Digital BW, The Print

Bob Frost writes:

> The Minolta 5400 and Nikon 5000 scanners claim to
> be 16-bit, and my graphics card (Matrox P750)
> claims to be 10-bit.

Graphics cards are largely digital devices so they can easily be any
number of bits; how good they are at actually generating 65,536
different voltage levels for each color channel on output is a different
matter.  No monitor can reliably display data with that kind of
resolution, anyway.

The same is true for a scanner.  It could be set up to provide 16 bits
of output, but whether those low-order bits are actually useful or not
is debatable.  Still, if a device isn't built to provide them, you're
guaranteed not to get them, whereas if it _is_ built to provide them,
you've at least got a chance of getting them (the hardware design
doesn't limit you, although the build quality might).