Digital BW, The Print

Brian,

> I, like others, have always been interested in what photoshop can do. I'm an
> engineer and programmer by trade and as a result, I tend to move towards the
> tech side of things. I used to keep my photography "pure" - only 4x5 or 8x10
> work and lots of straight neg printing to keep the scene "pure". The fact is,
> there is little difference between dodging and burning, bleaching and other
> techniques and that which is afforded to us with photoshop. It is funny - I

Thanks for your view... I have been entrenched in Photoshop since 4, wish it
had been sooner... Yes, photoshop offers the traditional techniques with
amazing simplicity and accuracy. I consider "pure" to me anything untouched
in a non-traditional sense. But I guess that would be hard to define because
one can montage without Photoshop.. ;-)
 
> did some commercial work during my highly active period of photography (I had
> a darkroom equipment manufacturing company) and had no problems at all using
> scitex machines to get the images I wanted. I guess that as the tools are
> afforded to us we take advantage of them. I am still not a big fan of
> dramatically altered images but for some reason appreciate Jerry U's work. Go
> figure?!

Commercial work is a different animal indeed, you can be as creative/strange
as you want and you are not as passionately disected.  We *should* take
advantage of the tools afforded us, I just don't understand why there is so
much debate. There are so many visions, so many tools (computer being one of
them)... If someone likes it (if only yourself) then it is worth the
investment, in my opinion.

I enjoyed your earlier post regarding "the beauty of digital imaging in my
mind..." I adore Jerry U's work... on a more illustrative platform (non-B&W
also) I'm very taken with Diane Fenster's work in Photoshop.

Thanks for your time.
Carolyn