Digital BW, The Print

Austin and Peter and others are having a wonderful debate on this subject, 
and I hope they can continue trying to nail it down so even they can agree.

Austin said:

"Yes, that's what I said.  I know how a ND filter works, thanks.  It PRESENTS
(what ever word you want to use) an even spectrum to the CCD, instead of
having colored filters which present basically a band pass in a bell curve
shape to the CCD."

> If something came it peaky blue or green it
> comes out peaky blue or green.

"You don't understand.  The peaky blue/green is the CCD response to that
specific color.  With an ND filter, the CCD response is not peaky to any
colors."

Austin, I understand what you said about the peaky response of the CCD 
distorting the info, but not what you mean by the ND filter presenting an even 
spectrum to the CCD.   Forgive me for not getting this out of a book, but do you 
mean the ND filter presents an undistorted transmission of what comes to it, 
that is it preserves the relative values of the color information but at an 
adjusted luminosity?   That is what I expect with an ND gradient filter when using 
color film.

Although you folks can get really passionate about this,   the debate is very 
useful to those of us trying to get a true handle on what's happening in the 
digital realm as we try to translate what we know from the film/darkroom world 
to the digital,

Thanks to you all,

Angelo Dounoucos, longtime lurker learning a lot.



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