Re: Shadow and High Key Contact Printing

From: Michael Koch-Schulte <mkochsch@shaw.ca>
Subject: Re: Shadow and High Key Contact Printing
Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 08:28:29 -0600

> I guess the question going through my head is if the curve's job to
> produce a perfect analog of what one sees on the screen, why would
> there be a need to manipulate the negative any further?

You will have to match the negative curve to the sensitometric
property of your printing media. Also, the light intensity scale on
your monitor is significantly wider than what you can get on
paper. You have to do something about this as well.

> What benefit is there to producing a negative (and a new curve)
> specifically for an image where the emphasis is "shadows" or
> "highlights".

Just emphasizing shadows or highlights does not make the image low key
or high key. You have to pick the subject matter, lighting, all the
way to the curve manipulation, which can be done on film or
photoshop. You basically attenuate or remove unnecessary details in
one end of the tonal scale by compressing that end, while letting that
tone dominate in the image.
Received on Fri Mar 17 14:12:50 2006