Digital BW, The Print

Hi Jerry,

> > > I use it (PS) for every image I print. You surely don't think you can
get
> > > such nice images right out of a camera, do you?
> >
> > Er, I do.
>
> Not possible Austin. In your entire lifetime, you would never come upon
> a perfect, flawless landscape that couldn't be improved, however
> slightly by a tweak in photoshop.

No, I haven't, but I don't shoot landscapes...and I'm sure my belief in what
makes a perfect picture is different than yours...

> There are many little tiny things that would result in an improvement in
> a lot of his prints, if he had only have had photoshop. In some cases,
> it would have amounted to nothing more than adding a little more sky
> than he had captured on film.

That to me makes the image disingenuous...not reality.  I know it's a fine
line, and there is a lot of debate on this exact issue, and I'd prefer not
to get into it, but I'm a purist, and I simply don't do things like that.
And...I'm not condemning people who do in any way, shape or form.

> Or retouching some of his best images
> that were damaged by the fire that damaged a lot of his negatives.

Yes, that is a PERFECTLY valid use for PS image manipulation, IMO.

> > > I do burning and dodging
> > > techniques that simply cannot be done in a darkroom.
> >
> > I never burn or dodge at all these days, and haven't had to for
> years.  The
> > only time I did that in the darkroom was when I made a mistake
> in exposure
> > or development.
>
> Austin, then I would have to question the quality of your prints.

Have you ever seen any?  No one has ever questioned the quality of my
prints...and I've been doing commercial photography for near 20 years...as
well as commissioned fine art work.

> Every
> print I've ever made in my life required burning and dodging.

REQUIRED???  I can't imagine that.

> And there
> is no mistakes made. If you know exactly what you want your print to
> look like, dodging, burning, curves, levels are everyday standard fare.
> No print should leave you home without some.

Curves and levels, absolutely.

> Same with Weston, Adams, etc. It simply not possible for you to have a
> PERFECT print every time without darkroom tweaking, or photoshop
> tweaking.  To prove it, send me a file and a print that you think is
> perfect, one you think could not be improved upon no matter what. One
> that is a straight print, that you have made no adjustments to. I'll
> make a minor adjustment or two, which will improve it. Maybe a lot,
> maybe just a little bit. But there will be an improvement.

How do you gauge "improvement"?????

> > > Also color
> > > corrections, and of course the touch up and addition and removal of
> > > little things, like twigs, leaves, etc., that simply don't belong in a
> > > nice landscape.
> >
> > That I understand for your use, I simply don't need it.
>
> Then you are not shooting fine art landscapes.

Well, no...I would not call what I shoot "fine art landscapes"...

> What kind of photos do
> you shoot?

http://www.darkroom.com/Images/LABOWL02w.jpg
http://www.darkroom.com/Images/JS01aw.jpg
http://www.darkroom.com/Images/Mv03bw.jpg

Realize these are web images, and what YOU see on your monitor is not
necessarily what the final print looks like...this is simply illustrative of
the types of images I shoot in B&W.

> > > > > Why else would programs like photoshop be so popular
> > > > > if they couldn't do better than film?
> > > >
> > > > Actually, I use PS simply for dust spotting very infrequently,
> > > but mostly
> > > > for simply printing to the Piezo plug-in, that's it.  Nothing else.
>
> Then I'd have to say, even sight unseen that your prints can
> stand improvement.

Not to me...or to the people who buy them.  Jerry, you're not the be all and
end all of what, to me (or any one else), is a perfect print.  That's up to
ME, not you.  I present my work as I want it presented...period.

> > > > Also, I don't sharpen...I have no need to, as I've said...
> > >
> > > So no sharpening program can make any of your images any sharper.  I
> > > just don't buy it.
> >
> > I didn't say that, sure you can make them "sharper", but to
> what good?  You
> > lose tonality,
>
> Not if you apply just the right amount of sharpening....
>
> and then the image is degraded.
>
> Wrong. That means 99 percent of all photoshop users degrade their images
> when they sharpen them. This is patently absurd.

Yeah, but that's not what I said.  I said "I DO NOT NEED TO SHARPEN, AND IF
I DID IT WOULD DEGRADE THE IMAGE", specifically referring to B&W images
scanned on my Leaf.  For color, that's a different story...for another
scanner that does NOT scan B&W in RGB, that's a different story.

>  I believe you are really
> > overplaying the "sharp" issue.
>
> I love sharpness, along with all the other things that make a good
> photo.

A good photo to YOU...  Keep that in mind.

> I have a 20X stereo microscope. I know exactly how sharp a piece
> of film is.

Well, I have a 90x ;-)

> >
> > Also, are you talking B&W (after all, this IS a B&W list, now
> isn't it ;-)?
>
> As of a couple years ago, I have been shooting everything in color, and
> converting in channel mixer in photoshop.

Well, then YOU DO need to sharpen because of that.  It's simply a property
of CCD imaging sensors and Red and Blue channels.

> This goes for Digital as well.

You really don't have a choice there...the camera you have does NOT take the
image in B&W anyway, it ONLY takes it in RGBG...

> You can get MUCH better tones that way than simply desaturating the
> color image.

Er, huh?

Regards,

Austin

P.S.  I can taste those burgers all ready ;-)