pet peeve - photoshop being recommended

Jorge · Oct 17, 2004

TPPhotog said:
Jorge your points are very valid though and I do agree with you. Happily I have already sold my negative scanner to be able to afford some RC and FB so no more neg scans from me

Atta boy..... you get a gold star.. If you are really, really good and get rid of the digital camera, I will send a jug of Rodinal your way..

TPPhotog · Oct 17, 2004

Jorge said:
Atta boy..... you get a gold star.. If you are really, really good and get rid of the digital camera, I will send a jug of Rodinal your way..

Jorge you know how to tempt a guy, we will have to keep Mortens Gothic models away from you LOL

Andy K · Oct 17, 2004

Jorge said:
Personally, as soon as I realize it is a negative scan, I move on.

Jorge, by that criterion you should not be looking at anything posted on this site. Every photo shown is the result of being digitally scanned into a computer, converted into bits and bytes and then uploaded to APUG. If you are going to be that fussy then whats the difference between a scanned print and a scanned negative? What next, scanned lab prints not good enough?
The simple fact is every member of APUG is dedicated to analogue photography. To then discriminate against those less fortunate and unable to produce their own prints is, in my opinion, a slap in the face of the whole APUG ethos.

Jorge · Oct 17, 2004

Andy K said:
Jorge, by that criterion you should not be looking at anything posted on this site. Every photo shown is the result of being digitally scanned into a computer, converted into bits and bytes and then uploaded to APUG. If you are going to be that fussy then whats the difference between a scanned print and a scanned negative? What next, scanned lab prints not good enough?
The simple fact is every member of APUG is dedicated to analogue photography. To then discriminate against those less fortunate and unable to produce their own prints is, in my opinion, a slap in the face of the whole APUG ethos.

Well if we use your criteria then not even APUG should exists. This is an old argument that people threw at Sean and I am not even going to go there.

OTOH, if people have a scanner then they can afford a beseler printmaker 35 and a few trays. I started photography like this by printing at night blocking out the windows in my efficiency room with a blanket. I am not saying everbody should do like I did, but certainly where there is a will there is a way.

I said it before and will repeat it to you, if we are going to allow images from scanned negatives, why not images from digital cameras? Certainly having the benefit of seeing Les MaClean's digital images would be a treat.

In the end it is one of the criteria I use to decide if I want to critique an image. It is not meant as an insult or discrimination. Sorry you dont like my criteria, but I am not about to change it.

Andy K · Oct 17, 2004

If you are going to disallow images from scanned negatives then you have to disallow images from scanned prints. A scan is a scan. A scanned print can be just as manipulated as a scanned negative. To blithely dismiss one or the other makes no sense.

jovo · Oct 17, 2004

Actually, what might be helpful and ethical on apug would be to share our successes using 'wet' technics to emulate the easy facility photoshop offers for refining images. PS, in levels alone, has such an easy time discreetly adjusting high, mid, and shadow values that it has challenged me to think that way in the darkroom. I've recently had a wonderful time using pot-ferri to lighten clouds and such, and long enjoyed the advantages of flashing to control contrast. Split grading with skillful use of burning and dodging cards has become a marvelous area for exploration as well. The point is that PS is useful to challenge us to do just as well using traditional techniques, and sometimes to promote inventing new ones. Perhaps Les's offer of long ago to moderate a digital issues forum could be reconceived as a place to bring PS emulating technics to the attention of us all. Uelsmann's work is so astonishing for instance, that one wonders if PS might have been designed to be sure to accomodate with software what is so amazingly well done without it. To bury our heads in the sand and pretend that PS doesn't exist is just plain silly. To exploit it's comprehensive and creative ability to manipulate images should allow us to expand our sense of what's possible beyond what we've been able to do up til now. I'm not suggesting a John Henry versus the steam drill competition, but rather suggesting we find a way to let the steam drill teach us a more efficient way to use our hammers which might even include designing a new hammer.

Cheryl Jacobs · Oct 17, 2004

Oh, please.

Scans of negs are bad, but scans from prints are OK. Interesting. How about scans from machine prints? No? Better skip over the majority of my postings, then. I do photography full-time and there's no way I could hand-print everything before posting. My choices are either to post very rarely, or to post a scan from a straight machine print. Does that make me pro-digital? LOL. Of course not.

Certainly each of us has the right to determine our own criteria for which images we choose to view and comment on. Personally, I wouldn't skip over a film image because of the method of scanning. If the print looks like the scan, I couldn't care less how the owner went about putting it online.

Andy K · Oct 17, 2004

Hear hear.

Jorge · Oct 17, 2004

Andy K said:
If you are going to disallow images from scanned negatives then you have to disallow images from scanned prints. A scan is a scan. A scanned print can be just as manipulated as a scanned negative. To blithely dismiss one or the other makes no sense.

Welcome to my ignore file.....I am not getting into this with you.
Hey, I am up to 2900 in my ignore file...lol....

Andy K · Oct 17, 2004

Guess I was right then, lol!

Cheryl Jacobs · Oct 17, 2004

Hey, wait! How come Andy got the "ignore list" honors and not me? I was trying my best. Guess I'm just not good enough.

Really, I'm pretty surprised that Andy's going to be ignored now because of a polite and carefully worded debate -- and not much of a debate at that! Goodness. Sounds more like a "plugging-my-ears-because-I-don't-like-to-be-challenged-by-anyone-else's-opinions" list.....

Jorge · Oct 17, 2004

Cheryl Jacobs said:
Hey, wait! How come Andy got the "ignore list" honors and not me? I was trying my best. Guess I'm just not good enough.

Your wish is my command....2901...

Cheryl Jacobs · Oct 17, 2004

Laughing myself silly now! Life's gonna get pretty lonely for Jorge in a matter of days at this rate.....

Graeme Hird · Oct 17, 2004

Hi Jorge,

Can you post a list of people on your ignore list please? I'd like to know whether I'm wasting my time when I try to help with a reply to one of your posts - if you're never going to see it, I'll stop being helpful (if I ever was ... )

Cheers,

mark · Oct 17, 2004

You all realize that Sean cleared this up. I can't find the thread in the search engine, but when I do I think you folks really need to read what the owner of this site has said and abide by it.

If Sean would like to pipe in here and clear this up I am sure it would be appreciated.

Andy K · Oct 17, 2004

I would like to point out at this juncture that I never manipulate any of my scans. I do not own Photoshop and to be honest wouldn't know how to manipulate a scan if I tried! All I do is scan and resize for upload. Nothing else.

Art Vandalay · Oct 17, 2004

Andy K said:
I would like to point out at this juncture that I never manipulate any of my scans. I do not own Photoshop and to be honest wouldn't know how to manipulate a scan if I tried! All I do is scan and resize for upload. Nothing else.

Either you have auto features turned on (the software manipulates ot) or you are one of those very fortunate individuals who's scanner, computer and monitor are suitably calibrated to each other. Every scanner I've had produced substandard results

John McCallum · Oct 17, 2004

Why scanned negs just aren't the same (sometimes).

It's perhaps quite a valid point that; 'if APUG can accept a scanned print, then why not a scanned negative that shows what I am going to print later'.

Well I'm going to go out on a limb here a bit. It does in fact require a degree of skill to produce a good print from even a good negative in the darkroom. In fact many would say that the physical actions, knowledge of materials, process control etc are substantial.

In PS there are the same functions available as we have in the darkroom. But they are refined, and able to be implimented incrementally and retrospectively to an extent that is practically impossible in the darkroom. Sharpening techniques that go further than resolving scanning problems, and actually can address negative imperfections as well. Highly intricate dodging and burning with localised contrast adjustment can be implimented relatively easily. Not to mention, the knowledge of techiques such as split-grade printing or flashing, are just not required when producing a print from a scanned neg.

At the level that many are operating at, in APUG, these things make quite a difference. So I think that what bothers Jorge (if I can put words where they weren't asked for), is that the act of posting a neg scan dismisses a whole side of the craft of traditional photography that many value quite highly. Sure one might be genuinely honest with themselves and only make changes to the scanned neg that they will achieve in the darkroom later. However, the normal preference for photographers is to be behind the lens rather than under it, and I suspect that this honesty would be difficult to maintain, if one got in the habit of regularly PS'ing all their negatives.

For this reason, I will always look at a scanned neg, and appreciate it for what it is, but with a niggling (and very slight) reservation. I personally tend to value images that are scanned from prints for what they are, and the extra work involved to get there! (2 cents)

TPPhotog · Oct 17, 2004

John,

I will agree with you to a point in that it has taken me 20 years (on and off) to get prints which I am starting to feel happy with, where as I had produced pictures which I have sold after only a couple of weeks using PS. It is far easier to produce better images in a shorter time with PS than it is in a darkroom. Also to an extent poor negatives and slides can be repaired using the digital route.

Where we differ is that negative scanning doesn't always pick up the fine detail which comes out in even an average wet print.

I feel we can agree though that once the darkroom has been mastered to a reasonable level of skill the wet prints are much better than any inkjet print I've seen as far as B&W is concerned.

Art Vandalay · Oct 17, 2004

John you make some good points and I also suspect that Jorge is bothered by what you say and with good reason.

Which brings up a point that will have to be addressed sooner or later and that is photography and printmaking have always benefitted from new techniques that made printing easier and more powerful. I would imagine that there were objections when multigrade paper made an appearance and suddenly you didn't need shelves full of developers and the skill to use them - but now graded paper has almost disappeared.
I can imagine the anger when pre-coated glass negs and manufactured paper became available. I bet many bemoaned the loss of crafstmanship in photography as even the most clumsy could now take and print photographs. We have it so easy compared to the early photographers.

Right now only the best digital pinters seem to be able to match a well-made paper print but that may only be temporary and the considerable powers of PS will eventually become too much for people to resist. And I'm not talking about cloning or adding something that's not there but for the reasons that John mentioned - the fine control.

John McCallum · Oct 17, 2004

Art, I personally would not draw the conclusion that scanning negs/photoshopping and producing a print is similar to the evolving of traditional photography by changing to MG paper from graded, or the introduction of pre-prepared glass negatives.

Art Vandalay · Oct 17, 2004

I agree that it's different because it's a different media entirely (for now). However, the point is that photography has always taken on new technology, especially where it makes the process easier and more powerful, and traditionalists have always complained that crafstmanship is dying.

Traditional methods may have already reached a point where they can't progress much more, however something like digital printing has considerable room to grow and improve. Digital colour printing has already been accepted to a certain degree because it has been able to achieve the same general quality as the C-print and it offers the printer a considerable advantage in being able to adjust the contrast and saturation.

Cheryl Jacobs · Oct 17, 2004

the act of posting a neg scan dismisses a whole side of the craft of traditional photography that many value quite highly. Sure one might be genuinely honest with themselves and only make changes to the scanned neg that they will achieve in the darkroom later. However, the normal preference for photographers is to be behind the lens rather than under it, and I suspect that this honesty would be difficult to maintain, if one got in the habit of regularly PS'ing all their negatives.

Hmmm. Well, I would argue that we have no assurance whatsoever that people aren't PS'ing their scanned prints.

If someone posts an image scanned from a neg and states there have been no adjustments, is that OK? After all, it's equally easy to PS a print scan as a neg scan.

mark · Oct 17, 2004

Not the place

Art Vandalay said:
John you make some good points and I also suspect that Jorge is bothered by what you say and with good reason.

Which brings up a point that will have to be addressed sooner or later and that is photography and printmaking have always benefitted from new techniques that made printing easier and more powerful. I would imagine that there were objections when multigrade paper made an appearance and suddenly you didn't need shelves full of developers and the skill to use them - but now graded paper has almost disappeared.
I can imagine the anger when pre-coated glass negs and manufactured paper became available. I bet many bemoaned the loss of crafstmanship in photography as even the most clumsy could now take and print photographs. We have it so easy compared to the early photographers.

Right now only the best digital pinters seem to be able to match a well-made paper print but that may only be temporary and the considerable powers of PS will eventually become too much for people to resist. And I'm not talking about cloning or adding something that's not there but for the reasons that John mentioned - the fine control.

If you have not figured it out yet, the fine control you are talking about is in the digital environment not the analogue environment. If you wish to discuss the fine control afforded you by PS or other digital manner it can be discussed on other forums. By definition APUG is not the place. I personally do not care and many others do not care what the latest and best digital printers can and cannot do. That is why we are here so we do not have to listen to claims of "just as good". Spout your digital wonders elsewhere.

Cheryl Jacobs · Oct 17, 2004

Man. That's some hostility there.

I don't understand the harm in talking about the differences in the two technologies. It's not as if we're discussing digital techniques and "how-to's" here. We don't live, work, and photograph in a vacuum, and it's a little naive to expect that the only posts with the word "digital" in them will be for the purpose of ranting about it.

Why be afraid to acknowledge that it's out there? What's the point in that? Personally, I dislike the digital realm, and I far prefer the look and the process of analogue. But it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and we've had quite enough "digital sucks" rants to more than balance a few posts pointing out that there are some things more readily* done on a computer than in a darkroom.

(*Note that I said "more readily" and not "better". Just trying to prevent a barrage of angry posts coming at me from all sides.)

pet peeve - photoshop being recommended

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