Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Martin Wesley" <mwesley250@e...> wrote:
> I know exactly what you mean. While the overall adjustments may work 
> okay, local contrasts and brightnesses may not work at all. In the 
> small print some small area is fine and at a larger size it becomes a 
> featureless blob that needs local contrast work.

Right. The hard thing is knowing what to do when it just isn't there. Sometimes the smallest overall shift darker or lighter 
can bring everything alive, and you wouldn't have known untill you see it. So does that mean you try every possible version 
just to see it? Yikes. Or you'll jump through all these hoops, only to look at an earlier version and realise it's gorgeous, but 
you didn't see it. It's hard to know when to stop, or just accept that a given image won't yeild an extraordinarily luminous 
print, the image alone will have to carry it. But as Ken Smith put it beautifully one day, you can't print in a way that lies 
about the image, it's a sin :)

 Mostly it is just 
> the aesthetics. Things simply do not look the same as the print 
> changes size. Works both ways too. An image that looks great as a 
> 16x20 may not come across well at 8x10.

This is true for me. I tend to have a lot of textural eye candy over a high percentage of the print, but the underlying overall 
graphic is not bold, pretty subtle. When I started making larger prints, I got a better grasp of what I was up to, and was 
able to revisit some things that never worked smaller, then start to go WITH it. It constantly amazes me what revelations 
still come about, it never really ends. That's why I still think there is art in the craft part as well.
Jeez, I'm rambling. Better get some work done today.
Tyler