Film and digital

[tobey bilek]

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I was reading the post below on the M9 vs the M7 and how digital can`t replace film because someone likes the look of certain colors.

 

You may not like the representation of certain colors on digital, but you always have the choice to change them. You can not do this with film unless you depend on different emulsions or you digitize it.

 

Digital makes better prints than what most people got from film at consumer labs in the USA.

 

Now the issue is we expect way more from the process than we ever expected from film. Before if the print was color balanced and the right density, we were happy. Now we complain if the red is a little orange or saturated so it looks like a fire truck or of the grass has too much yellow.

 

Now we can adjust individual colors to suit, dodge and burn, and send the file off for printing.

 

Now the problem is education is required from the people to perform the manipulations and the learning curve is steep and long if you are to get perfection.

[cmatter]

... and I agree, heartily. All in all, this is a very silly "comparison". I remember the flaming arguments about this that raged on various on-line forums for the last 15 years or so... from the old PDN Forum, the Galbraith Forum, and now here.

Process are merely tools; and they inevitably change.. evolve. Digital imaging is the most fundamental and important process change to occur in the art (or craft) of photography since it was invented. People are certainly free to dismiss digital imaging, for whatever reasons. But I personally cannot see the logic of doing so. All photographic images are illusions, anyway.. smoke and mirrors, designed to trick our eyes and brains into seeing space and depth... etc. where there is none. I doubt Edward Weston would have been so stubborn.

 

CDM

NY, NY