Sil Horwitz (silh@iag.net)
Mon, 11 Jan 1999 23:33:13 -0500
At 10:35 PM 1999/01/11 -0500, FotoDave@aol.com wrote:
>
>But I do understand the reason for confusion. One thing is people tend to
>think that as resolution gets higher and higher and higher to a point that
you
>can't see the dots with naked eye or say with a 8x loupe, you get a
continous-
>tone negative. Well, you don't. You still get a negative with all the dots,
>except that they are so fine that you cannot see them.
There is no silver negative that is true continuous tone. All silver images
are made of particles of silver, with definite size (in fact, one of the
advantages of T-Max lab-made crystals is their uniform size). As you know,
the so-called "grain" in silver negs is just the silver particles, and the
greater the enlargement, the farther apart they are, and the "grainier" the
image. Present computer printers can lay down images at 1440 dpi max, but
the day is coming when the process will yield results that will rival silver.
We now have an embarrasment of riches, and can mix and match! Computer
printer negatives for alternative process or silver "factory" prints can be
excellent now in smaller sizes, but with the difficulty of obtaining and
expense, we may be forced to use computer printer processed negatives. As
the market progresses, the printer designers will find ever better methods
of reducing the appearance of graininess, just as the silver film mfrs have
been doing.
But don't ever even think that silver negs are true "continuous tone." They
always have been made of silver particles of a single color (some shade of
black) and clear gelatine (or in the new Kodak "Select" series, a new
plastic scratch-resistant material).
Sil Horwitz, FPSA
Technical Editor, PSA Journal
silh@iag.net
Visit http://www.psa-photo.org/
Personal page: http://www.iag.net/~silh/
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