Digital BW, The Print

Clayton:

> What has been really interesting for me is that the same the qualities
> of the films that we like for enlarger printing make it through the
> digital process....
> The one time I asked someone I got back a quick thoughtless answer to
> the effect of "not to worry, with Photoshop you can make your pics
> look like anything you want".  Well, I suspect there is more to it 
> than that.

I've been thinking about this as well, in particular with respect to 
simplifying life by using scans of color slide film both for color and 
black and white, as many people do. A year or so ago, I scanned 
virtually the same scene shot of Ektachrome 100S and on Delta 100 
developed in Rodinal, and made black and white prints from scans 
(FlexTight Precision II) of both scenes. I liked the Delta 100 print 
much better because of its grain (compared to the the Ektachrome) and 
the overall look that I cannot define. These differences couldn't be 
made up in Photoshop.

The trouble is that when we see reports of how digital shooting has 
better results than scanning 35mm or even MF, we have no idea how good 
photographers are the people making the judgments and what their work 
looks like. (It's like the reports on Luminous Landscape first on the 
1270 and then on the 1280 stating that they print "neutral b&w straight 
out of the box: the clearly the guy writing this stuff doesn't have a 
good eye for b&w photos.)

--Mitch/Paris