The earth resources technology satellite - Photographic facility quality control program

A detailed description is given of the quality control program used in the photographic laboratory of the NASA-ERTS Ground Data Handling System. The product response variables measured include tone reproduction, resolution, and low spatial frequency noise. In addition to product response variables, certain performance parameters of the laboratory printers and processors are frequently measured in order to produce consistent duplications of archival photography. A description is given of the operation and use of a densitometer/computer interface which is used to calculate three tone reproduction response variables - film speed, average gradient, and base plus fog density. This procedure eliminates the need for any hand plotting of D log E curves to manually determine response variables.