Digital BW, The Print

The other week I rented a 4x5 camera to satisfy a long interest in trying
large format.  I was startled by quality of the prints that resulted.  They
seemed to be much "richer" (can't think of a more descriptive word), and
portrayed fine details as well as subtle tonal transitions much better than
I was able to with 35mm or medium format.  Over the past two and half years
I've worked with different scanners, different film, lots of scanning
techniques, and even more Photoshop techniques, but this simple change
eclipsed all the others in terms of contribution to my perception of the
quality of the print.

Obviously some cameras are best suited to some tasks.  In this little
experiment it was a simply lit still life and I was judging quality
primarily in terms of that 'richness', and the subtly of tonal transitions
(scrupulously avoiding DyR and DnR <g>).

That led me wonder what other people felt contributed most to improving the
quality of their images over their digital learning curve?


Kevin Gulstene