Digital BW, The Print

But, photographic papers had a MUCH lower range of reproducible tones than
digital/inkjet are capable of creating.  

Even in color, the negative and scanner is capable of a much higher dynamic
range than a type C print can produce.

Seth

==-----Original Message-----
==From: B. Ellis [mailto:bellis60@...] 

==
==I don't think so. I've kind of wondered about the concern 
==shown in so many messages posted here with dmax or the lack 
==thereof.  In traditional photographic printing dmax is mostly 
==a theoretical concept in the sense that real prints don't 
==need to exhibit true dmax in the darkest areas and doing 
==tends to result in there being no separation of tones within 
==the important shadow areas of the print. Even the ANSI 
==standard for stating the exposure range of papers doesn't use 
==dmax as the starting point, it uses 90% of dmax.
==
---snip--
==
==The difference between the densities of 1.7 and 2.2 mentioned 
==in the message below is a difference of a little over one and 
==a half stops or approximately the difference between zone 1 
==and high zone 2 in zone system terms. I think it's pretty 
==well agreed that at least in traditional darkroom printing 
==there's no practical difference between Zones I and II (a 
==difference can be seen but only when the two zones are placed 
==next to each other so that the darker tone is available for 
==reference).  If the same is true with ink jet prints perhaps 
==that's one of the reasons why the two prints in question 
==looked alike despite the different measurements for dmax with 
==the two types of paper.