analog and digital - again

[peter ramm]

I'm seeing disparaging comments about the use of digital manipulation on film images. I'd like to understand the viewpoint better.

I do mainly MFD, but play about with 8 x 10 because I like the shooting process and the look of film. Hate the dark room, actually. I manipulate in post, but success is measured by the extent to which that is not obvious. I suppose I am typical of a type.

Removing the digital vs analog printing debate from all this, what is the pure analog position re image formation?

[ic-racer]

My understanding it that what can be irritating is the false statements by digital photographers of non-manipulation. Anyone that does analog, especially B&W, realizes that extreme manipulation and distortion of the original scene's brightness range and colors is inherent in the analog process and no attempt is made to cover it up. B&W photographers live off of gray renditions of colored objects and sigmoid shaped tone reproduction scales.

[paulr]

It all strikes me as strange. I can't think of any kind of manipulation that digital photographers do that is fundamentally diferent from what's been done in the darkroom, often since the mid-19th century.

Compositing, hand retouching, adding non-photographic elements, removing photographic elements, wildly distorted curves, adding color to bw images, removing color from color images, sharpening, blurring ... it's all old, old news in the darkroom.

Digital tools just make it easier, so you see more of it. I don't know how this is different from everything else in the technological history of the medium: tools get cheaper and more convenient; more people use them; old timers bitch about it.

Welcome to photography, grasshoppers. 1826 to present ... the more things change, the more they stay the same.

[bob carnie]

Completely agree, blending, blurring , dropping images on top of each other were all in a days work for a competent photocomp tech.
Kitch was prevelent back then and is alive and well today.

Few could make it work, J. U. would come to mine. Not sure how he is working these days, but I have seen some work by his partner that is very striking and well done.

It all strikes me as strange. I can't think of any kind of manipulation that digital photographers do that is fundamentally diferent from what's been done in the darkroom, often since the mid-19th century.

Compositing, hand retouching, adding non-photographic elements, removing photographic elements, wildly distorted curves, adding color to bw images, removing color from color images, sharpening, blurring ... it's all old, old news in the darkroom.

Digital tools just make it easier, so you see more of it. I don't know how this is different from everything else in the technological history of the medium: tools get cheaper and more convenient; more people use them; old timers bitch about it.

Welcome to photography, grasshoppers. 1826 to present ... the more things change, the more they stay the same.

[Nathan Potter]

Paul and Bob echo my sentiments exactly. Historically photographers have employed a wild variety of manipulative techniques within silver and alternative processes. Looking at some of the results has been a joy to my psyche. Digital manipulation is no different and for me is exciting to look at.

Of course the issue is how well is such manipulation done. Is the photographers vision executed clearly? Whether it is great art is always a much more complex question and open to endless debate.

Much of what is done digitally and implemented in inkjet is for decorative purposes and so is directed toward popular appeal. The really imaginative stuff you'll find in current advertising copy.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Marko]

I'm seeing disparaging comments about the use of digital manipulation on film images. I'd like to understand the viewpoint better.

Down at the most essential level, it's all about an old principle of radically new technologies requiring an entire generation to really become mainstream.

A generation of kids born with it to grow up and a generation of geezers resisting it to go away.

The further along that curve we are, the less the kids care and the louder (and fewer) the geezers become. All those "discussions" or even entire message boards devoted to the topic are simply places for the cooling of the proverbial cold, dead fingers.

Another, shorter and more succinct way of explaining the disparaging comments is to paraphrase the old maxim:

Those who can, do - those who can't, criticize.

[John Koehrer]

I'm seeing disparaging comments about the use of digital manipulation on film images. I'd like to understand the viewpoint better.

Removing the digital vs analog printing debate from all this, what is the pure analog position re image formation?

IMO the difference lies in the difference between a craft and a technology. Analog being the craft and made using your eye and physical manipulation of the image In extreme, Each image will be slightly different than the next or even a later interpretation.

In the lightroom once an image is finalized the image can be truly duplicated as often as you wish.

If you compare it to fine furniture designed and made piece by piece by a craftsman in limited production or go to Sear & Sawbucks for the cookie cutter production line product.

[eddie]

And again and again and again.

Where is that moving cartoon with the guy beating the dead horse? Please some one post it.

Why not just use the search function ??????

Again and again and again? *sigh*

[Marko]

IMO the difference lies in the difference between a craft and a technology. Analog being the craft and made using your eye and physical manipulation of the image In extreme, Each image will be slightly different than the next or even a later interpretation.

In the lightroom once an image is finalized the image can be truly duplicated as often as you wish.

Both chemical and digital processing are variations of the same craft of photography which employ different technologies and toolsets.

The only real major, truly principal difference lays in the fact that the digital processing eliminates the mechanical repetition from the process and provides more consistence. As for variances, they can easily be accomplished by introducing changes in the digital process as well if so desired.

[Greg Miller]

IMO the difference lies in the difference between a craft and a technology. Analog being the craft and made using your eye and physical manipulation of the image In extreme, Each image will be slightly different than the next or even a later interpretation.

In the lightroom once an image is finalized the image can be truly duplicated as often as you wish.

If you compare it to fine furniture designed and made piece by piece by a craftsman in limited production or go to Sear & Sawbucks for the cookie cutter production line product.

So you value prints that look different due to the random unrepeatable events (changes in interpretation are possible with both analog and digital). Fair enough. Others will value that each print most closely represent the artist's vision.

There is plenty of craft in mastering one's tools, whether they be in a wet or digital darkroom. And it seems that there is plenty of room for both to happily co-exist without these endless discussions where each camp bashes the other.