Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Jeff Medkeff 
<medkeff@g...> wrote:
------------------------------------- disclaimer
Please, no one take offense from the title, just playing on the title 
of so many books meant to reduce the problem to non technical terms.
-------------------------------------end disclaimer

How about this: (it really would be easier with some pictures, but 
you'll have to just push forward without the visual assistance)

Dynamic range is a bucket, you can fill it with water, and it's full 
when no more water can be added. Put more water in, and it spills 
over the sides (try it, it's fun).

Now bit depth gets a little strange depending on how you set it up.

You could sample the bucket in single bit mode. Turn the bucket over 
and see if anything comes out. NO--> zero, YES--> one

You could sample the bucket in 8 bit mode. Remove the water with a 
cup and count how many cups the bucket contains.

You could sample it in 10 bit mode. Remove the water with a large 
spoon and count how many of those the bucket holds.

You could sample it in 16 bit mode. Remove the water with a small 
spoon and count how many of those it holds.

You could sample it in 32 bit mode. Remove the water with a dropper 
and count how many drops the bucket contains.

Now here is the catch, and where people are getting thrown:

You could also sample the bucket like you had 2 buckets worth of 
water (but still really only have the one bucket). This makes it look 
like you have 2 buckets, so the sales people can say that you are 
sampling in two buckets worth of water. The bucket size did not 
change, but you left enough room for 2 buckets worth, even though you 
can never achieve that much water. Now if you sample with a cup, you 
have room to get twice the number of cups from the bucket, but of 
course you can't because you still only have the one bucket. So what 
do you do with the extra cups... They come out empty in this case. 
You can either take out empty cups at the beginning, or take out 
empty cups at the end, but you will only ever take out as many full 
cups as the (single) bucket can hold. 

(of course you could fill those empty cups with error correcting cups 
if you want to)