daveh
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Post by daveh on Jul 27, 2010 19:10:47 GMT -5
Taken from an original 35mm slide modified with Gimp. (Photoshop is too memory hungry to run properly on the notebook.)  It brings up the "too much photoshop" argument again. I'm interested in people's views on this sort of modification. (The actual quality of the finished thing is not what it could (or should) be. For a start, scanned slides often look a little grainy. I did the alterations fairly quickly, and I'm sure they could be improved.) What do you think? Is this sort of modification allowable, or does the result stop being a photograph? |
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Jul 28, 2010 14:26:37 GMT -5
daveh,
I don't think there should be any limits on what one may do with one's image as long as it is not done for fraudulent, illegal, deceitful or harmful purposes.
"Photograph" might no longer be the correct word. Why not simply "picture".
Prior to the invention of photography all artists, without exception, altered reality however hard they tried to be realistic. The very act of transferring three dimensions to two dimensions is a great alteration.
Why should that right be denied photographers?
Mickey
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Post by John Parry on Jul 28, 2010 15:09:15 GMT -5
Well, it's in focus Dave. My only means of getting slides digitized is an old Scanjet that has no means of adjusting the height of the optics between paper (bang on the face of the glass) and slides (about 2mm above). Consequently they all come out slightly fuzzy. At least I can see the grain on yours!
As to the edit - it's fine. Every so often a member gets 'into' Photoshop and puts forward a few psychedelic shots for critique. One or two have been special, but on the whole it's probably more trouble than it's worth. (By that, I don't mean the balance and level adjustments that are now everyday 'digital darkroom' tweaks).
So that probably answers your question from my point of view.
Hell - we don't even get uptight about 'Bokeh' any more!
Regards - John
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2010 17:39:34 GMT -5
John:
Maybe you don't get uptight about bokeh but I continue to believe it's a totally silly subject invented by people with too much free time.
W.
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Jul 28, 2010 18:31:01 GMT -5
John: Maybe you don't get uptight about bokeh but I continue to believe it's a totally silly subject invented by people with too much free time. W. Bokeh is a mystical word that enables one to justify out of focus images. Mickey |
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SidW
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Post by SidW on Jul 29, 2010 7:39:21 GMT -5
Dave, I agree entirely with Micky.
Surely no-one ever questioned that a photograph printed in a book was a photograph.
And that overworked phrase "painting with light". Every one paints with light, from the cave artists to you and me brightening up our kitchens.
As to grainy scans. Sadly, scan qulity is usually proportional to investment. That's life.
A few years ago there was an enormous photo exhibition shown at several art museums, on photography in central Europe 1918-45. I doubt there's any procedure in Photoshop that they couldn't do in the darkroom of the 1920s.
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jul 29, 2010 10:55:42 GMT -5
Mickey:
You might be surprised how many well-known artists in the past used a camera obscura (translation = darkened room) to get the basic layout of a scene down on paper or canvas. Ask your search engine to have a look for camera obscura. They were using the image projected by a lens, just the same as a camera does.
Bokeh:
I seem to remember we went into this subject some time ago. I suggested the use of oofbi (out of focus background image) but didn't expect it to catch on. To my mind the oofbi obtained by using a large aperture should be just that, an out of focus background.
The thing used to be called differential focus and was used to draw attention to an object in the foreground, but when some well-known lenses displayed highlights in the the oofbi as a series of blobs that looked like out of focus light bulbs someone came up with the expression bokeh, which I believe is Japanese word, to describe the "aesthetic quality" of the out of focus background.
How spuriously "artistic" can you get?
Ars gratia artis. Fair enough. What's the latin for "art for the sake of inflated self-importance"?
Sid:
I'll agree with you - up to a point - if you include a shelf full of chemicals for treating a negative after development, and a retouching desk.
I say up to a point because I can't recall any process other than using Photoshop or a similar program that can clump pixels at a sudden change of contrast to give better "perceived sharpness". This a simplified explanation of what PS Unsharp Mask does.
Also, PS lets you select the individual colours in a digital image - either three or four depending on whether you're in RGB or CYMK - and increase or decrease an individual colour's saturation, lightness/darkness and even hue.
I hesitate to imagine how much fiddling with filters in a darkroom would be necessary to do this - even if it could be done.
But then, of course, hardly anyone in the 1920s produced colour photographs.
PeterW
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Jul 29, 2010 12:25:11 GMT -5
Grainy scans and other scanning issues: it has always seemed to me that what a scanner likes best is to be able to scan something that is absolutely flat. In terms of scanning a print, glossy is best, but as you go to matt and then say plastica photo papers the results get worse as the paper surface get rougher.
I just wonder if the same thing doesn't happen with film. While the film side is flat the emulsion side looks almost 3D. This always seems most noticeable on reversal film. I am not sure that scanning ever produces the quality from a negative ( or slide) that can be achieved optically. Certainly 'you get what you have paid for' is always a maxim that holds true, but I do think there is a basic weakness in scanning as a system.
On a slightly different tack, I have a 12"x10", or thereabouts, photo of my grandparents. The backing card is breaking up and the photo itself is 'silvered' in places. It didn't scan well: the silver threw a glare back from the scanning light. Photographic reproduction with angled lights gave a better result. Then I spent ages on photoshop removing the artefacts. The end result was fairly reasonable.
Later I found a clean (probably contact) print from the same negative, on glossy paper - scanned that and bingo - quality result.
I have never really got to grips with bokeh.
As regards colour printing: subtractive printing is undoubtedly 'the method' for enlargements. What Photoshop can do, in splitting into separate colours is basically what additive colour printing used to do. (Although, of course, it is much more convenient.)
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Jul 29, 2010 12:31:29 GMT -5
PeterW and SidW or Double W's for short,
Camera obsura.
I am, indeed, aware that artists long ago used the camera obscura. Jan Vermeer, in particular, has been accused of using it because his perspective is so perfect. I say Good for him. He achieved what he wanted brilliantly.
Bokeh.
As for "Ars gratia artis. Fair enough. What's the latin for "art for the sake of inflated self-importance"?
How about Ars gratia pomposity?
I wonder how a bokeh booster would rate a photo of a night scene with its myriad of lights taken with a catadioptric (mirror) lens producing a Tim Horton's shop full of doughnuts.
Darkroom vs Photoshop.
"I doubt there's any procedure in Photoshop that they couldn't do in the darkroom of the 1920s. "
I think there are uncountable procedures that can be done in Photoshop that we poor darkroom drudges could not even have dreamed of doing only twenty years ago.
How many hours I have spent in my darkroom unsuccessfully trying to make a Cibachrome print to my liking. Something I can now achieve in PS in minutes.
My computer 'darkroom' is, for me, a source of great entertainment and joy compared to what used to be.
Mickey
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jul 29, 2010 12:41:48 GMT -5
John, you wrote: I don't think it's a mater of adjusting the height of the optics. The "depth of field" of a flatbed scanner is quite wide. I think there may be something else adrift in your Scanjet. Just to prove a point I took three transparencies at randon and put them in my flatbed Epson. The middle one is 6x4.5mm laid straight on the glass. The other two are 35mm holding it down. I can't see much difference in sharpness.  PeterW |
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Post by John Parry on Jul 29, 2010 14:28:03 GMT -5
Mickey
The expression you're looking for is 'Ars gratia arses'.
Peter
I'll have to take some of the slides out of their little holders and do a comparison. I have about a million of my Dad's slides that I need to process, so I may have to go upmarket!
Dave
I think the thing to take home from this is that we love to look at pretty much anything, and that we don't give a damn about whether it smells nice or not !
Regards - John
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Post by nikonbob on Jul 29, 2010 14:42:45 GMT -5
Mickey
If only I could get a Tim Horton's shop full of doughnuts from my mirror lens I would be happy with it.
Bob
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Jul 29, 2010 15:18:19 GMT -5
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Jul 29, 2010 17:40:44 GMT -5
On the subject of scanners: does anyone use Vuescan software? If so how do you think it compares that provided with the scanner?
Peter, certainly colour printing isn't easy. Black and white is difficult enough. Photoshop is much easier and saves hours in a darkroom for just a few decent prints.
With digital I tend to take many more photos than I did with film, so, in a sense, the speed of Photoshop is a self fulfilling prophecy necessity.
Last summer the local photo club, Heswall, had its annual exhibition: I'm not a member. I wandered round. There were all the variations of subject and quality. There was one panel, however, in which the photos had a clarity and denseness in the colour (particularly in the reds) that was missing in the others. That panel was from film with darkroom enlargement. Of course it could just be that the person who did those was more skilled than any of the digital people, and that was the difference rather than the medium.
John, I like your 'Ars gratia arses'.
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Post by nikonbob on Jul 29, 2010 18:04:52 GMT -5
Mickey
That is a little over the top, But ..............
Daveh
I have a Minolta 5400 and have only used the Minolta software to get a basic scan without major adjustments. I did the PP in PSE. I also found that with the film holder supplies the negs weren't really held flat but if you manually picked a focus point slightly in from the long edge and with good contrast you some times got a much sharper scan. I think that by doing this the DOF of the scanner lens would then cover the whole depth of any curl there was to the neg. Anyway, just a though and no proof to back it up.
Bob
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