Its ironic though, I would think we'd have some sort of articles or tutorial resource on this forum. It would probably spare good folks a lot of repetition
I agree
completely. Both analogue and digital folks should feel totally 100% enthusiastic about hybrid processes and we should make it very easy for them to jump on the saddle.
Sadly, while many bemoan the disappearance of traditional processes, precious few people are willing to discuss the details of their workflow in open forum i.e. without charging money for it. My attitude, as a teacher, is that workflow isn't something we own; it's just a tool that is as valueless as any other tool until a creative mind is taught to use it. Once you've seen the look of accomplishment on the face of a new student, it is impossible to think otherwise.
For my part, I am going to make a little step-by-step podcast/video on direct digital negs, I just haven't gotten to it yet.
Regarding curves, what you do is open your image in photoshop, and do whatever you need to do to make it look on your screen the way you want it to look in your print i.e. convert to b&w and adjust contrast and so forth. Then, in photoshop, go to image/adjustment/curves, and then you see a plot. This plot is nothing more than a transformation from input image to the output image. If you wish, you can get a trial curve from somebody, it's just an "acv" file. You apply the curve to the image, and it will look odd! For silver gelatin, the image will look pretty flat, that's because the process has inherently high contrast so the neg doesn't have to be so contrasty. Anyway you invert your curved image to get the negative, and it will look quite unlike any film negative you have seen! But lo and behold it works. And that's just about it for the most basic digineg process. You can make your lovely neg on good old plain white paper if you want, you'll get something. After horsing around a bit you start to think you might like to try good transparency stock or velum etc.
Now here's the kicker. There is no magic curve- the curve you need will vary depending on the process you use and the substrate for your digineg etc. Even if you are just restricting yourself to silver gelatin for starters, I found that I need quite different curves for different kinds of paper e.g. rc or fiber or even just different kinds of fiber. So what people do for starters is pick one process and one paper, refine their curve for that by trial and error (more or less) and within short order (a trial or two) you get nice results.
To speed things up I made myself a trial curve library. Each has slightly different highlight/shadow compression and contrast etc. What I've been doing is making myself an image which is a composite of many thumbnails (e.g. 4 up or 8 up on one 8x10 sheet), each curved differently. Then I do the entire process, pick the thumbnail which looks best at the end of the entire workflow, and I'm ready to go.
What's fun is that I discovered that you don't even need pictorico or anything if all you want is a basic, tonable RC print. You can inkjet your negative directly on the photopaper (in the dark obviously) and then expose it, wipe off the ink in water, and develop normally. Now I am working on ways to do the same with more challenging papers like matte fiber.
