Digital BW, The Print

Evening Peeples...

Here are my print comments for the March Exchange. This one had a great
selection of photos. Probably the best one yet!


1.	Tom Jow \ufffd California Coast:   

This is one of my all time print exchange favorites. A beautiful image.
So much better than the color one
on the back!  I would certainly put this print in the Ansel Adams class,
as good as a lot of his prints. Terrific
subject, also. Of course I do have a preference for this type of
photograph. :)

The paper is almost a dead ringer for the Aspen surface, or the Legion
Photo Matte. Who makes the Jet print line? I don't think I've heard of
it, but sure is a nice paper for photographs. Ideal weight and surface.

I can't really think of anything that would improve the picture, I love
what the neutral density filter has allowed you to do, and am going to
order one soon. I've never played around with this filter ( 10 stops or
so).  


2.      Kevin Gulstene \ufffd Dance:  

Excellent photographs, a very nice series, and perfectly printed. Works
great in the 3 print presentation. No improvements that I can think of
needed. The three images just go together perfectly.  Goes great on the
pure white paper.


3.      Daniel Staver \ufffd Cedar Valley:  

A very surreal looking print. Makes you wonder what is going on here. 
You wonder why the sculpture is here, in this place. Nice Stormy Clouds,
a very satisfying, mysterious image. The tree on the right could
possibly be a hair lighter, especially where it meets the sky, for
better separation.  


4.      Tom O'Connell \ufffd Skippy Paw:  

This print has outstanding print quality! I can't believe it's just a
small portion of a larger digital file. I also thought it must be a
direct scan and was wondering if Tom had been torturing poor Skippy by
holding his paw immobile on the scanner bed.  But Tom would never do
that!.  For about 5 seconds when I first saw it, I thought it may be 
close up of a spider.  But there couldn't be that kind of depth of field
unless the spider was huge.
Great Print Tom!  Next time don't resist the temptation to send a couple
snaps of Skippy. 

5.      Mike Kless- Bull Ride #1:  

This is among the best black and white photographic abstractions I have
ever seen. What beautiful tones and composition! Really first rate. A
superb black and white abstraction is not at all easy to achieve. This
would look great at any size!

6.      Jerry Olson - Little White House on the Prairie

I'm too close to the photograph to comment. Modesty prevents it :)


7.      Barry McWayne \ufffd First Frost.   

Very nice print, and I love the way the flower starts out fresh at the
top and decomposes toward the bottom.  Superb black. Really nice looking
print. I didn't know you could get that good of black with MIS FS inks.


8.      Stan Shire \ufffd Tree Roots:  

Excellent Composition, and great subject!  Tones in the print are
beautiful. This is one of the times when just a little tiny adjustment
would have improved the overall composition a lot: Make the horizon,
where the river is in the distance perfectly level. As it stands, the
river seems to lean to the right and down just a little too much.

9.      Roger Sopher \ufffd Acerquia de Loma Larga:  

A very peaceful, serene landscape. Beautiful sky. My only suggestion
would be to get a little more detail in the trees. this could easily be
done by selecting the trees, placing them on their own layer and using
the screen blending mode, and backing off about 70 percent or so. You
don't need a lot more detail, just a little.

10.     Carol Craven \ufffd Fall Sort:  

A very nice Western photograph. Maybe the sky could have been just a
hair darker, especially at the very top. It shouldn't be quite that
light at the top of the print, so it runs into paper white. The cowboy
could also stand just a hair more shadow detail, if  you could get it. 

11.     Tom De Carlo \ufffd Autospkr:  

A VERY interesting image. I'm not sure which I like best, but I think
the one with the cool "Autospkr" is probably a bit more interesting, as
one doesn't see a cool subject against a warmer background very often.
This is one time the split toning look really works well.  That must
have been fun creating a new inkset.  My problems are no longer finding
a nice inkset, they're getting a CIS filled correctly! Excellent print
quality and sharpness.


12.     Andy Biggs \ufffd The Wheel and Window: 

I love this picture ! A Beautiful Print. Superb lighting!

I do prefer the neutral one. There seems to be a very nice black in the
print. Is this straight out of the box, with just the epson inks?  I
agree with Shilesh, the lack of super fine detail in the bricks is
fantastic, but I don't think this is any fault of the camera.  I have a
D60, and if the detail was in the bricks, it would have easily shown. I
don't think there was any fine detail IN the bricks. Anyway, this is a
beautiful effect, no matter how it was done.
 
13.     Tony Terlecki \ufffd Shadows:  

A very nice photograph, with beautiful shadows. I would like to see just
a hair more detail in the two foreground figures, but over all, very
nice picture. A very nice example of good street photography.

14.     Gary Benson \ufffd Gunsight Mountain:  

Great print! Exquisitely sharp. Gary, if this is a print using Epson
Original inks, could you share some more of your settings?  I'm having a
terrible time right now getting a CIS to load with ink, and may have to
temporarily make my black and white prints with color inks.  Very nice
paper, and it goes great with the photograph. Tell us a bit more about
the paper.

15.     Gary Benson \ufffd Commercial Store Front: 

This is a beautiful example of a run down building. Very well done Gary.
Folks, note his verticals are VERTICAL!
The print has a beautiful range of tones and shows the sharpness one can
expect with a 4x5 negative. The picture
could be improved a bit by the addition of a white cat sitting in the
doorway at the right looking directly into the camera lens. :)

Well it could!

16.  Shilesh Jani - Sirens of Kohler

A beautiful landscape, and excellent composition. Although print is very
nice as it is, I wonder how it would look if the leaves on the trees
were lighter, and a little contrastier? Just a thought.  Looks like a
beautiful area to take pictures.


Jerry

Are the images viewable on a website?

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Jerry Olson 
<jerryolson@r...> wrote:
> Evening Peeples...
> 
> Here are my print comments for the March Exchange. This one had a 
great
> selection of photos. Probably the best one yet!

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