Digital BW, The Print

On Apr 6, 2009, at 6:31 PM, AlanScharf wrote:

> I argue with my photographer friends that the PRINT is the  
> photograph, not the image seen on a computer. For me the print size  
> is a critical aesthetic consideration. The eye moves (slightly)  
> around a little computer image in an entirely different way that it  
> moves around a real print.
>
> Also, the junk surrounding the computer image, including the monitor  
> itself, pulls the image up to the plane of the monitor screen,  
> destroying the character of the photograph as a window to the beyond.
>
> Do any of you have opinions about prints vs screen images?

For years photographers thought of the chrome (positive transparency,  
on a backlit light table) as the standard; and it was certainly  
unmatchable in any other format at the time, so saying "here is my  
glorious work, it will look lousy when you make photo prints of it, or  
send it to press" was a common photographer's viewpoint. With digital  
the version of an image thought of as "the real thing" has varied. For  
some, its what they see on the little LCD screen on the back of their  
camera, but thats mostly amateurs. For others, its the final print on  
paper, but thats mostly the printmakers. For those in between, its  
what they see on their own monitor, in which case I would suggest they  
get a very good, very large monitor, especially as digital files get  
larger!

At this point in time, most of the people I work with consider the  
highbit adjusted image the "real thing" and the low bit TIFF they  
create from it for customers and print services as the unflexible  
derivative, good enough to print, but not deep enough to do much else  
to. So its getting to be Lightroom, as much as Photoshop, that they  
are viewing "the real thing" in...

Personally, I see it both ways: as a fanatic printmaker, I consider  
the print the final artifact, and unprintable images (ones that just  
will never look as good in print as on screen) to be phantoms similar  
to the chrome-on-a-lightbox. On the other hand, my portfolio is not  
the big black box in the corner, its the images in my Lightroom  
library, and more people see my portfolio these days on an iPhone,  
than in print... so its a slippery slope.

C. David Tobie
Global Product Technology Manager
Digital Imaging & Home Theater
CDTobie@...


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