Digital BW, The Print

Maris,

> Austin,
>
> The crux of the debate is do the tonal issues that you lose
> appear visibly in the finished product - the print or the web?

Yes, absolutely.

> Using your analogy, can you tell the difference between a tray
> holding 5000 apples and a shallower tray holding 2500 apples just
> by looking at the tray?

I don't see how that follows my analogy...nor do I understand the analogy.
Perhaps you could explain.

> Will the colors and tones appear
> different to the viewer, or can you only determine the difference
> scientifically - by counting them?

I don't know, but I'm talking B&W only.  I have no idea whether it matters
with color or not, since 8 bit color is really 24 bits, not 8 bits...and it
makes sense that it would not matter as much with color as it does with B&W
because color has 3x as many bits to play with.  Even if you end up moving 8
bits to 5 bits, you still get 15 bits total, or 32k colors, so I doubt it
matters much.

But...as I said, this IS a B&W list, and we are strictly talking B&W images.
With B&W, it is FAR more significant (16 bit vs 8 bit tonal moves) by at
least two orders of magnitude!

Regards,

Austin