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

["Rob Geraghty" <harper@wordweb.com>]

"SKID Photography" <skid@bway.net> wrote:
> While I agree that the pixels will be 'smoother' because of the inkjet
> dither pattern, film grain still contains/imparts more information (on a
> one to one basis) than a pixel, not matter how it is dithered by the
> printer.

Why?  So far I've heard this claimed a number of times, but I've still
heard nothing which backs it up.  I'm prepared to be convinced, but
you haven't explained the facts behind the statement you make above.

Are we talking about any theoretical pixel, or the average 24 bit pixel?
If we're just talking 24bits per pixel, and 2700 or 4000dpi then
absolutely the film contains more information. QED.

But if the area represented by the pixel is similar to the area of the
smallest dye cloud in the film, and the pixel has enough bits to
represent colour, I can't see any reason why the film would
contain any more useful information than the digital representation,
or the why the digital image would be inherently "worse". :-7

Everyone has been telling me that we will all inevitably end up using
filmless systems.  What changed?  I know a digital image is only a
representation of an analogue event of light, but an image on film
is much the same - a representation with limits.  Eventually, the
digital image will become as good or better than the film image
according to market demands.

I suspect this discussion is not really relevent to film scanning any more,
other than to say that film scanning is a stopgap between film with
chemical production of prints and digital imaging.  Eventually it will
become redundant except for scanning historical material.  But we
all know that, don't we? :-7

Rob