Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/03/25
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On 3/25/02 dorysrus@mindspring.com wrote:
>Austin, please explain. It was my understanding that "ink jet" prints did
>not have as high a d-max as wet. Assuming paper base white is the same then
>the digital output should be less than wet.
no! no! no! no!
hop over to digitalbwtheprint on yahoo groups RIGHT NOW
don't go there, Austin!
trying to short circuit a long and heated discussion accurately and fairly:
Austin makes an interesting and possibly useful distinction between the
Dmax of a printing system and its dynamic range. Without arguing the
validity or otherwise of this POV, it is possible for a system to have a
higher range but a lower dynamic range. Dynamic range takes into account
the noise floor of the system.
An example of this would be a very loud but very poor PA address system
which is extremely noisy. Although its top volume ('range') measured in
db might be much higher than a small but very accurate domestic high fi,
its 'dynamic range' (which takes into account the noise produced by the
system) would be considerably lower.
This reflects our common-sense expectation that you would hear the music
better on the hi fi than on the PA. Louder isn't necessarily better.
The difference between wet printing and inkjet printing is much more
subtle but it has to do with the ability of the system to accurately
represent tonalities throughout the entire range of the image. Because
inkjet prints can potentially hold more detail in the shadows and
highlights than a wet print, it is arguable that they have a higher
dynamic range.
(However if you are really going to get into information theory IMO you
have to take into account the detail the system is capable of
representing, where wet printing still has the edge, plus as you say in Dmax).
Bringing this discussion back to reality there was a *very* interesting
post on the DigitalBW forum recently from someone who had been to inspect
some Weston prints to compare them to quad inkjet prints. He came back
with some very interesting observations: namely that once behind glass it
was almost impossible to tell what the medium was; that the brilliance of
the highlights relied on heavy bleaching; and that the only real visual
advantage of the wet prints was seen in contact prints of 8x10 negatives
where they could represent much higher frequency detail than any current
inkjet system.
Personally I sometimes think that we have a mental ideal of wet prints
with which we compare our mental idea of inkjet prints. It is sometimes a
bit of a shock to see some physical examples. For example, a few months
ago I went round to a friend's house where there were some John Sexton
large format prints. I was astonished to realise that the print quality
he had achieved was well within the capability of my piezo system. They
were great prints but, aesthetics aside, I could have made them on my 1160.
People occasionally bring up the idea of a print exchange. I think
something that might genuinely be useful would be a inkjet/wet print
exchange. Might as well throw in a digicam v. film camera comparison as well.
- --
John Brownlow
http://www.pinkheadedbug.com
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