Harvey, Just to clarify, my original comments about the randomization of the pixel edges, etc. was in response to your comment below. I was not implying that current pixel resolution could achieve photographic grain randomness or resolution at current.
However, I would agree with Rob that should the resolution of digital scans become high enough, the issue would become moot. Grain is just another "dot" pattern of random size and placement. Seems a bit of "fuzzy logic" could replicate it should that be desirable, once the resolution is high enough. We humans seem to like analogue qualities in our visual info, sound, etc. Probably because our own cell structure (and that of most living things) is pretty chaotic, and our retinas are certainly not rigid arrays. Film mimics this quality, so we prefer the results. As I said earlier, the placement and relative size of the grain which creates the dye clouds within the film emulsion is predetermined during the manufacturing process. It isn't like they move around after the picture is taken to produce the image, so they could just as easily be detrimentally located as augmenting to the image quality. It's just that they are so small and there are so many that they allow for more precise positioning than do pixels currently. If pixels were small enough, and closely enough spaced, I don't think the issue of their array position would be very important, if there delineation's became fully invisible to the naked eye. Art QUOTED: >> 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. >> SKID Photography 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. > > Harvey Ferdschneider > partner, SKID Photography, NYC > > > . > >
