Yves, Have you ever softpoofed in PS
with the wrong rendering intent? (perceptual, saturation, absolute, relative
with preserve color numbers checked) . Besides being ink and printer specific,
the curves here are individual to the craftsman to a certain extent. The beauty
of the ugly curved image is in the print it makes and we all fall in love with
our ugly betty : )
Eric Neilsen Photography
4101 Commerce Street
Suite 9
Dallas, TX 75226
http://e.neilsen.home.att.net
http://ericneilsenphotography.com
Skype ejprinter
From: Yves Gauvreau
[mailto:gauvreau-yves@cgocable.ca]
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2008
10:16 AM
To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
Subject: Re: curves and gum and
Christopher James book
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.
----- 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."
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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