More on Gamma!
Sep 19th, 2007 by Leo Geis
Check this exceptional Gamma FAQ by Charles Poynton. Please take special note of the very last point concerning .jpg compression and its intent concerning Human Visual Acuity.
Perhaps the most poignant answer for digital photographers: The main purpose of gamma correction in video, desktop graphics, prepress, JPEG, and MPEG is to code intensity into a perceptually-uniform domain, so as to obtain the best perceptual performance from a limited number of bits in each of the R, G, and B (or C, M, Y, and K) components. The “limited number of bits” Charles is referencing? 8!
A tip of the hat to Charles…
L