[filmscanners] RE: dpi - formerly PS sharpening

["Laurie Solomon" <laurie@advancenet.net>]

>I think you are being a little unfair on Austin.

Maybe so; but I do not think so.

While I can be and have been as picky as the next person with respect to
language and language use and I also admit to demanding precision in usage
even when I know that everyday use is loose, I believe that, given the
recent history of continual debate over the proper meaning and use of
concepts like "density range" and "dynamic range" which at least had some
substance behind it, it was better to avoid a similar debate over
terminology which had very little meaningful substantive content behind it
and which everyone - even laymen  - understood what was being said and meant
despite the use of different terms.  The intent of my post was to avoid
superficial arguments over terms so that we can get into discussions of the
substantive content itself.  While the terms in question and the loose usage
of these terms may create some confusion especially for novices, I do not
believe that the proper or improper use of the terms will make any
difference if the rest of the world does not follow a given protocal.

DPI, SPI, LPI, and PPI are all terms that conceptualize a mesure intended to
indicate the same thing in general terms (i.e., resolution).  In specific
technical detail, they all respresent measures of resolution with respect to
its manifestation under different circumstances with respect to different
devices; but unless one is willing to include a treatise explaining the
differences in these circumstances and devices and how it relates to the
terms on ecah occasion that one needs to use one of the terms, I fail to see
how insisting on particular usages will leave the novice less confused
practically speaking in the real world or how it will avoid raising as many
questions over the selection of one term over another with respect to the
novice.  Like the everyday use, the technical use of these terms is a social
convention and not a scientific or factual reality of the physical or
natural world that we live and work in.   The variety of designations and
measures of resolution are similar to types of measures of temperatures.
You have Kelvin, Celcius, and Fahrenheit. They are different measures of the
same thing.  One can convert between the measures; and each by convention is
appropriate to a given set of uses and tasks  without precluding either of
the others from being used for the same use or task.  There are no natural
laws that say that one must use ppi for monitors and spi for scanners just
as there are no natural laws that say light temperature has to be measured
in Kelvin while everyday measurements of temperatures must be in Celcius
unless you are in the US where you have to use Fehrenheit.

>If you are going to use dpi for ppi, what are you going to call the real
>printer dpi? It's got to be called something different because it IS
>something different.

I am afraid I cannot take the above statemetns seriously.  There is no
"REAL" printer dpi and the difference is only a trivial difference just as
the difference between Kelvin, Celcius, anf Fehrenheit is or the difference
between meters and yards is.  It reminds me of the argument of an old lady
from Indiana who wrote the newspaper a letter to the editor against daylight
savings time arguing that we should not mess around with God's time.  Please
package up and send me 1 pixel, 1 sample, and 1 dot along with a point; and
while your at it, send along the precise dimensions of that unit of measure.
How large is a point, a dot, a pixel, a sample in order to be a point, a
dot, a pixel, a sample, and not something else?

Finally, I am responding to you in the spirit of friendship and not to put
you down.  I understand what you are saying and often follow a similar
course of action in my remarks to posts on lists; but when I do it is in an
effort to further the discussion of the substantive issues and not to
resolve terminological disputes or divert the discussion to a linguistic one
in itsown right.  In my response to Austin, I was not trying to take him to
task because I disagreed with him but because I felt the converstaion would
be diverted to a superficial issue.
-----Original Message-----
From: filmscanners_owner@halftone.co.uk
[mailto:filmscanners_owner@halftone.co.uk]On Behalf Of bob frost
Sent: Friday, August 16, 2002 2:24 PM
To: laurie@advancenet.net
Subject: [filmscanners] Re: dpi - formerly PS sharpening


Art, Laurie, et al.,

I think you are being a little unfair on Austin. I have read many postings
on different lists where newbies are highly confused between various
recommendations to send images to Epson printers at PS settings of 360 dpi
etc, and the real dpi settings of the printer - 360, 720, 1440, and 2880.
There have been postings of people sending 1440 'dpi' images to their
printer because that is what the paper setting wants.

So it would be much better if all of you used the correct abbreviations; ppi
will never be the same as dpi, however loose your language usage may be. If
you are going to use dpi for ppi, what are you going to call the real
printer dpi? It's got to be called something different because it IS
something different.

Bob Frost.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Arthur Entlich" <artistic-1@shaw.ca>
To: <bob@frost.name>
Sent: Friday, August 16, 2002 3:35 AM
Subject: [filmscanners] Re: dpi - formerly PS sharpening


But Ken, you've missed the whole point of that posting... it is because
this poster's purpose for living is to correct all the minutia(e) that
doesn't conform with his reality.  With that in mind, you'll certainly
now understand the full value of that edification.

Basically worthless to most everyone else's reality...

Be prepared for another posting where he will complain that this posting
"doesn't belong" on this list because it doesn't have any scanner
content and only is a "personal attack" and "cheap shot".  This same
poster, of course, will not admit that his own original posting is just
a "personal attack" and "cheap shot" on another poster, because he hides
his hostility behind the guise of "correcting" certain individuals.



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