Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Austin Franklin" <
darkroom@i...> wrote:
> 
> > Simple answer; because you are scanning into a 16bit space and the
> > scanner is not 16bits. That 3.7 worth of information is linearly placed
> > along the 16bit histogram.
> 
> Do you believe it is high bit justified, or just left low bit justified?  In
> other words, does the scanner A/D give you a 12 bit value of 0101 1010 1010.
> Does that end up in the 16 bit space as 0101 1010 1010 0000 OR 0000 0101
> 1010 1010?

What difference does it make? I was answering his question of why the 
raw scan doesn't fill the whole 16bit space. Luckily, we don't have to 
worry about what our images look like written out in binary.

This does raise the question of, if the scanner is only capable of 
capturing 3.7 worth of information, why doesn't it automatically expand 
the range to fill the 16bit space, even in a raw scan.

-mikeH