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

["Austin Franklin" <darkroom@ix.netcom.com>]

> Austin, you criticise Art, then do it yourself..?  How's about we all try
> to attack the ball, not the man..

Woah, Mark...where did I make a personal attack on Rob?  I DID stick to the
ball...please point it out...I am interested.

> At 11:31 AM 28/10/01 -0500, you wrote:
> >..
> > > I don't think there's any point in my responding to an
> argument like this.
> >
> >That's the point, it isn't an argument!  It's like asking why
> the number 9
> >is larger than the number 4.  It's just the way it is.
>
> No, it's not 'just the way it is'.  There are five incremented integers
> between 4 and 9, and the term 'larger' than is NOT ambiguous.. :-)

But why IS 9 larger than 4?  You didn't explain why.

Saying a dye cloud has more information content than A pixel is NOT
ambiguous at all, it's just a fact...and for the same reason why 9 is "more"
than, say, 1.

> Rob's question of how a dye cloud can contain more information
> than a pixel
> still stands.. Use your engineering skill and draw a picture!
> I'm certainly interested.

I believe I've explained this about as thoroughly as I can, without holding
a class...

> >It's just a fact of
> >simple physics that a pixel does not contain near the same amount of
> >information as a dye cloud.
>
> That's not what was being asked.  You left out 'pixel of the same or
> smaller size'.

I didn't leave anything out...it doesn't matter WHAT size pixel, a pixel is
but a single value of tonality, period.  A pixel does NOT contain the same
amount of information as A dye cloud.  As I said, dye clouds are variable in
shape, and a pixel is only a square (or some fixed shape), and the data in A
pixel (he said "A") does not represent this shape.

> Rob also raised the perfectly valid point of the rapid
> development in the number/size of detectors and the amount of color info
> they can detect.  Are you suggesting that dye clouds are so small, ie
> molecular or atomic :-), that there is no way to create a
> detector that small?

I said that physical limitations prohibit sensors from being as small as dye
clouds.  AS I said, these sensors have to get light to them, and they have
to have wires in and out of them, as well as these wires require some level
of separation due to noise.  I also said that the consumer digital cameras
that have sensors of the same resolution, but the sensor arrays are smaller
in size, and give a worse image, for the noise reason, than say a D-30 with
a larger sensor and same (if not less) resolution.