Digital photography, changing the world

All irrelevant if your primary darkroom focus is contact prints from
large negatives.
--
wf.

PTRAVEL wrote:

The only reason for doing digital prints at home is exactly the same reason
for doing chemical prints at home: you want complete control over your image
so that you can produce the highest quality output that looks the way you
want it to, i.e. cropped, color-balanced, level-adjusted, Gaussian-blurred,
dodged-and-burned (that is to say the digital equivalent) the way that looks
best to your eye, and not to the eye of some mass photofinisher (or, even,
worse, some machine belonging to a mass photofinisher).

Walmart and th like will not produce as good a print as I can at home with
relatively little effort, and they can't even beging to approach the 13 x 19
prints that hang in my home and my office. Now, it's true that most people
are casual snapshooters and simply don't care if gamma is off or there is a
slight tint to skin colors or whatever. For casual use, I'm sure Walmart is
fine. However, it is ridiculous to say there is no reason to print at home.
Of course there is and, thanks to digital, it's cheaper, cleaner and faster
than my old color darkroom ever was.

But remember, if you want to scan negatives you are limited to film
scanners (at least at any reasonable price for the home user). Back
when I did a lot of contact printing of a negative collection I
inherited, a film scanner would have been of no use.
--
wf.

Mxsmanic wrote:


For years, I have scanned film, adjusted the scans in Photoshop, and
then, if I needed prints, I've had them printed at a photo lab from the
image files.

No comparison in quality in my estimation even for 35 mm slides. Find
somebody who shoots color positives with a Hasselblad (or a Linhof) and
look at those slides when projected.
--
wf.

poldy wrote:

In article , randee
wrote:

And therein is the problem with digital - no slides for slideshows.

Um what about those RGB projectors?

Load a digital photo file into a JPEG viewer and project on screen?

Probably very few people have a dye sublimation printer - ink jet
printing doesn't compare to that, much less to good chemical printing.
--
wf.

erilar wrote:


You mean most people who have computers don't HAVE printers? And if you
have a decent printer you already have made that investment. Buying
photo paper for it is far cheaper than paying someone to make prints for
you any day. And as for different sizes of paper: use scissors if you
can't afford a paper cutter. Talk about inept!!!

--
Mary Loomer Oliver (aka Erilar)

With the exception perhaps of a few species of butterflies, birds and
reptiles I could name, there is little vivid color in the natural world,
particularly in the females.
--
wf.

PTRAVEL wrote:
My friends who see my
photos almost always comment on the vivid color, the composition that
results from careful cropping, the atmosphere (which results from
careful manipulation of the levels), etc.

Heh, ever priced dye sublimation printer supplies? We used one of those
printers at one of our experimental sites and although the quality was
excellent the printer was temperamental and the supplies were extremely
expensive.
--
wf.


Mxsmanic wrote:

With the current price of photo paper, every snip costs you a fortune.

--

"randee" wrote in message
...
All irrelevant if your primary darkroom focus is contact prints from
large negatives.

Of course, what's irrelevant is your comment, but never mind.

How many people do you know who do large-format photography as a hobby and,
since this is a travel group, take their large-format cameras with them when
they travel?


--
wf.

PTRAVEL wrote:

The only reason for doing digital prints at home is exactly the same
reason
for doing chemical prints at home: you want complete control over your
image
so that you can produce the highest quality output that looks the way you
want it to, i.e. cropped, color-balanced, level-adjusted,
Gaussian-blurred,
dodged-and-burned (that is to say the digital equivalent) the way that
looks
best to your eye, and not to the eye of some mass photofinisher (or,
even,
worse, some machine belonging to a mass photofinisher).

Walmart and th like will not produce as good a print as I can at home
with
relatively little effort, and they can't even beging to approach the 13 x
19
prints that hang in my home and my office. Now, it's true that most
people
are casual snapshooters and simply don't care if gamma is off or there is
a
slight tint to skin colors or whatever. For casual use, I'm sure Walmart
is
fine. However, it is ridiculous to say there is no reason to print at
home.
Of course there is and, thanks to digital, it's cheaper, cleaner and
faster
than my old color darkroom ever was.

You certainly would not want to compare DLP to an original Technicolor
print (be aware 'reproduction' technicolor prints can have registration
problems - the original processing crew knew the the variations in the
individual cameras).
--
wf.

Mxsmanic wrote:

As to DLP for movies, you better go to one of the theaters than use DLP.

Done. They have a long way to go.

Reason all movie theaters do not use DLP is the question of who is
going to pay for the equipment.

A lot of directors don't like digital displays, with good reason. It's
best not to look at them too closely, or you'll see why.

randee writes:

But then again, back when I used to do serious dark room work it was all
contact printing from B/W negatives, no need for any processing like
that.

You can still do that today. Contact printing from 8x10 sheet film
gives very nice results.

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

randee writes:

But remember, if you want to scan negatives you are limited to film
scanners (at least at any reasonable price for the home user). Back
when I did a lot of contact printing of a negative collection I
inherited, a film scanner would have been of no use.

Why? You can scan any type of negative.

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.