Digital BW, The Print

>> As to the argument that you lose tonal values, his response is
>> that theoretically you do but in the real world the result is
>> identical.  I am not an expert so I will not take sides one way
>> or the other.
> 
> The fact that you lose tonal values isn't theoretical, it's just a plain old
> fact...kind of like 1 apple + 1 apple = 2 apples.  It's a simple experiment
> you can try your self ;-)

Dan's was speaking about photographs, which contain a lot of noise from
grain and the like, as opposed to "perfect" computer generated gradients.
(Remember, adding noise is the conventional cure for banding). His point
isn't that tones don't get dropped, it's that in all his years experience he
hasn't seen an instance where that shows up as detrimental in print, and if
someone would show him an instance where it did he'd eat his words and
publish it in one of his books or magazine articles.

He knows histograms, and he knows the math, he knows tones get dropped. He
feels between output screening methods, the limited ability of humans to
differentiate anywhere near 256 tones, the amount of colors that can be
combined from as few as say 50 tones in each channel, etc, add up to
deteriorated 8-bit images that might look *slightly* different than their
16-bit counterparts, but not necessarily worse, and sometimes better.

No one has stepped up to the plate as yet.

Todd