the aesthetic of contrast

[jetcode]

after spending many agonizing hours in a dark room trying to get a good print and many hours in CS2 tweaking prints with seemingly endless control the question remains: how to judge contrast aesthetically ...

1) when does a print require high contrast
2) when does a print require low contrast
3) how do you prepare an image for the web when everyone's monitor is set to a different color temperature and gamma?
4) if an image appears flat or contrasty am I second guessing myself because I like it or object to it?

I think this is where the art of photography becomes apparent. It's one thing to know your equipment, it is another to know how to evaluate, capture and print a subject.

What are your thoughts?

[Bruce Watson]

after spending many agonizing hours in a dark room trying to get a good print and many hours in CS2 tweaking prints with seemingly endless control the question remains: how to judge contrast aesthetically ...

There are lots of attributes to a print, (overall) contrast is just one.

That said, it's a matter of your personal taste and your experience. The print you make has to please you. My opinion isn't (or at least shouldn't be) important to your artistic vision.

So, how does one shape and hone one's taste and one's artistic vision? One thing that I've found helpful is to spend lots of time in galleries and museums looking at what others do (great and obscure, photographers, painters, sculptors, etc.) to get an idea the range of possibilities and to learn more about how you personally respond to the various possibilities. Also look at books. Perhaps a poor substitute for actual prints, but often the only way you'll get to see a large collection of someones work.

Then, print. Print and print and print and print. Play with an image printing it lots of different ways. Tack 'em to a wall and live with 'em for a while. Think about them. Study them. Eliminate the ones that don't "click" with you. Look at the ones that are left. Think about what you are trying to say with your prints and think about what the prints actually say to you. Eventually you'll end up with one that says what you really wanted it to say.

And that's the one that has the correct contrast (among other properties) for you.

[paulr]

I think you're asking the right questions ... when does the print require it? you'll hear a lot of people saying they like high contrast or low contrast or whatever, but it should really be about what you're trying to get the image to say.

Bruce's advice is good. It might also help you to take an image and print it a few different ways. Or just scan the negative and do a few quick variations in photoshop, including some exagerated ones on both ends of the contrast spectrum. Get an idea of how these different tonal vocabularies express different things. i'd also suggest that contrast is a small part of the puzzle, and that the shadows and highlights will often tell you where they want to be. how bright or dark to print the midtones is often a bigger issue (and with traditional printing, harder to control).

If you do experiment with real prints, I'd suggest doing it at a few different sizes, also. Size makes a big difference in what's emphasized in an image. Especially with a very graphic, contrasty print.

How to best prepare an image for the web, and everyone's wildly different monitors, is a whole other can of worms. Try some searches on this site ... it comes up pretty often. I'll also join a chorus of people who recommend blatner and fraser's Real World Photoshop book.

[Ken Lee]

1) when does a print require high contrast
2) when does a print require low contrast
4) if an image appears flat or contrasty am I second guessing myself because I like it or object to it?

Find some images that you really like. Don't try to explain why you like them in words. Just let your eyes decide.

Within those images, find the parts where things work best. You can cut them out with a scissors, or digitally cut and paste them into a document. This will load them in your mental scrap book. Let them soak into your visual memory. There is no need for words at all.

Over time, you will start seeing these fragments in your subjects. You will seek out subjects that contain them. Eventually, you will reject subjects that are devoid of them. Those fragments become the subject of your work, and the "subject" becomes just a vehicle to deliver them.

Sinar P1 150mm Heliar TMY Pyrocat HD

[cyrus]

There's no set rule - it depends on your taste and subject matter. However, note that higher contrast can mean losing detail in the midtowns. So the question really is how much detail are you willing to lose? But of course there are ways of keeping the details too . . . but I don't know how its done on computers.

[Steven Barall]

Prints don't require anything, the sheet of paper doesn't really care. The photograph is more than the sheet of paper. You have to think of what is required for that particular image and those requirements might be unique to that image and not at all relative to any others. All of these decisions are yours and yours alone to make. That's where Art lives. A photo is a purely intention thing that doesn't exist until you make it. Good luck and have some fun. Cheers.

[paulr]

Prints don't require anything, the sheet of paper doesn't really care.

ha. no, the print doesn't require anything. but the image does.

presumably you feel something about an image that you're printing. you want it to express something ... an idea, a feeling, a sensibility, a mood. the negative cannot do this on its own, so you need to make a print. there are many ways to print any negative. some will express what you'd like to express much better than others. sometimes you'll know what you're going for in the beginning; other times you'll need to experiment to find out. at any rate, the image, or more specifically, your idea of the image, is telling you what it needs.

[Michael Graves]

Controlling overall contrast is easy enough...and as was stated...it's deciding what the contrast should be that is difficult. My problem lies in controlling the microcontrast when adjusting overall contrast. I might be able to get the contrast between two or three critical areas in a print just where I want them, and then discover the overall contrast is too flat or too harsh. Then when I correct overall contrast, I've lost the balance between those critical values. That's why my prints all suck.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

after spending many agonizing hours in a dark room trying to get a good print and many hours in CS2 tweaking prints with seemingly endless control the question remains: how to judge contrast aesthetically ...

1) when does a print require high contrast
2) when does a print require low contrast
3) how do you prepare an image for the web when everyone's monitor is set to a different color temperature and gamma?
4) if an image appears flat or contrasty am I second guessing myself because I like it or object to it?

I think this is where the art of photography becomes apparent. It's one thing to know your equipment, it is another to know how to evaluate, capture and print a subject.

What are your thoughts?

Are you asking for someone to give you a set of rules? Given that print taste varies with everybody you will not find two people who will consider a good print in the same manner. If your expertise has gotten you beyond the stage where you have muddy whites and blocked shadows then the rest is up to you. Seems to me you are putting the cart in front of the horse, first decide what is it YOU like, look at the prints from photographers you admire and then try to duplicate the same way they print.

Look at how they handle local contrast (the tonal relationship between key parts of the photograph), look at how they handle overall contrast (does the the print have an overall eye catching contrast or is it more subtle, a good example of the former is Michael Kenna, and one from the later is David Fokos).

Once you have reached a level of expertise where you are happy with your prints you will start to develop your own style, here is where you beguin to break the rules.

Also there it comes a point of dimishing returns where further manipulation does not bring anything more to the print. It is just as important to know when to stop as it is to know what to change.