .  So I know dots
and I know grain.  And they are not the same.

The grain is where enough photons reflecting off objects
in the original scene hit silver halide grains in the emulsion.
so the grain pattern has an intrinsic relationship with the scene
and the recording medium.  But the dots are just a side effect
of the algorithm used by the printer driver - a different
algorithm makes an ENTIRELY different pattern.  So they
have no intrinsic relationship to the original scene.  Which
I think is why they seem to stand out in an annoying way
that grain doesn't.