Digital BW, The Print

What I love about creative processes is that everyone has the opportunity to
approach them in their own way. What may be an ideal work flow for one
artist may set another on a road to disaster.

A work flow that utilizes HDR at its beginning stage can be incredibly
useful in allowing the following steps to take on a life that may have been
impossible by any other means. Those of us who have enjoyed applying the
Ansel Adams zone system and have painfully processed negatives aimed at
producing calculated dynamic ranges that we felt would permit us to have the
building blocks we were envisioning for our final images - were grateful to
the Adams for making us understand the technical limitations of both film
and paper in the creation of fine art photographs.

 The range of available light and how you intend to express it in a final
image is still the ultimate bottleneck we all have to deal with. Rather than
dwell on the sloppily applied HDR that looks like an obvious special effect,
look at the dynamic range you can capture when you properly capture scenes
with HDR techniques. Done right it provides you with an unparalleled bounty
of raw material to work with. Where this all goes wrong is when folks who
don't real understand what to do next in fact do an automated process as the
next step. Doing it right takes at least two things. First you need to know
the many different paths you can take with this wide-dynamic range material.
Two you need to work your butt off to become good at applying these
techniques.

So what is new - hard work and understanding have and always will be what
sets apart the success you have regardless of the techniques you chose.

There isn't a single technique that is used in traditional approaches that
can not be used in one that incorporates HDR.

Sorry but just because some folks misuse HDR - and it is so obvious they do
- that is no excuse to not investigate its merits in the hands of someone
who has taken the time to become good with it. If you move out of your
comfort zone and truly put an effort into it, you may be pleasantly
surprised with your results.

Happy Holidays To All

Bill


On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 10:08 AM, C D Tobie <CDTobie@...> wrote:

>
>
>
> On Dec 21, 2009, at 9:08 PM, pr_roark wrote:
>
> > With B&W I've always tended to increase contrast and do quite a bit
> > of dodging and burning. I think this is contrary to the usual color
> > printing style and may make a difference in whether the automated
> > HDR approaches are useful to us.
>
> We see in color, so color processing tends to be about making things
> like "right" or "realistic"... we don't see in B&W so we have the
> luxury of optimizing B&W files for artistic impact. Without the colors
> to carry the contrast role, that usually means increasing B&W global
> contrast, then localized contrast within the image, plus opening
> shadows (which we clogged with the contrast bump) and other related
> functions such as noise reduction.
>
> Much of this is done with a digital paint brush, and makes us feel a
> bit more like artists. Replacing that handwork with HDR, which can
> produce a more automatic result that offers somewhat similar increases
> in local contrast with low noise, makes some photographers feel like
> they are losing the hand produced effect, and their personal skills
> are being replaced by automation. Not to mention that much (I'm
> tempted to say most) HDR work is overdone to a degree where it
> resembles nothing but overdone HDR work. You end up seeing, so to
> speak, the makeup on the girl, not the girl the makeup was supposed to
> enhance.
>
> HDR restricts other forms of creativity as well, by demanding multiple
> originals, thus a tripod, and a frozen subject matter; reminiscent of
> the old masters of landscape (which can be a good thing, or a bad
> thing, depending on what you do with it). HDR-like filters and tools
> are bringing that carbon-singed, soot-edged HDR look to single,
> handheld images as well, these days, for those who long for that
> effect in their less deliberate images.
>
> C. David Tobie
> Global Product Technology Manager
> Digital Imaging & Home Theater
> CDTobie@... <CDTobie%40datacolor.com>
>
> ----------
>
> Datacolor
> www.datacolor.com/Spyder3
>
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>
>  
>


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