interesting how our different backgrounds impacts understanding each other. I was confused by what aaron meant by "digital negative" and was thinking he meant some sort of printing process that would somehow turn an image into a "digital negative." Silly in retrospect and, as many pointed out, it just refers to a raw image file. A "Duh" moment for me. OTOH, Pt and Pd was clear to mean Platinum and Palladium.
And then there are the complexities of L*, various RGB gammas, and hybrid tone curves like sRGB. I find that these tone curve differences and implications are not easily communicated by my attempted clarifications.