Digital BW, The Print

Hi Tim,

> > > Fist, photography always has and always will be about
> artificiality and
> > > manipulation (it's two dimensional for goodness sake - how real and
> > > true is that...?).
> >
> > I certainly disagree with that.  A LOT of photography is about accurate
> > reproduction of a scene.
> >
>
> That's close to the old "Photographs never lie" myth Austin - almost every
> photograph does, and is an unreal representation of what it tries to
> present.

You missed the point.  It's a fact that a LOT of photography is about
accurate reproduction of a scene.  What you took a picture of, is what you
took a picture of, plain and simple, in and of the image it self.  What it
represents is something possibly different, but it's at least accurate to
what the eye saw.  We're not talking about crime scene photography here,
which is not related, in my opinion, to this discussion.

> > > Secondly - it takes just as much skill, expertise and
> experience to use
> > > Photoshop well as a photographic tool as it does be an excellent
> > > darkroom technician. Differnet skills, but just as rare in both cases.
> >
> > Absolutely BS.  How many did USM in the darkroom?  How many of
> > you even know
> > that USM is a chemical darkroom technique, and know how it's
> > actually done?
> > Not many, I assure you.
>
> I did, for one, and plenty of it...
>
> And I think you missed the point - I said it is as much a skill to master
> Photoshop as it is to become a good darkroom technician - I said nothing
> about how easy or hard it was to do things in PS as compared to the
> darkroom.

I think you missed the point.  The skill level to do USM (or much of
anything) with PS is FAR less than to do it in the darkroom.  That's a fact.

> Some things still work better and are easier in the darkroom,
> others in PS.

Name something that's easier in the darkroom...aside from getting a drink of
water, as most chemical darkrooms have sinks, and most digital ones don't.

> > I think the ease of using PS is FAR FAR FAR greater than doing the same
> > thing in the darkroom.  It takes FAR less skill to do most
> anything in PS
> > than in the darkroom.  That has no bearing on the ability to get
> > the result
> > you want, mind you...but the technical skill to do USM in the
> darkroom is
> > far greater than that required to do it in PS.  Does it matter?
>  Probably
> > not in reality.
>
> A really skilled user of Photoshop is still as rare as a really skilled
> darkroom craftsperson - most people's Photoshop work is pretty
> clumsy - but
> then so is most darkroom work.

How do you know?  Most everyone uses USM now, and most everyone didn't when
doing chemical prints.  People don't even know what to call "manipulation"
and what not to.  Setpoints and tonal curves are not manipulations, they are
simply calibration in my book...that is if done to "match" the image.  Dust
spotting is hardly manipulation, nor is cropping really.

Austin