I know what you mean, Doug;
I first noticed this happening about 8 years ago, when the little "Kodak
Photo Kiosks" in some photography stores (which one could feed a negative into,
and print actual 8X10 negatives from) started disappearing... to be replaced by
dye sublimation printers, if at all.
It was a noticeable drop in image clarity and resolution; but it was more
convenient for retailers to operate kiosks based upon the newer technology: so,
this 'newer' was promoted as 'better' for consumers even though it wasn't an
advance in image clarity - it was just more convenient for retailers.
I am new to this list but, I am going to go way out on a limb and say what
I've been thinking for years: the primary factor weighing in favor of digital
photography is its convenience, and this has outweighed all other
considerations. This isn't just a general consumer preference, but a trend
started by busy professionals who are seeing their images printed through 85
lpi screens on a daily basis anyway - and who very much like not having to
develop/dry/scan negatives to get a working digital image.
I was a member of a Yahoo "Digital Darkroom" group for a while, but quit
because it was becoming apparent that one of the main posters was an Epson
shill who was there to impress digital newbies with his skill - and recommend
Epson products with every second breath. One of his mantras was "Well you can
only see a difference if you are looking at it through a magnifying glass - at
normal viewing distances there is no difference".
Myself, I always look at photos from a few inches away, regardless of their
size. I have a very nice color laser printer that I greatly prefer to any
inkjet output I've ever seen: I always look at my output from a few inches
away. But of course, there is always that "Easy is good enough" thing going on
in general: inkjetting onto watercolor paper, for instance, so that a lack of
clarity and resolution in display prints can be attributed to 'artistic
interpretation'.
Still, it looks like digital is catching up to film: I use a Minolta DiMAGE
5400 digital film scanner, and it produces beautiful images; but the
interference patterns which form from the way that any scanners' chip interacts
with film, and that appear as pseudo-grain in the scans, most definitely limits
the degree of practical enlargement... and does so in a way that does not
affect the grainless pixel-based direct capture of digital images.
I do wonder sometimes, though, if the inherent shortcomings of inkjet
printers made it easier for camera manufacturers to promote products that
created less-than-stellar digital imaging... and if all of our standards of
image quality were (hopefully, temporarily) lowered during the early days of
digital imaging - and lowered just for the sake of 'convenience'.
John M.
>>>><<<<
From: Doug Smith <dhsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [OM] OT but Photo related
Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2007 08:04:42 -0400
I was in the Subway sub shop on Transit road in Williansville
NY(Amherst,
Lancaster or what ever the address really is there, a Buffalo suburb
any way)
on Tuesday. On the wall they had this group of four photos of
vegetables
which were about 2 by 4 foot. This is standard type of stuff for a
chain food
place except for the fact that when I first saw them I couldn't decide
if
they were some poor attempt at an impressionistic type painting or a
photo
with really bad JPEG artifacts. If you looked at them closely you could
see
the jagged curves that result from blowing a low resolution photo up
too much
and poorly. I never did decide if the producer and buyer of these
images; a)
had done it on purpose and thought that this was artistic, or B) didn't
know
any different. If B, has the public's standards gone down so much that
something that wouldn't have passed as a snap shot 5 years ago is now
considered good?
John Morton
http://OriginOfWriting.com
==============================================
List usage info: http://www.zuikoholic.com
List nannies: olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
==============================================
|