Digital BW, The Print

Mark Hahn wrote:

>personally, I think they are all expensive pointless tools... 
>

For a hobbyist, perhaps...

But for a pro time IS money..

I can do variations much more quickly (and easily repeatably) via the 
plug ins than farting around with the channel mixer or actions..

>but I 
>do have a good friend who likes buying things like this just to hold 
>his hand till he actually learns how to do something... 
>

Here we go with implied insults of those who use plugins or filters 
instead of using the basic tools built into PhotoShop instead...  That 
kind of implied PhotoShop (or any software) elitism or 
inferring/implying that others are too LAZY to take the time to learn 
technique X or Y irks the heck out of me... It's really not much 
different from those who eschew digital b/c with the right tools, 
darkroom, technique, and time you can do many of the same things without 
going digital...

That issue aside:

1)     Sometimes you also need to replicate the toe or spectral 
sensitivity of specific films..  I suppose that the time spent creating 
the actions one would need makes sense if you have forever to play 
around with PhotoShop and your time is near worthless.. Did I forget to 
mention that you'd need numbers  on the spectral responses and the data 
for colored gels (Wratten) pass through as well?  OR you'd need specific 
example images and a book of shots done with different gels - that's 
certainly manageable... NOT Of course, you'd still have to sit there 
comparing on-screen to your sample book until you turn blue..

2)    But for those of us who do this for something other than JUST fun; 
for those individuals it's ACTUALLY cheaper to buy a plugin or filter 
that saves us EVEN one hour of work...

Figure it out, with a pro photog's time going for $150/hour minimum in 
any good market, and a PhotoShop/Graphics person's time going for nearly 
the same, if I save ONE hour total, I've paid for the filter...

Even if you make $25 an hour... You pay for the filter if you save 6 
hours of fiddling over the life of the filter..  Don't process a lot of 
images, have lots of time, is your time not worth much, and not faced 
with deadlines often.. Then many filters and plugins are generally a 
waste... YES, you can accomplish many of the same filters without  
special plugins or without even Fred Miranda's actions (even you imply 
those might be worth the $$, so where's the break-even point?)..  But 
for many, the time saved is worth buying the tool someone else already 
created...  I don't need to re-invent the car everytime I want to drive 
to granny's house... Nor does everyone want or need to understand how 
their VCR works, they are content simply popping a tape in and getting 
it to do what they want..


 
Keith Krebs

"Just some guy," and caretaker of the Multiverse's largest EPSON printer 
User Community (highly recommended by Vogon Poets and MegaDodo 
Publications), at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EPSON_Printers/
 
"For the rest of you out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together 
guys"