Digital BW, The Print

> I never knew there was a
> justification option, and now that I do it's thrown my notion of a raw
> scan's histogram into chaos.

It's still truly raw data either way...it's just how it's represented.

> why a piece of film with a 3.7 DR will span only a
> portion of a
> histogram, even IF highbit justified.

A piece of film with a 3.7 DR SHOULD span (most of) the entire histogram if
high bit justified, and the scanner has a maximum dynamic range of 3.7
(which would really be 3.6, or 12 bits...).