Digitally manipulated Large Format Picture

[Greenspeed]

Just wondering whether anyone here does manipulation of their digitally scanned large format files.

For example, I have replaced boring skies with one taken with a digital camera. Not sure whether this board is tolerant of hybrid pictures.

Thanks

[Lenny Eiger]

I think you will find it fairly tolerant here. People do all sorts of things....

Lenny

[Peter De Smidt]

That sort of thing, replacing skies in photographic prints, has been going on for well over 100 years. For more extreme manipulations, consider the work of Jerry Uelsmann.

[Kirk Gittings]

Carlton Watkins.

[Greenspeed]

Thanks all.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8389/8499432739_05f0a95353_b.jpg

Here's an example I did with replacing the sky. The base pic was captured on 8 x 10 (Fuji Velvia). The sky was digitally captured with a Sony DSLR.

[Brian Ellis]

Carlton Watkins.

And hundreds of other 19th century landscape photographers.

[rich815]

As long as you're upfront and explicit about the process and not try to pass it off as a single exposure I see no issues. Nice montage.

[uphereinmytree]

I don't really see the point in manipulating large format scans for a 'better image' beyond tonal control, sharpening etc.. I rarely see images where extreme manipulations are not detectable which devalues my viewing experience (IMO). I have done manipulations such as removing a sign or a piece of garbage that becomes distracting. Something I should have noticed at the time of capture. I do think that for creative artistic purpose it's absolutely valid, but should be made known to a potential buyer or collector.

[Lenny Eiger]

Greenspeed,
You didn't ask for feedback but you did post the image. I personally don't see that you improved the image with this sky vs any other. You have a very beautiful foreground with delicious smooth tones. I think the issue with the image is more one of working out the design. I generally try to crop in the camera as much as possible but to adjust this image I would probably take most of the sky out altogether. In fact, I might just cut the image in half.

I can clearly see a halo along the mountains which makes me thinks it was digitally manipulated and it seems to take away from what you originally saw. On one hand, you are looking at these delicious tones in nature, on the other you are looking at impressive lightning bolts. These are two different images that you are trying to press into one. I find it is better to try and tell one story at a time.

I applaud you for trying different and new things, I see no problem in mixing scanned and digitally captured. However, I think the seeing is the most important thing. I think you have to look at why you took the image in the first place and focus on that. Design is a very important part of shooting landscape and most of the time I feel is has to be overdone to work properly.

I don't mean to give you a hard time. I hope this is helpful.

Lenny

[tenderobject]

I know this would be stupid question to some here but would there be any advantage of shooting 8x10, scanned film and manipulate in computer software than just shooting it on a Hi-End digital camera? Maybe i'm just a purist or clueless. I shoot film to get what film can do. I do post processing as minimal as i can though not adding/subtracting any elements. Thati haven't done yet but if i do i would call it as graphic arts not photos but i know thats another story. Anyway, i haven't embraced that kind of process that is why i want to know.

[David R Munson]

I know this would be stupid question to some here but would there be any advantage of shooting 8x10, scanned film and manipulate in computer software than just shooting it on a Hi-End digital camera?

You can buy a hell of a lot of film for the cost of an IQ260.

Besides, a lot of us have found there to be a lot of great things to be gained by adopting a hybrid process. By shooting film and then scanning it, I am able to get results I couldn't get by working only in a traditional darkroom environment. I see it as a way (for me, at least) to get more out of my process than if I were to stick to a purely film or digital workflow.

[tenderobject]

Thanks david.

Hey, i love your site :)


You can buy a hell of a lot of film for the cost of an IQ260.

Besides, a lot of us have found there to be a lot of great things to be gained by adopting a hybrid process. By shooting film and then scanning it, I am able to get results I couldn't get by working only in a traditional darkroom environment. I see it as a way (for me, at least) to get more out of my process than if I were to stick to a purely film or digital workflow.

[David R Munson]

Thanks!

[Lenny Eiger]

I know this would be stupid question to some here but would there be any advantage of shooting 8x10, scanned film and manipulate in computer software than just shooting it on a Hi-End digital camera? Maybe i'm just a purist or clueless. I shoot film to get what film can do. I do post processing as minimal as i can though not adding/subtracting any elements. Thati haven't done yet but if i do i would call it as graphic arts not photos but i know thats another story. Anyway, i haven't embraced that kind of process that is why i want to know.

This has been discussed here over and over. I would suggest you read through a few threads....

My answer (for me) is yes, there is a clear advantage. I am interested in printing full tonal images. Digital cameras aren't there yet, and those that are getting close cost $50,000.

Lenny

[sanking]

You can buy a hell of a lot of film for the cost of an IQ260.

Besides, a lot of us have found there to be a lot of great things to be gained by adopting a hybrid process. By shooting film and then scanning it, I am able to get results I couldn't get by working only in a traditional darkroom environment. I see it as a way (for me, at least) to get more out of my process than if I were to stick to a purely film or digital workflow.

Completely agree. Shooting film and then scanning it for either printing in the darkroom or with an inkjet printer is very exciting.

And hybrid also works great where capture is with digital, and the final print is with some type of traditional wet process via a digital negative.

Sandy

[Greenspeed]

Greenspeed,
You didn't ask for feedback but you did post the image. I personally don't see that you improved the image with this sky vs any other. You have a very beautiful foreground with delicious smooth tones. I think the issue with the image is more one of working out the design. I generally try to crop in the camera as much as possible but to adjust this image I would probably take most of the sky out altogether. In fact, I might just cut the image in half.

I can clearly see a halo along the mountains which makes me thinks it was digitally manipulated and it seems to take away from what you originally saw. On one hand, you are looking at these delicious tones in nature, on the other you are looking at impressive lightning bolts. These are two different images that you are trying to press into one. I find it is better to try and tell one story at a time.

I applaud you for trying different and new things, I see no problem in mixing scanned and digitally captured. However, I think the seeing is the most important thing. I think you have to look at why you took the image in the first place and focus on that. Design is a very important part of shooting landscape and most of the time I feel is has to be overdone to work properly.

I don't mean to give you a hard time. I hope this is helpful.

Lenny

Thanks Lenny and others for your feedbacks.

[Kodachrome25]

Not a chance, I either got it in camera or I did not get it, life is too short to fake it in terms of what I want out of my photographs and what they say to viewers. Maybe if I did not make a great living at photography, I might not care, but in a world where "Real is the New Fake" I can not even deal with shooting digital anything anymore, let alone inventing it in photoshop.

Sorry if this does not sit well, but you *did* ask...:-)


Just wondering whether anyone here does manipulation of their digitally scanned large format files.

For example, I have replaced boring skies with one taken with a digital camera. Not sure whether this board is tolerant of hybrid pictures.

Thanks

[SpeedGraphicMan]

Yes, mostly retouching on portraits, though...

[Kirk Gittings]

Just wondering whether anyone here does manipulation of their digitally scanned large format files.

For example, I have replaced boring skies with one taken with a digital camera. Not sure whether this board is tolerant of hybrid pictures.

Thanks

Its an art form not courtroom evidence. Do what you need to do -just don't misrepresent it.

[Andrew O'Neill]

For more extreme manipulations, consider the work of Jerry Uelsmann.

And as far as I know, he still only works with film, and does the printing in the darkroom. Which is bloody amazing in this day and age! Personally, I work with film only, or hybrid ( scanned 4x5 or 8x10) to make digital negs for kallitypes or carbon transfer prints. The digital age has opened up way more possibilities for me.

[Drew Wiley]

Uelsmann was completely transparent. Nobdody ever mistook anything he did for a real scene. It was pure whimsy from start
to finish. And the old timers dubbed in clouds with a separate neg because their blue-sensitive films had trouble taking it all
in with one shot. Later some of them used creosin red dye. Guess once in awhile I can tolerate artificial crab meat made from
polock, but not burgers made from tofu. There's a point at which making a photograph of something you never witnessed turns my stomach. Twice in my life I have actually witnessed a true apricot-violet dusk in the mnountains, once after Mt Pinatubo exploded, once after a similar eruption. I got one of those on LF chrome. If I ever bothered to print them, someone
old school would simply accuse me of using a colored grad, and anyone younger would tell me I should have tweaked it some
more in Fauxtoshop like they do all the time. The difference is I actually lived it, saw it, experienced it ... and it was pretty
incredible. Pity them.

[sanking]

And as far as I know, he still only works with film, and does the printing in the darkroom. Which is bloody amazing in this day and age! Personally, I work with film only, or hybrid ( scanned 4x5 or 8x10) to make digital negs for kallitypes or carbon transfer prints. The digital age has opened up way more possibilities for me.

There was an article on Uelsmann recently in the Smithsonian and it mentioned that he still only works with film.

But does it make any difference if he does it with film or digital? People were doing this kind of combination printing with film long before Uelsmann, he just came along at a time when it was accepted by the art world and it became his signature work. But it is art, not documentary evidence.

Sandy

[Drew Wiley]

It might not make any difference, though there was no choice at the time he began. What would make a difference is if all
these PS wannabees took a look at Uelsmann's actual prints and saw just how seamless they are. Carving wood with a
chainsaw might be a lot faster, but ...

[sanking]

It might not make any difference, though there was no choice at the time he began. What would make a difference is if all
these PS wannabees took a look at Uelsmann's actual prints and saw just how seamless they are. Carving wood with a
chainsaw might be a lot faster, but ...

Yes, the work is awfully well done. I have a close friend who owns one of the very large Uelsmann prints, one of his signature images in fact, and I have often admired his technique.

But we are talking about a master printer at what he did/does. I know some people who are masters of PS and can do incredible things, let's not compare hack work of wannabees with that of masters.

Sandy

[Kodachrome25]

But does it make any difference if he does it with film or digital?

It's going to make a difference to some and not to others. It makes a huge difference to me especially considering how ubiquitous "Compu-Art" has become. I don't even care to see it let alone make it.

Drew, I remember those crazy sunsets from the eruptions of Pinatubo, I made a bunch of wonderful Kodachromes while at sea off the coast of San Diego on an aircraft carrier. I think civil twilight started up to an hour earlier than usual due to how high in the atmosphere it was...truly incredible light.

[Drew Wiley]

Yes Sandy, I know a number of people doing superb things with PS... but they're using it as a tool, not as an excuse... and I
think they put every bit as much work into their prints this way as they did back in their darkroom days. And I realize the
importance of this and analogous technology to making high-quality separations or enlarged negs for the kind of work you do.
But I think you get my point .... it's pretty darn hard in this day and age not to open some "picture book" or walk into some
alleged landscape photographer's gallery and not run into work that just comes across as fake. It's a pimping out of nature,
as far as I'm concerned - turning it into a cheap whore slathered with tacky loud makeup. That's no way to treat a woman
who is naturally beautiful.

[Nathan Potter]

"It's a pimping out of nature, as far as I'm concerned - turning it into a cheap whore slathered with tacky loud makeup. That's no way to treat a woman
who is naturally beautiful".[/QUOTE]

Drew, well said, and also my view when I see nature and landscapes. But perhaps not always. In some cases the manipulations enhance what the artist is trying to convey, but it takes great skill to do it discretely and well.

But generally photographic art is a wide open medium for me. I tend to think almost anything goes including all the alternative processes in all their manifestations. Photo collage, which I've never seen here, I particularly like when done well. Stuff I used to do using intermediate Ektacolor 4109 color dupe film mixed with solarization then printed on Cibachrome was a complete corruption of reality but done for a purpose. It allowed me to inject far more emotion into the viewer than with the original straight versions. No PS involved with these.

There is a continuum between straight reality and complete abstraction in photographs. An image of reality allows you to communicate your idea directly and undistorted to a viewer while an abstract image requires the viewer to supply the idea from within themselves. IMO there is room for both in fine art.

I hope on this forum that anything goes as long as there is a piece of large format film involved somewhere in the process.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Drew Wiley]

Philosophically, I think there's a difference between deliberately doing something unrealisitic as some kind of conspicious
art form and doing it to deceive. I also think thinks this differs from minor controls of contrast etc to simply bring out what
we actually saw, making it more noticable to the viewer. Most digital fakery is pretty obvious. We expect it in the movies
nowadays, though even there it frequently becomes a substitute for intelligent lighting and camera work. By contrast, some
of the old timers like Vittoria Sella would dub figures into his landscapes from separate negs, and it was almost a century
before someone detected the subterfuge. A friend of mine was appalled when he found out that his documentary photographer here, Eugene Smith, had faked some of his most famous images. ... so I guess if someone is going to pull the
wool over your eyes, they should at least have the courtesy to do it with a bit of finesse!

[Lenny Eiger]

it's pretty darn hard in this day and age not to open some "picture book" or walk into some
alleged landscape photographer's gallery and not run into work that just comes across as fake.

I think we should have a very wide view of what is "valid" as fine art. Having said this, what you are referring to I also find objectionable. However, I see the cause for this as a lack of understanding. We have an extensive, interesting History of Photography and they know none of it. The don't understand the justification for clicking the shutter at a particular moment, the types of things people have done before and so they are destined to repeat it. They will start with images that have no meaning to them and spend 20 years or so trying to figure out what is wrong.

They could have read a book or two, or looked at one, educated themselves, and saved a lot of time. For photography to be interesting it has to be about something. All of those folks who are taking pretty pictures, or redoing what others have done, are at the very beginning of an aesthetic journey. Sometimes they hang out in that space for many years, if they don't consider others' work they will likely be there forever.

For the rest of us, its much more fun to look at someone who's journey has brought them to an aesthetic that is educated, serious, well developed, rich with layers of meaning.

At that point it doesn't matter about the technology used...


Lenny

[Drew Wiley]

There are going to be all kinds of artsy/craftsy things going on all the time, with their own respective trends; then there is
always a lot of artsy/fartsy "fine-art" pretentiousness with its own fads and cycles. At one time here in the Bay Area there
was almost a plague of "surrealist" Uelsmann wannabees, whose final prints looked like they were done with pinking shears
(equivalent Natl Enquirer comps). Now it's a plague of PS trash, damn near ubiquitous in the scenic genre. We're a junk food
society, even visually. People sit on their ass and make this stuff up, sometimes using shots they never even took themselves. I could care less how they did it. And I don't have a problem with hobbyists just having fun, regardless of format
or technique. Whoring is a different issue...

[Kirk Gittings]

I felt the same way about a lot of the Velvia landscape work too.

[Jim collum]

I felt the same way about a lot of the Velvia landscape work too.

+1 ... it's usually about as real as the current gen of HDR work .. not always.. both can be done tastefully.. but not usually

[Drew Wiley]

Velvia was wonderful for differentiating things in very low contrast fog situations (common here), and would handle certain
shades of green better than anything else. I was nice to have in the potential tool kit, though I never personally used it for
the noise potential, and almost never loaded it for 8x

[Jim collum]

another pair that does manipulation.. almost all done outside the computer http://www.parkeharrison.com/architect-s-brother

[Drew Wiley]

...(twitchy finger)... almost never loaded it for 8x10 use; though with 4x5 and long lenses, a slight boost in contrast was
helpful at time, like cutting through smoke haze (ironically to create very soft warm shots with Velvia). When I was printing
Ciba, Velvia amounted to maybe 5% of my total color film usage. ... just too contrasty to be versatile. I like to create rich
color by modulating it, often in the presence of neutrals, or juxtaposing rare hues against one another. Effective color is more
about hue relationships than noise. Too much jam and honey on the sugar cube and you can't taste anything... your taste buds go numb. That's something that most scenic or color "landscape" photographers never do figure out. For them, it's all
about cranking up the volume until everyone becomes deaf.

[Jim collum]

that trend has followed into the digital realm. I've always believed there should be an electric feedback loop attached to the saturation slider in photoshop .. make it painful to slide it up :)

both digital and film can cross the line to 'kitsch'. I think one of the issues boils down to editing. Before adding to and image (color saturation, additional clouds.. does doing so actually add something to the 'message'

[ROL]

I remember those crazy sunsets from the eruptions of Pinatubo, I made a bunch of wonderful Kodachromes while at sea off the coast of San Diego on an aircraft carrier. I think civil twilight started up to an hour earlier than usual due to how high in the atmosphere it was...truly incredible light.

I have no doubt it was just as you say. While in graduate school, I worked as a research assistant on a study of the effect on solar radiation by atmospheric aerosols originating from a massive eruption a few years earlier from El Chichon, in Mexico. The ejection of particulates high into the stratosphere from specific eruptions such as these spread around the globe via upper air currents within the year, making for increased Rayleigh scattering of light at low angles (i.e, sunsets, sunrises). The same thing was, of course, observed for years after the catastrophic 1883 eruption of Krakatoa. But, of more significance was the degree (pun unintended) of cooling that occurred globally. I recall the Pinatubo eruption resulted in many of the same consequences. Here's the crux of the matter. Global warming was temporarily mitigated by these random events, and has been used by local elected congressional "scientific experts" (:p), to deny and disparage the supporting science of climate change.


...and now back to our regular programming (The More You Know).

[Drew Wiley]

ROL - I happened to be up around Lk Ediza during the height of the Pinatubo effect and got a 4x5 chrome of the sunset over
Ritter and Banner. Then for the later event more recently, I sqiggled my way with the 8x10 onto a point where I had a full
evening view of Tower Peak and the whole meadow complex below it, with the reflections in the Walker Riv (below Sonora Pass - you no doubt know the area). Both shots are a little too "picture-booky" for my personal taste, so I never did print them - it was more a personal memento. If you walked into Mtn Light gallery you'd see dozens of more spectacular colors -
all fake via either grads or PS or both. ... but that global warming "hoax" thing.... I was studying it in the 70's when the oil
were funding all the hard data (they still do - they needed to get their rigs into the arctic, and want them in Arctic Ocean
now - so glad I have also gotten a number of posterity shots of certain glaciers both in the Sierras and Cascades which now
no longer even exist!)

[Drew Wiley]

Bad timing I guess, but just a few moments ago was chatting with a customer who is a good friend of the Weston family,
but does high-end remodeling here; and he walked out yeseterday on a rich client who used the "hoax" diatribe. Like I just
implied, the biggest belivers in the world in the fact of warming are the oil co's who have everything to gain by accelerating it, yet with very tricky engineering concerns which they been studying for decades at considerable expense. In the continental
US they just don't want to pay for more refinery scrubbing, so they pay big bucks to certain politicos to deny it here while studying it up north. My nephew has done quite a few studis in the Cascades for his geophysics firm, and like I said, I was
quite aware of this a long time ago, but mainly due to my interest in paeloclimate parallels at the end of the Pleistocene.
There are some pretty remarkable periglacial features down in your area, but I keep them quiet due to their undisturbed
nature.

[Kodachrome25]

For the rest of us, its much more fun to look at someone who's journey has brought them to an aesthetic that is educated, serious, well developed, rich with layers of meaning.

At that point it doesn't matter about the technology used...

I like this, agree with it...but I still don't want to look at digital output, LOL!

[Lenny Eiger]

I like this, agree with it...but I still don't want to look at digital output, LOL!

Well, thanks.

However, I will add that I have a print I have made over the years, in silver, platinum and now inkjet. The silver contact print (on Azo in Amidol) pales by comparison, the platinum is so much richer. After some working at it, I have made an inkjet print on Kozo that matches (actually exceeds) the quality of the platinum.

If you put the two of them next to each other I guarantee you would not be able to tell which was which. They match, tonal area by tonal area.

You may not want to look, and you may not want to leave your darkroom. However, all these technologies are just technologies and while there are differences in the methodologies, in the right hands, there may be no difference (or they may be quite similar) in the results.

I would agree that mediocre printing is hard to look at - in any medium.

I say everyone should just do it however they want to and we should all just respect each other, and look at the art for what it brings to us.

Lenny

[Drew Wiley]

Besides personal preferences, sometimes it just boils down to the specific image ... and at a certain level of refinement, I don't think anyone can quantify it or prove anything using knowledge this side of voodoo. I'm pretty darn good at bagging a
precise negative in the first place, but after that, I gotta fool around and change my mind any number of time, and maybe even wait a decade to print the thing in a whole different manner ... Sometimes I like to make conspicuous variations, and
all of them come out well. But I'm not a xerox machine. I do have my personal workflow preferences and tastes, but admire
any medium which is well done. ... There are obviously categories of pretense I despise, but this could apply equally to
darkroom tripe as to digital.

[Preston]

I say everyone should just do it however they want to and we should all just respect each other, and look at the art for what it brings to us.

Lenny

+1. My sentiments exactly.

--P

[brian mcweeney]

+1 more.