One advantage of scanning, is that you can perform corrections/adjustments/improvements to the image - via Photoshop or other software - that are difficult if not impossible via analog/darkroom methods.
One advantage of scanning, is that you can perform corrections/adjustments/improvements to the image - via Photoshop or other software - that are difficult if not impossible via analog/darkroom methods.
Originally Posted by audioexcels
Some folks prefer to use film, and not monkey around with the digital workflow. Making a contact print from an original 8x10 negative has a much simpler workflow than starting from a 4x5 negative. Simplicity is important for some. It's a biggie for me.
A well made contact print is as good as it gets.
I agree with Matt "a well made contact print is as good as it gets".
There is a certain atmosphere about an in-camera negative contact print that I have yet to see reproduced.
An "in camera negative" is an analog negative made within the camera at time of exposure.
Hope this helps!
WG.
As you may have noticed, there isn't one. Those who scan and print typically say it's as good or better than a wet darkroom print. Those who print in a darkroom typically say it's better than an inkjet print. *Shrug* You'll have to make your own judgements.
Mike
Politically, aerodynamically, and fashionably incorrect.
Not sure I totally understand your question but a contact print (at least as it pertains to LF) is a print made in a wet darkroom. The print is made by placing the negative in direct contact with the paper it is to be printed on. There is NO enlargement. It is a direct contact (and representation) of the negative it is in registration with. The final image size is that of the negative used to make the exposure. This is why LF's shoot with 8x10, 11x14, etc. The negative can be "contact printed" onto many different paper types. Digital negatives (made from scans or digital cameras) tend to be suitable for PT/PD or other alternative printing methods.
A well made contact print has a special luminance and 3D quality about it that is tough to match.
Hope this helps!
WG
I do both. Including a whole body of work printed in both silver and in quadtone inkjet. for the more subjective qualities you have to make your own judgements. For things like sharpness and sense of detail, I'd be surprised if anyone looking at these prints side by side would judge differently than I did.
Compared to prints on a glossy-surface commercial silver paper, printing on art papers via "alternative processes" such as platinum/palladium throws away some information from the negative in return for other attributes that are desired. Each type of print can be very beautiful in its own way, but they are different.
Ditto re paulr's point about contact size inkjet prints being "better" than silver contact prints. When printing in inkjet one can use sharpening and other digital post-processing tools to emphasize certain properties of an image that one finds appealing. But it's still a different medium. Anyone may legitimately prefer one or the other, or enjoy both.
As a general rule, scanning throws away information from the original capture, just like enlarging does. Printing - even contact printing - throws away information from the original capture, too, but printing on a paper with a textured surface throws away more information than printing on a glossy surface. How much information is lost depends on the particulars - if the original capture is crude enough, for example, the loss of information may be immaterial. In any case, whether it matters depends on one's taste in print character, and on how closely and how critically one likes to view prints.
I think trying to reach a conclusion about which print medium or workflow is "better" in some all-encompassing, objective sense is futile. All of these techniques, in the hands of a skilled practitioner, can be used to make prints that are technically impressive and esthetically expressive. But they look and feel different. You need to figure out which "look and feel" appeals to you. You can do this only by looking at actual prints, not by reading about them or by comparing specifications like nominal output resolution or Dmax, which are uninformative or even misleading when considered in isolation.
Digital editing certainly broadens the range of possibilities, and makes many kinds of image manipulation easier. But newcomers to digital imaging may not appreciate that many of the basic techniques of digital post-processing have counterparts in analog.
For example, digital sharpening techniques have counterparts in such methods as unsharp masking, or using highly diluted developers in compensating protocols to achieve exaggerated edge-and-adjacency effects. It's usually easier to do sharpening in the digital domain; and in fact, under most circumstances, moving an image into the digital domain forces you to use sharpening, which is not the case in a purely analog process. But conceptually, sharpening as a tool is not new.
All processes destroy information. The simpler the process the less information destroyed. Katz's rule estimates that every time you subject an image to an optical system you lose about 30% of your detail.
One reason for using a large format camera is to capture as much visual information as possible. One reason to contact print is to destroy as little of that information as possible.
The main purposes of an analog to digital conversion is to eliminate as much extraneous information as possible. However, one man's extraneous is another man's essential.
A contact print is going to present more visual data, more faithfully than any other medium, however, people won’t always like it better.
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