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Dan,
correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I interpret
what you say below, is because of many other factors the uglyness of the curve
effect is burried or hidden to ones eye.
If it's the case then I can understand why you all
have no time to waste on this.
It comes back to what I said before, either
something or your tweeking that is hidding this adverse effect and it's not
the method of making the negative.
Regards,
Yves
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2008 7:44
AM
Subject: Re: curves and gum and
Christopher James book
Ah, we finally hear what's really bugging Yves about the
curves. He's disturbed at how the curved image looks. Please keep in mind that
any "profiling" is bending color and contrast. It's just that when you have
the luxury of choosing a "3800 Enhanced Mat" profile for a color print, the
dirty work of that bending and changing is done behind the scenes, away from
prying eyes. One could liken it to observing a corpse at a funeral and saying,
"my, doesn't he look alive." Were you to have an honest discussion with the
mortician, you might not enjoy hearing about the cardboard forms jammed in the
mouth, the cotton under the eyelids and the plugs in the ears. But if that's
what it takes to make for a pretty body, why should we care? Our "curving" is
just like that. Sure, we're bending tones, but when you have tens of thousands
of tones to futz with in a 16-bit image and you don't see any evidence of
problems in the final print, why the dickens should we fixate on the curving?
That's time better spent shooting or making prints.
In the 16 years I've been making digital negs I've witnessed an evolution
in the ability of the average photographer to grasp curves. For most people
who've been immersed in digital imaging for a while, tweaking a digital neg
curve is no more "trial and error" than using curves on the image itself as
part of the post processing. I tell students that if you learn
Curves and Masks, there's a lot of Photoshop you DON'T have to learn. My
personal feeling is that about 70 percent of our image-editing power resides
in those two controls so learning how to finesse a curve, whether for a print
or for a digital neg, is a skill that will serve you well for the rest of your
photographic career now that photography is digital.
Speaking of printing, right now I'm going back into the darkroom to print
platinum. And the 3800 negs (on InkPress Transparency Film) are printing
beautifully. Yes, the Curve that is applied did make the image look like hell
on the computer monitor. But when I finish the print with gold and varnish
later today, I'll stand back and say, "my, doesn't that print look
alive."
Dan
On Mar 11, 2008, at 2:59 AM, Yves Gauvreau wrote:
The
question that come to my mind is why a print that transformes your original
in a very similar fashion as above become something that everyone seems
happy about? Do you all accept these limitations as part of doing
alt-prints?
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