Unsharp masking

[Michael Kadillak]

It can "fix" certain things. But well-controlled masking can do things none of those other procedures can, including the digital mimic going by the same name. I just finished printing two masked images today. I need reading glasses to sell all the detail, but it almost looks mico-etched 3d. The print surface almost seems alive. Howard Bond never took it to the next level, but he could bring out a greater range of tones than otherwise. I don't think I've ever masked a b&w portrait. But for the right subject matter it can yield stunning results. Like anything else, don't expect consistently high results overnight. There is really quite a bit to doing it well. But it's not hard to get started. Today I was combining it with a number of other tricks: split printing, dodging & burning, very subtle split toning, but no bleaching this time.

Great. I remember reading about Paul Strand working on a negative for a week before he felt it was "correct". Lets fast forward to the real world.

Reality check. Nobody has unlimited resources to dabble with photography to their hearts content because we all have requirements on us in paying our bills and funding our retirement. As a result the time and resources we would like to expend in photographic endeavors are inherently limited and desperately induce the highest efficiency level physically possible. In figuring out how advance the photographic skill sets within this constrictive environment called reality induces a get real mentality of efficiency driven by higher cost materials and limited time resources. Welcome to the Brave New World.

[Drew Wiley]

Reality check? I've worked hard all my life, paid all my bills and taxes, taken care of my family, and frankly, earned my retirement income. That fact doesn't deprive me of the right to make high quality prints if I want to. There are plenty of poor people who spend more money every week at the gas station on beer, cigarettes, and lottery tickets than I spend on photographic supplies per month. Yeah, sheet film is expensive. But it's not machine gun fodder either.

[faberryman]

There are plenty of poor people who spend more money every week at the gas station on beer, cigarettes, and lottery tickets than I spend on photographic supplies per month.

Well, that is certainly revealing.

[Michael Kadillak]

Reality check? I've worked hard all my life, paid all my bills and taxes, taken care of my family, and frankly, earned my retirement income. That fact doesn't deprive me of the right to make high quality prints if I want to. There are plenty of poor people who spend more money every week at the gas station on beer, cigarettes, and lottery tickets than I spend on photographic supplies per month. Yeah, sheet film is expensive. But it's not machine gun fodder either.

Why in this culture do people consistently take comments personally. I am trying to contribute to the edification of the broader context of promoting large format photography to the forward literary library and offering reasonable alternatives that facilitate keeping the faith in a challenged lifestyle and continuing to purchase sheet film and honing their craft. It is not about you. Similarly, there is no reason to deconstruct the conversation to cast a negative context on individuals that smoke, drink, buy lottery tickets or shoot machine guns. Quite sincerely this could describe anyone in the military. Just saying.....

[Mrportr8]

Why in this culture do people consistently take comments personally. I am trying to contribute to the edification of the broader context of promoting large format photography to the forward literary library and offering reasonable alternatives that facilitate keeping the faith in a challenged lifestyle and continuing to purchase sheet film and honing their craft. It is not about you. Similarly, there is no reason to deconstruct the conversation to cast a negative context on individuals that smoke, drink, buy lottery tickets or shoot machine guns. Quite sincerely this could describe anyone in the military. Just saying.....

Hey guys let's take it down a notch please? Like any craft it takes TIME to hone your skills and develop your own personal style. This doesn't happen overnight whether you're a woodworker, potter, blacksmith, you get the drift. Time and money spent over many years of practice and making countless mistakes is worth far more than any printed page or sage advice. We each work and learn at our own pace and to our own satisfaction.

[Drew Wiley]

What on earth does that have to do with masking? Do specific film developers each have differing sociological implications?

[Mrportr8]

How about coming at this issue from a divergent angle.

Rather than force a commitment to learning the iterative and elaborate procedures such as masking to fix troublesome negatives, how about spending that time intelligently on the front end of your photography to fine tune your exposure and development procedures so you consistently produce bullet proof negatives? Then the fix exercise becomes a rare if ever event.

Lessons I have learned the hard way toward that objective. Only change one variable at a time in fine tuning your exposure and development process. Each sheet of film needs individual development. Use your eyes more and your meter less. Take an iPhone snap of your composition to evaluate produced tonalities in the final product. Lastly, take good notes and stay disciplined and on track as long as it takes to produce a no dodge/burn final print.

I don't think it does much to fix a problem negative as it does help to enrich local contrast by upping the paper grade required for a good print. The problem in film is that there is a limited range of light to dark values that can be adequately captured and rendered. Mostly this is in the low values where the characteristic curve is quite shallow and contrast is suppressed. The unsharp mask that Howard Bond utilized raised these values into the higher portion where the paper could render more separation. In a sense you're compressing the gamma of the film without suppressing the contrast in the mid and upper values as reduced development would. It's an extra tool in your toolbox should you need it.

[Drew Wiley]

That's one of the applications for a mask, the one that came into play today. There are many others. I've been making masks for nearly 40 years, mostly for color printing, but obviously sometimes for b&w too. It can be as simple or as complex as you wish. But there meeting fact that PS mimics it with the same terminology proves how seriously it was taken by the printing industry all along.

[Drew Wiley]

Did you know you can even tweak image tone with a mask? With many VC papers if you predominantly expose only the blue-sensitive part of the paper emulsion thru a deep blue filter and sufficiently dev it, you often get a cold tone, even on warmtone paper. It takes a lot of masking finesse to do that, but it's distinctly an option. With color neg printing, I often make contrast-increase masks, double-neg method. You can actually target as much as the film curve as you need to, at either end or in the middle, essentially reconfiguring the curve while enhancing specific characteristics at the same time. So like I said, it's a tool kit, not just one more tool.

[Pere Casals]

Rather than force a commitment to learning the iterative and elaborate procedures such as masking to fix troublesome negatives, how about spending that time intelligently on the front end of your photography to fine tune your exposure and development procedures so you consistently produce bullet proof negatives? Then the fix exercise becomes a rare if ever event.

Yes Michael, you are right, if having the capability of obtaining a negative that prints straight like we want then we have a very natural and direct photograph, and enhanced productivity !!!

It is also true that the printing process allows for a cretivity input in the art, AA was enforcing the print as the score...

IMHO since we have popular VC papers (1980s) there is the tendence to make a linear reading of the scene (TMX, Delta) and then manipulating the tonal scale at a glance in the print, having the capability to adjust local contrast in every area.

Not the same debate at all than "pictorialism vs direct", but it is related in part: manipulation vs straight.

IMHO both ways are good, but a bit the way you point is overlooked today... we think in photoshop terms: manipulate, manipulate and manipulate !!!

... and prehaps sometimes a great result comes from straight things.

As I learn I like the more how Sally Mann manipulates the images, with a cracked lens or with a lens not covering well the format. This is being an artist ! (IMHO)