Digital BW, The Print

Burkhardt,

I have never seen the numbers you mention before. Having seen a 
number of Morley Baer's 8x10 contact prints I certainly am not going 
to argue the beauty of that technique.

In the July/August issue of Photo Techniques a couple of letters 
appeared with responses from Phil Davis and Patrick Gainer of the 
magazine. Some things of interest that were reported was the 
resolving power of silver bromide paper which was measured at 80 
lp/mm using a contact printed test target. The same target used in an 
enlarger at a 1:1 ratio only gave 20 lp/mm.

Mr. Gainer reported that the calculated, theoretical limit of a 
perfect 300mm lens at f64 was 10 lp/mm.

In real world shooting conditions, given the limitations on the 
equipment through out the process, I have to say that achieving 100 
lp/mm, much less 400 lp/mm, on a print seems rather unlikely.

In any case, I think ultimately what is important is "sharpness" and 
not "acutance".

To quote Mr. Davis,

"In my humble opinion, discussion of anything other than sharpness 
are technobabble, because the average photographer has neither the 
necessary equipment, nor the knowledge to use it meaningfully. And, 
of course, arguments about "sharpness" (which depends entirely on 
individual perception or opinion), while valid enough, are more 
likely to irrate than educate."

In all honesty I have not found my inkjet prints to be lacking in 
sharpness in comparison to my silver prints made by enlargement from 
35mm, 6x7 and 4x5 negatives. Trying to make a comparison to my 
contact sheets is difficult due to their sized but I feel that there 
is not a profound difference there either.

Would you expand upon your experiences with the Triton inks. You are 
the first person to mention them on the list.

Martin Wesley

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., Burkhardt Kiegeland 
<burkhardt@e...> wrote:
> Please allow me to jump in this way...
> 
> Those »generally accepted 5lp/mm limit of the human eye« simply is 
a myth.
> These measures were taken more than 100 years in the past testing 
just one
> (!) 
> human eye watching a resting object. They found a resp of about 
9lp/mm this
> way. 
> 
> I do not intend to blame people familiar to look one-eyed at 
artwork -
> please forgive my being a bit ironically- but there actually exists 
the
> option to use one´s both eyes for the same purpose. And there is a
> big difference then. Resolution is very much higher, and it is 
enhanced in
> addition by the constant scanning movements of the eyes 
called »tremor«.
> 
> The astronaut´s eyes are capable of discriminating trucks on the 
highways by
> looking down from the orbit. This is possible only with a resp of 
more than
> 100 lp/mm of their human eyes.
> A traditional photographer easily can discriminate between the 
resolution of
> a paper for enlargements (ca.25lp/mm) and a contact paper like AZO
> (ca.40lp/mm).
> When you have doubts - there is scientific literature available on 
this
> issue.
> 
> Like the human ear the human eye too can be made awaken and 
sharpened or
> sent into sleep. As a teacher in Europe of workshops on both the 
digital and
> the traditional fine print I am well aware about the differences. 
There are
> beautiful prints possible using the inkjet but you can´t compare 
them with a
> contact print from a large format negative on silver - this would 
be like
> comparing apples with pears. There are simply different aestetics 
involved.
> The hype however on going digital in my ears sometimes sounds like 
people
> being happy to become blind.
> 
> My equipment is two Epson Photo 1200 (both with the MIS continouus 
inks
> system) and a Color 3000. The inks are the MIS Quadtones and the 
Triton
> system of the European Ink Company which give results as good as 
the best
> Piezography prints by being much lower in price.
> 
> Thank you for listening
> 
> Burkhardt Kiegeland
> 
> www.lotusviewcamera.at
> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
> 
>         Paul Roarke wrote
> 
> snip...
> At the 360 dpi level there would be no separation of the 14.4lp/mm 
lines at
> all.  (By the way, my standard file resolution is 360 dpi
> because it can readily resolve 7.2 lp/mm, which is more than the
>      generally-accepted 5 lp/mm limit of the human eye.
> 
>   snip... 
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]