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From analogue to digital in fine monochrome |
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And, those evangelists of the new should also take care in their scorn of the old. Of one thing you can be certain - that which you espouse today will be obsolete tomorrow. For instance, it seems to be taken for granted that new technology for photographers means the inkjet print. My guess is that within 20 years, we will all be using a different form of output as yet unimagined. One thing I do now know is that digital processing can produce fine results from poor negatives unprintable by conventional means. I wrote about this in the last issue of Ag (Ag29), and have since continued to enjoy ‘releasing’ pictures I thought were locked in the coarse negative prison for life. (See pictures 1 and 2). This ease and control of realisation of the negative’s potential is threatening to the darkroom maestros who thrive on the mystique of their ‘black arts’. Many of these are pure bunk anyway. You could never make a fine monochrome print from a coarse negative in the darkroom. Now, digitally, we can if we have to, especially with Piezography. With conventional photography, once the negative is processed, it is a fixed entity with virtually no safe means of altering its density range or distribution of tones. With digital imaging, at both the scanning and image editing stages, we can modify those things at will. Even the typical enemy of fine prints, the underexposed overdeveloped negative with burned out highlights can be scanned to make a fine printing digital image file. However, because the final output is so fine, and so ruthlessly able to reproduce every nuance of the digital file - good or bad - Piezography does place absolute priority on the quality of that file. Every imperfection will be revealed with glaring clarity. So with Piezography, the guiding principle is now ‘You can’t produce a fine print from a coarse file’. The following workflow is one that I have developed to produce a ‘fine’ file reliably, simply and swiftly. I have had a steep learning curve in Photoshop, and there are probably more experienced users who could find even quicker and simpler methods of doing the same thing. But the techniques that follow do work; I know they do from hard practice. So let us not just get started with change now, but begin to get used to changing all the time, and enjoying it. Because I know what I felt like in at first resisting the new, then having to take the plunge - then making lots of mistakes - I thought I would try to help others who are considering the change, or who have just started, by describing step-by-step what to do to avoid the painful pitfalls in the new technology. Indeed, the need is to find fulfilment and satisfaction in picture making, not just avoid the pain. I believe I can help with that, and the series of articles that follow will together make up a ‘manual’ of digital fine monochrome picture making that should drastically shorten and ease the learning curve for newcomers - and maybe more expert exponents will find useful new methods in it too. Please note we are specifically talking about fine monochrome prints here. The techniques for colour do vary. So here goes... Next Page >> |
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© Barry Thornton Page 3 of 9 |
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