Funking the M8 image

[scaryink]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I must say that the comments on this thread are some of the most well thought out and deep discussions I have seen on this forum - from just about every post actually.

 

I also shoot both film (mostly 8x10, 4x5 and MF, with alot of love and clicking on my M4-p and M7) and digital. I shoot more with the M8 lately as it allows the instant feedback for what Im attempting to accomplish with the kit.

 

I have a calibrated system for digital and film using a high end CRT for color correction, LF is scanned using my Creo Eversmart Pro and MF, sf using my Nikon 8000. I am quite technologically proficient as I use the digital cameras extensively as an assistant in my oil paintings and moving paintings. Many of my conceptual sketches and mockups are created using sketchbook pro and art rage.

 

The limitations of screen technology are really what is irksome to me. Edward Tufte describes screen resolution as truly comparable to stone age carvings. The web is great for information sharing, and for the alphabet its mostly OK. For serious high resolution work however, it is laughable.

 

Also my gf happens to be an absolute master teacher of photoshop and illustrator and she kicks my ass when I attempt any cheap tricks of any kind .

 

There are some wonderful photomanips to be sure, and the possibilities are just beginning to be explored. Its just some of the atrocities to these dng files should be tried by an international tribunal for mass image homicide

[thompsonkirk]

I think Stephen started with the right point - it's hard to be clear about the difference between what does & doesn't make a good print on the web, because you can see only the web & not the print. There are several reasons for the difference. I'll mention these first & then try to say something about excessive contrast, oversaturation, & oversharpening. And I hope Jaap (or others) will respond too, as requested.

 

First, monitors use transmitted light; papers have to 'make do' with reflected light. Until we all (like Jeff Wall) begin using light boxes instead of paper to display our final output, the 2 ways of displaying images are not commensurate. No matter how well you calibrate your monitor, it can't look like paper.

 

Second, pigment inks have their limitations. It's as if you scaled down the Zone system, which had 7 usable zones, II through VIII, to about III-VII. (Exception: I recall that Bill Parsons uses special carbon inks for BW.) In effect, for good pigment ink printing, you have to be content with a somewhat gentler & subtler pallette. The Cibrachrome-Velvia look can be imitated on the web with high saturation that would ruin a pigment print. Yet this is not necessarily a loss; it's a trade-off for much subtler shadow detail & in some areas subtler tonal gradations. (Some of us disliked Cibachrome anyway & preferred Type C.)

 

Second, the web image is 72 ppi. Many people print at 240, & the (Canon) printer I use is happy to work with 16-bit files @ 600 ppi. At printer resolutions, tonal gradations are more complex. Fine transitions matter so much more, & 'out of gamut' colors - those where the printer 'runs out of color space' & becomes one solid color, without gradations - are much more apparent. At 72 ppi, in contrast, the oversaturation of a color isn't as ugly, because you couldn't see in the first place the subtler tonal gradations that have been lost.

 

Finally, what looks OK by way of sharpening in a monitor-sized image can become a mass of artifacts in a medium or large print. For the Web & small prints, Smart Sharpening is OK, but for fine printing especially in laarger sizes it's wiser to use a more complex tool like the Photokit Sharpener that automates the application of 2 kinds of sharpening, High Pass & USM, first at the conversion level, & then again at the output level. This way you get 4 different 'maps' of sharpening in a large print & no build-up of artifacts from any one mode.

 

With all that said about how you can't show what a good print looks like on the Internet, it's still not hard to see excessive contrast, oversaturation, & oversharpening here.

 

Excessive contrast: you can't see shadows inside the shadows, or highlights inside the highlights (excluding deliberately blacked out areas & specular or reflective highlights). On the one hand, the poster might say he or she 'wants' or 'likes' lots of contrast. This is a statement one can accept only from folks who know how to avoid it most of the time; it's not a valid claim by anyone who couldn't do otherwise. Loss of shadow & highlight detail comes mostly from incorrect exposure, & is only partly correctable in post-processing (Fill & Recovery; Shadow/Highlight Adjustment; Curves.)

 

Oversaturation: Unless you thought Velvia looked great, oversaturation is when the colors are ramped up to a vividness that wouldn't have been there in the so-called real world. The worst effect is 'out of gamut' color - color numbers that are theoretically possible but can't be reproduced on monitors, let alone paper, so that the monitor or print just shows everything it can & then reduces what's left to whatever brightest solid color it can produce. Again, you have artistic license; but if you don't really have control, then your license is revoked. Oversaturation comes -

--partly from a JPEG saturation setting (shoot RAW); partly from thinking that the Vibrance & Saturation sliders move only one way, to the right;

--partly from using Curves in the Normal rather than the Luminance mode. Normal has the effect of boosting saturation in the areas that you brighten; luminance changes lightness/darkness without affecting color. The Adobe Vibrance sliders try to increase saturation of the middle ranges of colors without pushing them beyond reproducible limits, & are very useful for that reason.

--And if an image is really really flat you can PP it without excessive saturation by converting it temporarily to LAB Color & playing some tricks that you'll find elsewhere in this forum or on the Internet.

 

Oversharpening is pretty easy to see on the Web as well as in prints. It produces 'sharpening artifacts' and little halos around the edges of things. There's really no such thing as 'sharpening' - it's just an increase in edge contrast, & when this is too high an exaggerated edge & finally a white line appears between what used to be adjacent pixels. Besides edges looking this way, gravel starts to look like crumpled tinfoil, outlines (especially where there's a lot of contrast) become halos or white lines, & pores & wrinkles start to look like objects in their own right rather than what your Leitz or Leica lens appropriately recorded. Hair looks like straw & beards like moss. You can be an especially good judge of oversharpening if you happen to be myopic: take off your glasses, go closer to the image than other viewers, & see if artifacts are apparent up close.

--Often the solution to oversharpening is not sharpening at all. For the Web, just choosing Bicubic Sharper when you change the image to 800 ppi is usually enough.

--For printing small, use Smart Sharpening gently; for large prints, use a more complex tool like PhotoKit Sharpener.

 

This is all I can say right now - have to plan a hike for my hiking group tomorrow. Much of what I've said is not technically 'true' but only metaphorically suggestive -. these are what are called 'heuristics' or rules of thumb, not real explanations.

 

Others please help too & correct as necessary!

 

Kirk

 

PS, I wonder if this whole thread is on the wrong sub-forum & ought to be moved over to Digital PP?

[yanidel]

I am part of those ones that do a lot of post processing. I basically apply the same routine on raw files extracted from the M8, R-D1 and DP2. Yet, the end results are very different. I find the processed files of the M8 at 160-320 way better to the other ones. More punchy, more detail and simply "smoother".

 

As for the rest, this 2009, film is almost forgotten by 99% of the population in Western countries. There is no point in comparing film to digital, nor to try to imitate film. Digital is a simpler, faster and opens up much more creative possibities (that is after the click). In two words, this is a new mean of artistic expression that has no rules/limits on what the photog does with the file.