[split] Jorge's Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings

[Jorge_Stolfi]

It's absolutely improbable that another scribe would be able to get a better result consistently on 200+ pages. To me this is a ground truth, challenging it requires extraordinary evidence, no amount of ink density variation would do.

I see now the problem.  Or actually the two problems.

First, since you a prori absolutely refuse to believe that "perfect" retracing -- that completely covers the original trace -- is impossible, you will dismiss any evidence that I could present of that, and choose some other explanation, no matter how unlikely. You will say that the thousand examples like these below
   
   
where the simplest explanation is a perfect retracing, are due to finicky quill and ink whose color and weight can change abruptly mid-stroke. Over 200+ pages, without the Scribe doing anything to fix the problem.

But then of course you will never admit the MRT, since it does imply 200+ pages of mostly perfect retracing.  By a scribe or scribes who would have been recruited specifically to do that.

But it seems to be worse than that: you also a prori absolutely believe that all the text and outline ink in the VMS was put down by the original Scribe. Thus you will say that the hundreds of examples of double tracing, like the infamous daiin of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and these below
   
and the black-ink anatomical details and the robot tentakulus tentacle on the Zodiac nymphs are all cases of the Scribe going back over his own work and sloppily retracing or adding details, himself.  Even when this supposed back-tracing creates weirdos by just adding new ink, not retracing, like these two examples:
   

Well, I must challenge your assumption that perfect retracing is hard.  There are many cases where an isolated  glyph or two are in darker ink, amidst a sea of normal ink.  Like this
   
Surely you can see thousands of similar and better examples.   Your theory is that those are all cases where the Scribe went back on his work and retraced those isolated glyphs, with reloaded pen.  Right?

But don't those cases prove that perfect retracing is in fact possible and easy?  Even for a scribe as sloppy as the original one?

All the best, --stolfi