Re: filmscanners: RE: filmscanners: Pixels per inch vs DPI

[SKID Photography <skid@bway.net>]

Rob Geraghty wrote:

> I think that's an important point - we all have different standards.  I
> have a photographic print on my wall at home which everyone I know loves,
> yet it was made from ordinary 100ASA Kodak print film back in about 1982.
>  It's quite grainy!  The point is you would normally view it from halfway
> across the room, not at reading distance.  For me, this is the sort of 
>situation
> where a print with less than 240 ppi would work.

I think it's important to remember that film grain and pixels are not 
interchangeable terms.  One can have a
really grainy image, blown way up and still have a full rich tonal range and 
luminescence, where as the same
cannot be said for a digital output that has too few pixels.

I think that part of it, is that pixels are aligned in a grid and have a 
rectilinear shape, whereas the film
grain is (for lack of a better description) schoastic in arrangement and 
irregular in shape, thereby providing
more tonal information than pixels.

I know that there are those out there that think grain is a dirty word and that 
the presence of it, limits the
possible size or viewing distance of a print.  But go to any museum with a good 
photo collection and you will
see that the masters were easily able to get beyond those artificial 
limitations.  That is not to say that the
grainy images will be the same as an 8x10 contact print. Separate but equal.

Harvey Ferdschneider
partner, SKID Photography, NYC