The range of signal intensities that may need to be distinguished in an image or spectrum or that can be distinguished by the electronic components. If the signal dynamic range is too great, the need to keep the highest intensities from overloading the digitizer may result in the weaker features being lost in the digitization noise. This can be dealt with by using an analog to digital converter with a larger range of sensitivity or by using techniques to reduce the dynamic range, e.g. suppressing the signal from water in order to detect the signal from less abundant compounds.