> ...
> Although silver particle is opague and although modern film has thin emulsion,
> silver negative achieve tone by some suspension of the opague material in
> gelatine. When light pass through the negative, it gets scattered by the
> silver grains and the gelatine mix; thus when it finally comes out, the
> intensity is reduced. Although not 100% correct, you can indeed think of it as
> something like a 100% light shining through the film, but come out with less
> intensity of, say, 50%.
>
> A digital negative does NOT work that way. If you take an area of 50% tone, it
> has 50% clear area and 50% opague area. It does not have any suspension. Thus
> when light shine through this area, 50% of the area pass through all the 100%
> of light, and the remaining 50% area blocks all the light. Thus the intensity
> of light coming through digital negative is not altered at all. It is still
> 100% ...
Dave,
One may be able to simulate the scattering of light by silver grains by using a
paper negative dot matrix and placing a certain thickness of mylar (or similar)
between the paper negative and coating to be exposed. The paper should diffuse
the light hitting the image dots. The space caused by the mylar should provide a
mixing zone for the light to blend.
It is expected that this scenario would produce a lower resolution than Ag film
but a quality much closer to that of Ag film as compared to the dots. It is
suspected that this result may be from the removal of high spatial frequencies
caused by the dot edges.
Jeff