Digital BW, The Print

> From: Glenn Mitchell [mailto:gmitchel850@...]
>
> If you take an image and do no editing to it, except to convert to 8-
> bits and print or make a Web image, you'll likely notice no
> difference at all.
>
> If you do edit your images, conversion to 8-bits can quickly lead to
> posterization that will be evident even on a low-end monitor and
> with an inexpensive ink jet printer. All you have is 256 values for
> each channel, and you only have to compress/expand some of the
> values on one of the channels to get non-continuous tones that
> generate visible banding. Think of skin tones or flower petals. They
> can quickly show signs of banding that look like splotches.

It really depends upon how noisy the image is to begin with. If you start
with an image from a cheap digicam, then the noise will drown out any
posterization. If you start with an image from a good scanner or a DSLR,
then posterization is possible. I've seen it.

--

Ciao,               Paul D. DeRocco
Paul                mailto:pderocco@...