Dan Margulis’s recent 16 bit article

Mike Russell wrote:

Dan Margulis has posted a lengthy article on another forum about the history of the 16 bit controversy, and the technical issues behind it. It includes information not discussed here.

Because so many here have expressed irritation at further discussion

Since when did "possibly irritating others" influence anyone’s behaviour on Usenet? 🙂

I’d like to read the article, if only to find out why anyone calls this a "controversy". If you ask me, it’s merely a user education issue.

–Toby

of the
issue, I will make the article available to anyone who requests a copy – mike at curvemeister.com. If I get more than three such requests, I will post the article in its entirety here.
—

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com

"toby" wrote in message

Since when did "possibly irritating others" influence anyone’s behaviour on Usenet? 🙂

LOL – I thought that might raise a few eyebrows.

I’d like to read the article, if only to find out why anyone calls this a "controversy".

I’ll email you a copy shortly.

If you ask me, it’s merely a user education issue.

It’s a little more than that – it’s a frog and mouse battle, rooted in our psychology. Some people are romantics who, entranced by the light of logic, will follow it anywhere. Others make a virtue of necessity, being shackled to specifics of the dreary world around us.
http://members.fortunecity.com/jonhays/fable.htm .
—

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com

Hi Mike,

Please post the article as I am sure that there are more than 3 people who would like to read it.

cheers

nb

"Mike Russell" wrote in message

Dan Margulis has posted a lengthy article on another forum about the

history

of the 16 bit controversy, and the technical issues behind it. It

includes

information not discussed here.

Because so many here have expressed irritation at further discussion of

the

issue, I will make the article available to anyone who requests a copy – mike at curvemeister.com. If I get more than three such requests, I will post the article in its entirety here.
—

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com

"nb" wrote in message news:43680689$0$28421> Hi Mike,

Please post the article as I am sure that there are more than 3 people who would like to read it.

Here’s a link to a web page with the article.
http://mike.russell-home.net/tmp/DanMargulis16Bit/index.htm

I’ll be adding any interesting follow-up articles to this location as time passes.

Mike

Thanks Mike

nb

"Mike Russell" wrote in message

"nb" wrote in message news:43680689$0$28421> Hi Mike,

Please post the article as I am sure that there are more than 3 people

who

would like to read it.

Here’s a link to a web page with the article.
http://mike.russell-home.net/tmp/DanMargulis16Bit/index.htm
I’ll be adding any interesting follow-up articles to this location as time passes.

Mike

Mike Russell wrote:

"toby" wrote in message

Since when did "possibly irritating others" influence anyone’s behaviour on Usenet? 🙂

LOL – I thought that might raise a few eyebrows.

I’d like to read the article, if only to find out why anyone calls this a "controversy".

I’ll email you a copy shortly.

While sounding very authoritative in other respects, Margulis doesn’t even mention the fact that Photoshop’s "16" bit mode is really 15 bits. It can’t round-trip 16 bit data; one bit is lost from every sample. The rationalisations I’ve heard for this would boggle the mind, but by the time it becomes a real problem (i.e., our scanned or photographed images actually have that much precision), Adobe will no doubt have fixed it, and we’ll be arguing over "16 bits or 31 bits?"

If you ask me, it’s merely a user education issue.

It’s a little more than that – it’s a frog and mouse battle, rooted in our psychology. Some people are romantics who, entranced by the light of logic, will follow it anywhere. Others make a virtue of necessity, being shackled to specifics of the dreary world around us.
http://members.fortunecity.com/jonhays/fable.htm .

A bit over my head, but amusing. The typos (OCR?) marred it. This copy seems a bit less damaged: http://cs.wwc.edu/~aabyan/Poetry/fable.html

—

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com

"toby" wrote in message
….

While sounding very authoritative in other respects, Margulis doesn’t even mention the fact that Photoshop’s "16" bit mode is really 15 bits.

You are right of course. But is this really important to the discussion?

The rationalisations I’ve heard for this would boggle the mind,

The memory savings in internal processing can be substantial for certain convolution operations, if you can represent a range of negative intermediate values. … er, yeah, I see what you mean.

but by the
time it becomes a real problem (i.e., our scanned or photographed images actually have that much precision), Adobe will no doubt have fixed it, and we’ll be arguing over "16 bits or 31 bits?"

Not 32 bits? 🙂 I think this will one of the next great achievements, a multichannel camera that captures a massively larger dynamic range, and saves its images directly in floating point, with paper finally left in the dust, and display devices with tremendous dynamic range. —
Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com

Mike Russell wrote:

"toby" wrote in message
…

While sounding very authoritative in other respects, Margulis doesn’t even mention the fact that Photoshop’s "16" bit mode is really 15 bits.

You are right of course. But is this really important to the discussion?

The rationalisations I’ve heard for this would boggle the mind,

The memory savings in internal processing can be substantial for certain convolution operations, if you can represent a range of negative intermediate values. … er, yeah, I see what you mean.

I said "mindboggling", not "convincing". I’ve yet to see a rationale that leaves me convinced, where modern CPUs are concerned. More likely it’s a throwback to limitations of the 68K where Photoshop was born.

but by the
time it becomes a real problem (i.e., our scanned or photographed images actually have that much precision), Adobe will no doubt have fixed it, and we’ll be arguing over "16 bits or 31 bits?"

Not 32 bits? 🙂

Presumably the same compelling technical arguments as above will apply, n’est-ce pas? — Even now that 64-bit CPUs have been rediscovered.

I think this will one of the next great achievements, a
multichannel camera that captures a massively larger dynamic range,

Film is not good enough for you?

and
saves its images directly in floating point,

Continuous tone not good enough either?

with paper finally left in the
dust,

By then, I might be dust myself.

–T
(fan of analogue)

and display devices with tremendous dynamic range.
—
Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com

I’ve moved the Margulis articles to
http://home.pacbell.net/geigy/tmp/DanMargulis16Bit/
—
Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com

Mike,

when the dispute in this forum should be settled:

Can you recommend some cookbooks where the ingredients
for a meal, like meat, potatoe, salt, pepper, chili(!)
are defined rather accurately, e.g. with microgram
resolution (at least 0.1 milligrams), based on the values for one person = one eater ?
The cooking process itself is meaningless. Important is
only the accuracy of the SOURCE mixture.
This will probably guarantee optimal results – a pleasant meal.

Best regards –Gernot Hoffmann

wrote:

Mike,

when the dispute in this forum should be settled:

Can you recommend some cookbooks where the ingredients
for a meal, like meat, potatoe, salt, pepper, chili(!)
are defined rather accurately, e.g. with microgram
resolution (at least 0.1 milligrams), based on the values for one person = one eater ?
The cooking process itself is meaningless. Important is
only the accuracy of the SOURCE mixture.
This will probably guarantee optimal results – a pleasant meal.

Hi Gernot,
I really like what you bring to the table.

–Toby

Best regards –Gernot Hoffmann

From:

when the dispute in this forum should be settled:

Can you recommend some cookbooks where the ingredients
for a meal, like meat, potatoe, salt, pepper, chili(!)
are defined rather accurately, e.g. with microgram
resolution (at least 0.1 milligrams), based on the values for one person = one eater ?
The cooking process itself is meaningless. Important is
only the accuracy of the SOURCE mixture.
This will probably guarantee optimal results – a pleasant meal.

From Toby:

Hi Gernot,
I really like what you bring to the table.

LOL, I agree with Toby that the company during the meal would be more important, Gernot. Or the time of year and location – Octoberfest in Munchen, and precisely 1.000 Liters.
—
Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com

Mike Russell wrote:

From:

when the dispute in this forum should be settled:

Can you recommend some cookbooks where the ingredients
for a meal, like meat, potatoe, salt, pepper, chili(!)
are defined rather accurately, e.g. with microgram
resolution (at least 0.1 milligrams), based on the values for one person = one eater ?
The cooking process itself is meaningless. Important is
only the accuracy of the SOURCE mixture.
This will probably guarantee optimal results – a pleasant meal.

From Toby:

Hi Gernot,
I really like what you bring to the table.

LOL, I agree with Toby that the company during the meal would be more important, Gernot. Or the time of year and location – Octoberfest in Munchen, and precisely 1.000 Liters.

It’s a date!

–T

—
Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com

Mike,

the meeting should be in Rome / Italy:
http://www.fho-emden.de/~hoffmann/hagiasophia.html

42 large format posters and a digitally printed catalogue in German/Italian.
The offset book version is in German/Turkish/English/French.

Sorry – everything with 8 bits per channel.

Best regards –Gernot Hoffmann

"Mike Russell" wrote in
news:2BO9f.8696$:

Because so many here have expressed irritation at further discussion of the issue, I will make the article available to anyone who requests a copy – mike at curvemeister.com. If I get more than three such requests, I will post the article in its entirety here.

Hopefully you have copyright owner Margulis’s permission to do so.

—
Matti Vuori, <http://sivut.koti.soon.fi/mvuori/index-e.htm>

On Sun, 6 Nov 2005 18:00:47 +0000 (UTC), Matti Vuori

Hopefully you have copyright owner Margulis’s permission to do so.

You were thinking hard of something to say
only to see your name in the news group.
And this is all you could think of:-(
Do you intend contributing something worthwhile as well? Hope you don’t think a link to your homepage
with nothing else
than a big photo of yourself
and talks about who & what you are,
are worthwhile:-(

Dave

Mike Russell wrote:

"toby" wrote in message

Since when did "possibly irritating others" influence anyone’s behaviour on Usenet? 🙂

LOL – I thought that might raise a few eyebrows.

I’d like to read the article, if only to find out why anyone calls this a "controversy".

I’ll email you a copy shortly.

If you ask me, it’s merely a user education issue.

It’s a little more than that – it’s a frog and mouse battle, rooted in our psychology. Some people are romantics who, entranced by the light of logic, will follow it anywhere. Others make a virtue of necessity, being shackled to specifics of the dreary world around us.
http://members.fortunecity.com/jonhays/fable.htm .

Since I found the "fable" a little opaque, I’ll insert here Professor Knuth’s characteristically precise gloss on the same events, which I found this evening buried in his 1974 paper, "Structured Programming with go to Statements"
[ http://pplab.snu.ac.kr/courses/adv_pl04/papers/p261-knuth.pd f]:

\\
In 1904, Bertrand Russell published his famous paradox about the set of all sets which aren’t members of themselves. This antinomy shook the foundations of classical mathematical reasoning, since it apparently brought very simple and ordinary deductive methods into question. The ensuing crisis led to the rise of "intuitionist logic", a school of thought championed especially by the Dutch mathematician, L. E. J. Brouwer; intuitionism abandoned all deductions that were based on questionable nonconstructive ideas. For a while it appeared that intuitionist logic would cause a revolution in mathematics. But the new approach angered David Hilbert, who was perhaps the leading mathematician of the time; Hilbert said that "Forbidding a mathematician to make use of the principle of the excluded middle is like forbidding an astronomer his telescope or a boxer the use of his fists." He characterized the intuitionist approach as seeking "to save mathematics by throwing overboard all that is troublesome…. They would chop up and mangle the science. If we would follow such a reform as they suggest, we could run the risk of losing a great part of our most valuable treasures"
//

Putting all these accounts together, one does gain a picture of the angry gods of mathematics less in the manner of Wind In The Willows than epic Tolkien or thunderous Greek or Hindu mythology.

—

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com