Ken Norton wrote:
>
> I'm looking at the picture this morning and I'm sorry to say that I think it
> stinks. I never knew that "dry down compensation" was required with digital.
> :( Oh, well, at least the highlights aren't blown.
>
It's still a big improvement from mid-tones to highlights. But you've
lost shadow detail. In the tree trunks, in particular, the detail seems
important to me. Still some blocking in highlights. I used a little LCE
and curves to add more tonal texture in the distant foliage.
> Seriously, what is at issue now is the need for some dodging and burning or
> possibly some LCE. In a darkroom I'd probably split-grade this image and
> force more contrast into the foreground leaves.
Once you start dodging and burning and going split grade, doesn't the
wet darkroom start to get pretty time consuming? I wonder whether the
wet darkroom in easier in any inherent way or easier seeming because of
familiarity.
> I was so careful not to blow out the background like the first version was
> that the entire image is
> a touch muddy.
Back to what you posted about recently, and I agreed with, insufficient
mid-tone contrast.
> My style is to make sure that something in the print "sparkles" and "snaps".
> I have the snap, but no sparkle. The foreground leaves in the first version
> were exactly how I wanted them to look, but the rest was a touch too
> high-key. Just a touch, though. In the darkroom, I could have cured the
> entire print with about 1/4 stop increase in exposure.
>
For me, the foreground leaves aren't nuanced enough, the tonal detail is
too flat. Better in version II, but mostly just darker. I prefer more
contrast in them. Isn't sparkle mostly about contrast, with darker tones
setting of the bright ones? My alternate II brings back the tree trunks
and adds contrast to the leaves. III goes further with the leaves. Is
that sparkle?
<http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/Others/AG/ForestLeavesM.htm>
> But back to the original point--Digital B&W is tough to do.
Is it really tougher than wet? If someone who had never done either
tried to learn both, which might be tougher?
> I have yet to see any digital B&W print that had me convinced I was looking
> at a chemical print. There is a "look" which screams digital.
My question steps back a couple of paces. I'm less interested in
recreating the results of another process. After all, you can do wet
prints whenever you want, at least for our lifetimes. I'm more
interested in how the digital process looks on its own merits. Is it
pleasing to look at in the present, rather than does it look like the past?
What would a person who had never seen a B&W print think of wet vs. digi
prints as artistic abstractions of a color world?
I've been fascinated for a long time with the grain/no grain dichotomy.
Lots of people profess to like grain/noise in images and dislike
'plasticy' smoothness. I tend in the opposite direction, although modest
grain/noise isn't bad and sometimes adds sense of more detail where
there isn't much. Really, I've spent probably too much time in
NeatImage, clicking between NR/resharpen and original. There are
definitely quite a few images where there is objectively no detail lost
in the NR process, but the original 'feels' more detailed. The grain
edges give a 'sharper' look. In many other imagess, the detail looks
better with NR.
Imagine a world where photography was invented with a chemical process
with no grain. With the limits of enlargement set by lens resolution
alone. 150 years later, some artistic soul uses digitized analog audio
noise to introduce noise into his digital images. Would it become a
thing most serious photographers wanted in most of their images? I think
it more likely that it would become a relatively seldom used effect.
Those who overused it would be seen as pretentious and artsy.
Which brings me back to the question whether a wet Delta 400 print is
better in some inherent way than a digital B&W print done with
equivalent skill on a quality inkjet? Sure, they are different. And you
are very used to and comfortable with one. But how is it 'better' except
as a matter of taste?
My guess is that photographers who grow up in the digital age will find
the products of their contemporary technology most accessible. The
grains, surfaces, tonalities, etc. of the past will be just that, old timey.
Moose
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