At 00:50 10/24/02, Matt Crawley wrote:
Hi John.
I got back into photography about 1 year ago and when I got my negs
developed I found that nearly all "miniprints" or "machineprints" are being
made on machines that scan the negs and use some sort of laser or projected
image to transfer the image to the photo paper.
I don't know any brand names for these machines except for the Fuji Frontier
that I saw the other day when I was touring a local pro lab.
- Matt Crawley
Matt,
Not a rant with you, but more information about PerfectTouch . . .
The image manipulation performed by it goes far beyond the Fuji Frontier
machine you mentioned. Several issues with their digital prints (all three
pairs I was handed as samples):
(a) Very noticeable "Graininess" or perhaps more appropriately, pixelation.
(b) Unquestionable and very obvious loss of color gradation in areas
with gradual change in hue.
(c) Symptoms of "over-sharpening" (these first three could easily be
related).
(d) Last, and definitely not least, the electronic dodging/burning,
contrast increase, and saturation punch-up to the detriment of skin
tones.
If the first three weren't bad enough, the last one I consider the most
serious problem of all.
It irks me that Kodak is so arrogant to presume they have all-knowing
wisdom about what a photograph should look like. There are numerous
photographs in my archives their machine would utterly botch by making
various important aspects of them 180 degrees out from what I intended,
what I shot and what's on the film.
I don't want anyone or anything second guessing what it ought to be
instead. It's one of the reasons I use chromes for as much as
possible. Color negative is reserved for portraiture and other uses that
demand small prints, or may involve numerous reprints (weddings,
receptions, etc.). In the past, non-critical color negative was sent to
Qualex for developing printing of 4x6's to be used as proofs. Proofs
should represent what's on the film, without anything beyond basic
adjustment for color balancing and proper print density. Otherwise they're
useless as proofs. That's the primary reason none of my C-41 will go to
Qualex any more.
-- John
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