Has Digital Changed Darkroom Printing?

[Peter Lewin]

Background: building excitement for my summer trip to Scotland, I've been looking at (B&W) pictures others have taken of the Hebrides, Orkneys, standing stones, and so on. I found one site I really like (https://tomrichardsonphotography.mypixieset.com) whose Scottish gallery has many dramatic images that I would have been proud to make. We exchanged emails, and while Tom started in film, he has switched to digital for the options in printing which I don't think can be duplicated (at least by mortals like me) in the darkroom. Then while considering buying a print to use as a "target" for my own printing, I took a volume of Paul Strand photos off my shelf, turned to his Hebrides section, and was struck by the complete difference in the images. Photoshop allows for super dramatic skies, increased internal contrast, a lot of the "edge effects" some of us try to approach with pyro. Strand's classic images are wonderful, but don't use what I think of as Photoshop effects. So I wonder whether our "targets" for our prints have changed due to our exposure (unintended pun) to the huge number of Photoshopped images.

[Mark Sampson]

We have more options now, certainly. But are they good options? The current over-sharpened, HDR, ultra-dramatic look finds little favor with me.
Certainly using such techniques will not give you the emotional depth of a Strand portrait or landscape, any more than using 5x7 and 8x10 cameras and making contact prints (as Strand did) will. That's on the photographer, not the craft.
Since I shoot landscape with a 4x5 camera, and make enlargements to 11x14 on fiber-base paper, you can tell what I prefer. Is it better? For me it is.
But you might look at the work of our esteemed moderator, Kirk Gittings, who is a master of dramatic light. (AFAIK he still works with film and prints on silver.)

[Willie]

Hybrid workflow makes for magic in the darkroom for some.

Shoot digital with high quality files and produce digital negatives to contact print in your darkroom. You can dial in contrast and work with any area you want and output a "perfect negative" for whatever process you want.

[h2oman]

I would venture to say that much changed since Strand's time just in darkroom printing. Consider Strand to Edward Weston, to Ansel and on to folks like John Sexton and Bruce Barnbaum. Comparing a Strand print to a Sexton print, skipping all the in-between, would show a vast difference in presentation, I believe. It might also bring to mind the Charles Scheeler quote "Isn’t it amazing how photography has advanced without improving?"

BTW, it is probably time to retire the term "photoshopped," and replace it with something like "digitally produced."

[h2oman]

If you haven't looked at them already, two photographers whose British Isles work you might enjoy are Fay Godwin and Dick Arentz.

[Drew Wiley]

Changed? Darkroom techniques continue to improve on their own. We have better films, better papers, better cameras, enlargers, and lenses than former generations, plus a bigger bag of tricks. Or, for those who actually benefit from hybrid techniques, this might be the golden age of technological overlap. But our own minds and eyes have always been the most important tools. All the digital revulsion has really done is to make photographic image presentation far more ubiquitous, including far more obnoxious images than were possible before; the darkroom has been replaced with an Inquisition dungeon torturing pictures to the limit.

[bmikiten]

I have struggled with this over the last few years shooting both LF film and a 100mp Hasselblad. Do you remember when, in the early 80s color "laser" images were all the rage? If I remember right, they were printed on metal or another shiny substrate. The images were bold but they weren't real. That, in a simple explanation is how I feel about much of the digital imagery being produced these days. I scan my film and often make digital negatives after removing dust or doing some digital dodging and burning but nothing dramatic that I couldn't have achieved (with more paper and chemistry) in my darkroom. I'd like to think that my current work is as believable and realistic as what I did 30 years ago with film and a few dodging paddles and concentrated developer along with my enlarger and fixed grade papers. Standing alone, some digital prints look good. Next to an image by Sexton, Adams, Strand or White they don't compare and are often cartoonish.

[Willie]

Changed? Darkroom techniques continue to improve on their own. We have better films, better papers, better cameras, enlargers, and lenses than former generations, plus a bigger bag of tricks. Or, for those who actually benefit from hybrid techniques, this might be the golden age of technological overlap. But our own minds and eyes have always been the most important tools. All the digital revulsion has really done is to make photographic image presentation far more ubiquitous, including far more obnoxious images than were possible before; the darkroom has been replaced with an Inquisition dungeon torturing pictures to the limit.

Don't agree on "Better Papers". Very limited selection now compared to years past. Limited choices in surface texture and types. Especially limied in Warm Tone compared to the past - thanks to no Cadmium in current warm tone papers.

As for "Better films"? Fewer options now and for many who like the character of some older films no longer made - what we have is limited, not better at all.

We have more technological overlap, it is true. Just as in the past there are those few who actually explore and produce excellence and technology can help. Middle to mediocre has not changed, just become more mechanized with all the technology.

[phdgent]

I confess, I have scanned B&W negatives and then 'overhauled' them in Ph****p so to print largely for my exhibition and book 'Paris Dans Mon Gand': https://www.photoeil.be/books/paris-dans-mon-gand.html.
But I had few excuses, if I am entitled to have them anyway...
The first excuse was that these negatives where 6x17 pano's and I couldn't handle a 150 cm long print in my darkroom (one print was 210cm long) as I hade no assistance.
The second was that the publisher demanded digital files as he didn't wanted to pay for the photoengraving.

And yes it was so easy to retouch these images, too easy by far!

But I ended up with some musings:
Have we lost our photo-technical skills?
Have we become so easygoing?
Are we so eager for spectacular images?
Do we really need those 'overclouded-threatening' skies and detailed shadows?
Is an all-consuming sharpness really that important?

And, dear publisher, why is money really so dominant in our thinking/acting (the shroud has no pockets)?

Paul Strand might have had the answers...

[Tin Can]

Yes I have stopped using my Epson v700 as I really hate it

I now focus on dustless wet prints

No touchup

I do use my iPad 6 camera

To entertain our cohort