Hi Elaine: (et ali)
Here is my point: A skilled photographer takes an image of my
jewelry using an SLR with SLIDE FILM in it. The film is developed. I
have a box of slides. I take them out, look at them, they are
perfect. They do not need Photoshop before I put them in the slide
carousel. See? Images should be perfect right out of the camera,
whether that camera is digital or film. It is illogical to say,
let's all take pictures which we know are inadequate, and then
spend an hour per picture fixing them on the computer.
The point I’ve been trying to make is that the image on the slide
isn’t perfect when it comes out of the camera. It can’t be. Even on
the best slide film, with the best photographer on earth, it’s still
not even close to good enough for any use other than loading it into
a slide carousel, and projecting it on a wall. In terms of layout and
composition, it may be great, but in terms of image quality, it’s
just a starting place. If you want to actually do anything with it
besides project that one, singular piece of film on a screen, you
have to convert it to digital somehow. If you want to print it in any
way at all, it has to be digital. If you want to put it on your
website, it has to be digital. If you want to dupe it, it’d better
be digital. (the digital slide copy systems are much better than
the old optical rigs, but the very first thing they do is…digitize
the input slide. They’re good, but they don’t always get it right.
It’s better to start with a properly corrected file, and drive the
recorder directly, rather than relying on what it thinks your image
should look like.) Getting a ‘photographic’ print of the slide? No.
That’s digital too these days. Look close, it’s probably even an
ink-jet print. Unless you’re souping it yourself, in your own
darkroom, by hand, chances are good that anything you do with that
image besides look at that one original slide is going to be
happening digitally. (Having souped color prints myself, by hand, I
jumped on the photoshop bandwagon as soon as I knew it existed. You
think Photoshop’s hard? Try color enlarging.)
The fact that photoshop lets us fix just about anything has touched
off a sort of ‘image inflation’. Little things like teeny little bits
of dust, or minute color color casts that nobody would have ever
noticed 10-15 years ago now stand out like giant neon signs. So they
must be fixed. For example: I used to shoot my ‘serious’ stuff on
very high-end slide film, with a pro SLR, and properly balanced
lights. (at midnight, under a new moon, after having thrown sterling
lemel over my left shoulder, while reciting from Theophilus.) A few
years back, I had all the prime images from those sessions scanned
by a pro lab. In analyzing those images now, even they have color
casts. Very, very small ones, but much more than I’d tolerate in a
final image now. I never noticed them at the time.
Likewise dust, blown highlights, and other horrors that can be
chalked off to me not really knowing what I was doing. Those slides
were still good enough to get me into grad school. Looking at them
now, they’re positively embarrassing, but I can remember being
pleased with how good they looked at the time. The standards have
gone sky high since then.
In terms of doing anything with an image, slide film has a
tremendous dynamic range, far greater than any output system I know
anything about. So if you’re going to do anything other than project
that piece of film on a wall, it’s going to get reduced in range,
somewhere, somehow. Personally, I’d rather that I be the one who
decides what parts of the range get traded away, and why. Equally,
all output systems are not created equal. Depending on what I’m
doing, and why, I may need to tweak up several different versions of
an image, one for each target media. The source image may have been
great, but it can’t be right for the web, a 4C sales slick, and a
backlit booth display, all at once. Back during the days of film, we
couldn’t really tweak it, so we ignored the issue, and made the best
of what we couldn’t change.
Even then (and still) you can ‘mess’ with your image in the camera.
All slide films are not created equal. For example: I originally
started shooting on Kodachrome 160T, which was a film that was
designed to give a fairly ‘flat’ and even color rendition. (under
tungsten lights) Then I discovered Fuji Velvia. And the colors
exploded. Velvia was a daylight film that was designed to really
saturate the colors. It wasn’t (quite) over the edge into un-
realistic super saturation, but my god did the colors pop. Which one
was ‘perfect’ right out of the camera?? They’re both optical,
untouched by photoshop, but they gave vastly different results.
Elaine: In re-reading this, and looking at your responses to other
messages in the thread, I think we’re talking about different
aspects of the image, and making that image ‘right’.
I’m talking (at some length, I’m afraid) about the technical aspects
of getting an image to appear pleasing when displayed across a
variety of media. Fidelity to the ‘real’ piece is of absolutely no
concern to me when I’m working in that world. I’ll quite cheerfully
punch the color saturation through the roof for marketing pieces. The
client wants to grab your attention with the image. They care not at
all if the image is an ‘accurate’ representation of a physical object
that you’ll never see. (what color -exactly- is the hope diamond
anyway? )
Meanwhile, I think you’re talking about issues of layout, lighting
and composition, and how the object itself relates to the image
frame, correct?
In that sense, it is possible to have a perfectly fine image,
straight out of the camera. From my point of view, that’s just the
start of the process of making a final image. It’s sort of like
casting: you can have a perfectly fine piece once you cut off the
sprues, but you’ll have a much better piece if you polish it
afterwards.
Regards,
Brian.