Peter, Here I disagree most strenuously. Having tested materials and
methods for several years by using nine identical negatives before a
passing stranger (later friend) clued me in about the step tablets, I can
state absolutely positively definitely and unequivocally that the step
tablets tell you at a glance far more about what's happening, how
highlights are printing, what the precise range is, how shadows are
separating or not separating, smoothness of tone, etc. etc. etc. than even
a wizard, a long experienced, savvy, cleverly eagle-eyed printer can tell
from looking at a print from a negative. Printing my first 21-step it was
like seeing a light turned on, or the Rosetta Stone translated.
That said, I must add that to judge a print esthetically, you need to see
it as a print. And after establishing this or that "fact" by means of
tests with 21-steps, I have often had to change, modify, revise and
rethink choices made simply on basis of the tests......
For processes taking standard development, it works well to print a little
negative with a 21-step on the side, that way you get both worlds -- tho
of course you may be printing a *large* negative in which case everything
changes again. And needless to say, each negative prints differently...
For gum, the development is so variable, you have to separate the 21-step
(which I do by given development & exposure) from the print.
> but the precise placement of the exposure values of the subject, onto the
> characteristic curve the negative [ D /logE] as photographic density, in
> such a manner, that when printed the maximum in photographic print quality
> is obtained, it is the extraction of this quality that is the major benefit
> of the zone system.
Peter, sorry, I still do not see zone system as a way to "extract maximum
print quality." It's much ado about ordinary developer controls is the way
I see it. And the business about "pre-visualizing," which is the keystone
of the process, I consider deadly, a sure way to preclude what might be
called (pardon the expression) "creativity." In my esthetic, at least, you
have to see the *print* to visualize it. Pre-visualizing goes only for
what you already know.
Judy