Any technical explanations as to how or why film sharpness looks different from digital sharpness ??

DREW WILEY said:

But I can make color prints "sharper" any day of the week that what any laser printer or inkjet output machine can do. And it's done all optically, no digital input at all. And I've been doing it for decades.

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DREW WILEY said:

It all boils down to this : do you folks want to talk about achieving or realizing detail, or faking detail?

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Yes to both. I‘m here to learn.

DREW WILEY said:

Therefore any generic answer is inherently misleading.

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Wrong. The generic answer to the original question is not misleading. It is factual and trivial to understand. I already posted it. The OP's question was a simple one. There was nothing subjective or fuzzy about it. Also, he wasn't asking about the best techniques to maximize resolution either. He simply asked about the difference. The difference is well known and is explained by middle school physics. No need to use this thread as an excuse for an unprovoked outburst of hand waiving, chest puffing, dumb-masses shaming, or not-so-subtle hinting at one's greatness. Nothing to brag or be proud about. Simple question. Simple matter. Simple answer.

[EDIT] If it's misleading to you, PM me and I'll explain in pictures on a video call. Free of charge.

Sigh. I give up on this thread. Toss in a little predictable recent marketing click bait - and that's what it really is - and suddenly it's a simple A vs B one line summary of what is the novel War and Peace is all about. I have a close friend who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics, but he couldn't take a decent picture. I had a college roommate whose CalTech term paper was confiscated by the Atomic Energy Commission, and he couldn't figure out even a basic manual camera of that era. For those interested in actual technique with visual results, rather than trying to dumb down both the esthetics and the craft of this alleged topic to some interminable debate over which one of two hundred varieties of apples to compare the which of forty varieties of oranges, well, that kind of thing is better addressed on specific relevant threads rather than here.

Drew, I’d do dark room prints all day everyday if I had the time and money, but I don’t.

Scanning is an alternative. And also an alternative for getting stuff on screens, instead of wet printing and scanning.

AI sharpening is exactly not about inventing new detail, but about lifting already existing low contrast detail, and perhaps suppressing grain.

DREW WILEY said:

Sigh. I give up on this thread. Toss in a little predictable recent marketing click bait - and that's what it really is - and suddenly it's a simple A vs B one line summary of what is the novel War and Peace is all about. I have a close friend who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics, but he couldn't take a decent picture. I had a college roommate whose CalTech term paper was confiscated by the Atomic Energy Commission, and he couldn't figure out even a basic manual camera of that era. For those interested in actual technique with visual results, rather than trying to dumb down both the esthetics and the craft of this alleged topic to some interminable debate over which one of two hundred varieties of apples to compare the which of forty varieties of oranges, well, that kind of thing is better addressed on specific relevant threads rather than here.

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See? Even now you can't resist the urge to announce your access to world's Nobel Prize winners and Atomic Energy Comission victims, which frankly tells us way more about your issues than the topic at hand. What did pope say about this, by the way? Is he as hopeless of a moron as everyone else in your circle of high school friends?

Meanwhile, I will drag you back to reality. NO. The question was not about "actual technique". NO. It was not about "esthetics" or "the craft". Stop seeking another way to brag about your invisible prowess. The question was about physical properties of the medium. Those properties exist and are very real even the medium sits in the fridge or in a digital camera cabinet, untouched by an operator. In fact, humans (and your numerous problems with them) are strictly out of scope of the OP's question.

I'm quite aware of all of that - BUT this was not a question posed to begin with under a digital pretext, but under the darkroom section, and therefore presumably in relation to what real film can do, and not some potential app on a digital capture device. If I want to see digi tech run amuck, there are plenty of Hollywood teenage blockbuster movies which have the budgets and personnel to do it far better any of us can. And there are true industrial printing operations even locally which can run rings around all of this too, with their own proprietary big budget methods. So by "Darkroom" I think its safe to imply a significant amount of tactile control combined with optical workflow, and involving chemically processed film. Otherwise, start the discussion back up on the hybrid or digital side.

And for certain calculator-addicted friends, this has nothing to do with "chest-puffing". I judge things with my eyes. Show me one digital printer in the world who can achieve the kind of tonal sophistication and luminance that Julia Cameron did in a converted chicken coop in the Victorian era, or PH Emerson soon afterwards, and I'll concede the whole argument. And I'm speaking about actual prints, not web presentation. Even sharpness versus unsharpness is part of the overall tool kit. What does sharpness even mean, and to whom?

So Steven, if you want to dehumanize photography and dumb it down to some rote equations, go ahead. No need for a darkroom. A chalkboard and stick of chalk will do fine. But the janitor will probably just erase it anyway.

DREW WILEY said:

..this has nothing to do with "chest-puffing". I judge things with my eyes.

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So eye-puffing.

DREW WILEY said:

The inherent problem with the question itself is that ALL KINDS OF LOOKS and detail treatments are achievable either way. It's a moving target on both sides of the equation. Therefore any generic answer is inherently misleading. And just try to explain all the darkroom options to a generation which doesn't even know they exist, or ever did. Now e-faux has become the norm.

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I do agree with you on many fronts but I take exception to "e-faux." I am not a fan of digital imaging, which is a reason that I do enjoy this forum, but there are some excellent photographs that have been created by photographers using digital techniques. To label them "fake" is to denigrate some people who have done some great work.

Actually, Drew finally had a good point: I am surprised the mods allowed the 9-page hybrid thread to live in the analog section.

Dan - I personally know some of the best digital printers in the business. The difference is, they were excellent darkroom printers first, so had a firm idea of their own values and expectations already, and well understood the value of restraint.

Probably not a good place to ask this, but I wonder how much erosion the Rubies got during that last tropical storm moving up from our deserts here?

DREW WILEY said:

Show me one digital printer in the world who can achieve the kind of tonal sophistication and luminance that Julia Cameron did in a converted chicken coop in the Victorian era, …

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Is that a joke? Tell us it’s a joke. I mean the 1800s were really swell Drew, but come on man. Work with us here.

DREW WILEY said:

Show me one digital printer in the world who can achieve the kind of tonal sophistication and luminance that Julia Cameron did in a converted chicken coop in the Victorian era...

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warden said:

Is that a joke? Tell us it’s a joke. I mean the 1800s were really swell Drew, but come on man. Work with us here.

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Hey come on. Drew knew Julia Margaret Cameron. She lived down the street. He built her chicken coop.

Drew, do you mind calling Putin and asking him to do you a solid and stopping the war? Also, can you perhaps tell us what's going on in Area 51? You surely have a friend who's personally overseeing the alien propulsion reverse-engineering project. You're not fully utilizing your network, man.

No, it's not a joke at all, Warden. The newest toys do not automatically translate into the most effective pictures. That is a matter of the heart. Have you ever actually looked at some of those prints? One of the best hybrid printers currently alive is in awe of them.

Steven - you're inching pretty close to the precipice of the Ignore option, an actually useful app. It's either a Little League mentality or nonexistent? - is that the next apples vs oranges generic debate? I do know a little bit about Area 51. I once got a wonderful long lens 4x5 shot of a herd of wild mustangs there, beneath a stunning thunderhead. And one night camped just a little off the road near the boundary, I had two mustang stallions in a long moonlit fight right outside my camper shell. No need for either aliens or artificial intelligence; there are better things to see and remember there. Photography is about personal human experience, along with the necessary craft to effectively communicate that to others; otherwise, don't bore me with detached lifeless details. Tell it to the guy at the Best Buy electronics counter instead.

Actually I really don't want to be in a war with Drew or anyone else here. What I wanted was to actually get a clear idea of analogue sharpening techniques and how those compare with the digital techniques that are being used. I am pretty sure, but not completely positive, that the digital side built on the knowledge gained from analogue methods. But it appears that some of use here know one side, and some others know the other side. But no one is willing to meet in the middle and discuss how those two sides compare.

Ah well.

Drew, I am just anxious to exploit my newborn relationship with you to gain proximity to the world's illuminati.

DREW WILEY said:

No, it's not a joke at all, Warden. The newest toys do not automatically translate into the most effective pictures. That is a matter of the heart. Have you ever actually looked at some of those prints? One of the best hybrid printers currently alive is in awe of them.

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Yes I have. Have you? There are about two dozen of them at my local museum, not always on display though. I don't share the awe your "best hybrid printer" friend has for the quality of these prints. She did the best she could with the tools of the time.

Drew, I genuinely appreciate individuals like you. I'm being sincere, and in many respects, you embody an idealist perspective. While some might perceive certain aspects of your words as pretentious, it's equally possible they're not. As forum members, it's our responsibility to approach and interpret fellow members with optimism and extend the benefit of the doubt.

To those who are currently contributing to this thread, please be mindful that your comments are edging toward the possibility of having this discussion locked and reinforcing the decision to disallow comparisons between the two realms. Let's refrain from it!

Well, one sometimes has to take a stance. Otherwise, why bother? Might as well read old Pop Photo articles. When I was a student I had the opportunity to buy two exceptional Julia Cameron original prints for $2,000 apiece. Well, that was a LOT of money back then, especially for someone who could barely afford textbooks. So it was an impossibility. But had it happened, each of those would be worth a hundred times as much today. Not everyone is numb to the sublime. Or for those who like high detail, who can match the sophistication of the big plate compositions of Carleton Watkins in the latter part of the 19th C. I can't think of anyone. He was a constructivist modernist before the constructivist modernists even existed.

This whole thread should really be split three ways : darkroom, digital (or hybrid), and esthetics. But I'm not going to waste much more of my own time. I do tend to challenge what people think and say, if for no other reason, to get them to look at things in a different manner. New toy talk doesn't impress me at all. It's like someone on the trail endlessly talking about their newest tent or water bottle, and not even seeing the wildlife and scenery.

Steven Lee said:

Actually, Drew finally had a good point: I am surprised the mods allowed the 9-page hybrid thread to live in the analog section.

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Well, the thread is about how the two approaches differ in how the output looks. You have to put it somewhere, and much of the discussion is about purely analog workflows.
If the thread was comparing digital images created from scanned film - true hybrid product - with digital images from digital cameras, we would have put it in a hybrid sub-forum.

DREW WILEY said:

I do tend to challenge what people think and say, if for no other reason, to get them to look at things in a different manner. New toy talk doesn't impress me at all.

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Some of us are challenging you to look at things in a different manner, as well. "Old toy talk" doesn't impress me at all, no matter my love for the darkroom and traditional printing.

Agree about Watkins, btw, for artistic merit at least. I've not seen any of his work in the flesh but I'd like to when the opportunity arises.

Thanks for allowing the discussion Matt. It is interesting. I still think there is much more to learn here. At one point in time what Ms Cameron was doing was also a new toy and we continued to learn and develop.

Well, back to Julia and the topic of sharpness. Her seeming lack of sharpness, and numerous other "flaws" are meticulously so. She was famous even in her own time for that. Yeah, it was difficult to get consistent platinum and palladium, and it all had to be hand coated, with obvious coating imperfections. But just stare into the eyes of that atypical off-color example Warden just posted. Wow! Could any artificial intelligence do that? Everything is off just the right amount. There's a stunning ethos even to how the two eyes mismatch. She didn't use any rote formula, but deliberately and precisely mis-focused the camera to the exact point it worked on her ground glass; and despite the long exposure, it seems you're looking into that sitter's complex soul. You're not; but Julia was a master at giving an impression you are. It's soooo wonderfully 2D - what is in front or on the surface?; what is behind or inside? - it's the whole contradiction and ambiguity of that which makes it such an effective image.

I happen to use high detail as a tool, not for its own sake, but more in relation to a certain kind of layering - not what portraitists refer to as selective focus using tele lenses fairly wide open - something more difficult to explain here, and better understood in large format contexts. One can draw the eye ever so gently in and out of a composition by very carefully choreographing the push and pull of the details, as well as hue interrelationships in the case of color prints. And there is no one correct way to do it. Each composition is potentially a little different. At least that is what got me on the map back when I still had the extra energy to pursue some exhibition projects.

But I feel rewarded when people can come back to a particular print and view it over and over again for many years, and still discover new things. And when I print, the result has to "feel" right. That can't be quantified. I have plenty of serious darkroom instrumentation. That angle can be discussed under equipment if need be. But sharpness is every bit as much subjective as it is measurable. It's a human visual response both physiologically and psychologically. And it is a wonderful thing to dance with.

warden said:

Yes I have. Have you? There are about two dozen of them at my local museum, not always on display though. I don't share the awe your "best hybrid printer" friend has for the quality of these prints. She did the best she could with the tools of the time.

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You could have picked other shot of hers.

In the given particular sample, it's hard to say without seeing the original whether the lack of a silvery quality was due to paticular batch of her platinum, or due to discoloration of the paper itself over time from improper storage, or simply an artifact of copying a print under unbalanced tungsten lighting, and scanning the duplicate uncorrected. But in the case of commercial digitized copies up for sale, those are often tweaked at a whim, and likely have lost some of their subtlety unless done via a exceptional quad press. Then finally, you've got the downsampled drift for web purposes like Bing. That same Bing page has a Steichen on it too, which stands out like a sore thumb - I don't mean that negatively, but due to sheer dissimilarity of personal style even given the same nominal "pictorialist" genre of Steichen's earlier years. And then there are also some modern simulations of her style.

There is no doubt that she was way deep into the cloying pre-Raphelite genre then in vogue. But she did it with such exceptional acumen that she basically transcended its corny stereotypes. ... and darn near broke her rich husband with her platinum purchases. Of course the fact that she ran in the circles of British high society and photographed some very famous people attracts collectors. But the highest price I recall ever being paid was for a print was of her own household maid.

But back to topic, Cameron was NOT a soft focus lens type at all. She deliberately de-focussed standard lenses of the time for just the right amount of "glow". It was done under window light, and of course those lenses were uncoated and not fully corrected like modern ones. To a certain extent, flare and edge rendering got married. I have often deliberately done that too, but in pictures where predominant areas were still in acute focus with precise textural rendering. I call those my "near death experience" series - leading the eye from some cavernous setting filled with dark yet discernible details toward a brilliant glaring diffuse light. I used RR tunnels, old military tunnels, mine shafts, dark barns, cave openings etc. It becomes a play on confining deep sharpness versus a burst of total unsharpness. Fun project, but I've moved on.

Yes, I have fun doing it - I'm not an illuminati Steven. I'm actually a hillbilly who literally grew up with cowboys and Indians. About as close to I get to being a Renaissance Italian is the spaghetti I ate tonite.

When you get to a quite different 18th C example I also mentioned - Watkins - he made lots of his income catering to western tourism fare. My own family has boxes of his mass-produced Stereopticon images, along with an antique red velvet lined Stereopticon viewer. None of that is worth much. There are lots of views of Yosemite, equivalent to all the postcards AA later sold there and elsewhere. His personal mammoth plate work was of a much higher order. But most of it was also destroyed during the 1906 SF earthquake and fire. So what remains and gets displayed is often on loan from private collections and in somewhat bad shape in terms of mildew foxing and so forth. But once in awhile you see something reasonably pristine, which informs you just how able an albumen printer he was. So people like him knew their own tools exceptionally well, but were proficient enough that it didn't become a secondary impediment interfering with their vision itself. It was a means to an end.