Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Pieris
Berreitter" <pieris@y...> wrote:
> I can't speak to that directly because I
> don't have a darkroom to compare to. But in the digital realm we only
> have 255 grays to work with, so one or two values being rendered with
> identical density has a far greater effect than two values being
> rendered the same on paper (because there are more values available).
> 

I appreciate the response, but it seems lacking. 

1) When a digital person has no darkroom experience, it's hard for
that person to make appropriate darkroom comparisons. 

2) Although B&W darkroom prints may have infinite grays (they're
analog until quantified), few traditional photographers (such as Ansel
Adams or Minor White) consider/ed B&W to have more than 10-12 grays in
practice. 

We can visually quantify 10-12 grays, not many more. That digital
technology can quantify 255 tones does not hint that it's relevant
visually. A shift of a few of 255 densitometric values of digital
density (ie perhaps 1-2%) are not seen, just as they would not be in
traditional darkroom practice. 

I'm perfectly happy to learn more about this technology, but my
impression is that digital techniques are making us less sophisticated
visually, just as we've become less capable of writing clearly (see
most websites).