LensWork: repro superior to original print

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

First of all, I believe Brooks browses this forum and reads a few forums here and there, so if he reads this congratulations on another great issue. I have to say Beth Moon's portfolio was striking; specifically the Bristlecone Pine image on page 55 -- that was most definitely my favorite. I also enjoyed Robert Waddingham's Ethiopia portfolio.

Anyway, as I sat in my office this morning with a freshly brewed cup of coffee, I was reading my favorite part of his magazine, the Editor's Comments titled: The Real Revolution in Photography. In this column, Brooks asserts that "the photographer's handmade photographic print may no longer be the sole pinnacle of quality." And that it is "at risk to be dethroned."

Reading on he points out an example where using the technology he has to print LensWork, he did a test print of Wynn Bullock's "Child in Forest, 1951" and said that his printing of that photograph through his printer was superior to the original photograph.

Very interesting and perhaps almost shocking claims that absolutely do hold ramifcations for everyone inside of the fine art photography world. Has anyone else read this coulmn? What are your thoughts on it?

[Kirk Gittings]

I think whether his print is superior to Wynn's would be for Wynn to determine not Brook. It seems rather presumptuous. He should try that with a living photographer.

Having said that there are images that I can print better in ink than I could in silver.

[Louie Powell]

he did a test print of Wynn Bullock's "Child in Forest, 1951" and said that his printing of that photograph through his printer was superior to the original photograph.


That's purely an opinion.

AFAIK, there is no OBJECTIVE standard that allows one to determine that one print is "superior" to another.

[reellis67]

I strongly agree with Kirk and Louie on this matter - 'Superior' is certainly in the eye of the beholder. Further, I personally have never seen *anything* that was 'superior' to all else for all people all of the time, nor have I ever met anyone who could tell me more authoritatively how I feel about something than myself. Brooks is certainly entitled to his opinion on the matter, but for me, the bottom line on the issue of which print is 'superior' resides with the artist and no other.

- R

[MIke Sherck]

Although I haven't received my copy yet (surrounded by 65,000 people and the post office still acts as though we're out in the boonies!) I myself have never heard of a generally accepted standard of print quality. Mr. Brooks thinks this print is better than that one -- nothing unusual about that: my darkroom wastebasket is full of prints which, in my opinion, didn't make the grade.

It's nice to have one's opinions: that's what makes the world go 'round. Even nicer to have a way to distribute one's opinions around: that's how one gets to be a pundit, I think. But it's too much work to start my own magazine, so I guess I'll just smile ruefully and see of there are any pretty pictures in the following pages...

Mike

[QT Luong]

Ansel Adams thought that his latter prints were superior to his early prints (I assume, since he chose to print that way), but John Szarkowski thinks differently.

[Scott Knowles]

I read the article, and I think you need to read the whole article to get the context of what Brook is saying. He makes some caveats about this statement, both with the technology and with the final print, meaning it is a relative judgment, relative to the photographer and their print and to owner of the print. He was suggesting that prints with the best print technology today equals or exceeds the traditional darkroom prints. Viewing the prints is personal, something he recognizes, and suggests as this goes down the road, people may begin to question which is better, and prefer a new print than an old one. He was raising the observation, and I think it's worth the discussion.

And personally I think it's one of the best LensWork issues in some time for both the articles and portfolios. LensWork keeps showing it's not about equipment, but the photographer. It's seen in the range of equipment each of the photographers uses to capture and produce their images. To me, it simply blows the rest of the magazines off the magazine racks. Ok, I'm biased, but aren't we all?

[Jim Ewins]

If the image turned you on - everything else is superfluous.

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

I read the article, and I think you need to read the whole article to get the context of what Brook is saying. He makes some caveats about this statement, both with the technology and with the final print, meaning it is a relative judgment, relative to the photographer and their print and to owner of the print. He was suggesting that prints with the best print technology today equals or exceeds the traditional darkroom prints. Viewing the prints is personal, something he recognizes, and suggests as this goes down the road, people may begin to question which is better, and prefer a new print than an old one. He was raising the observation, and I think it's worth the discussion.

And personally I think it's one of the best LensWork issues in some time for both the articles and portfolios. LensWork keeps showing it's not about equipment, but the photographer. It's seen in the range of equipment each of the photographers uses to capture and produce their images. To me, it simply blows the rest of the magazines off the magazine racks. Ok, I'm biased, but aren't we all?

The technology used to print LW is incredible. As far as reproduction is concerned, I have entered myself in a little bit of friendly competition... trying each issue to get closer and closer to his. One day I'll be on the same level, hopefully, but by that time, he may have new technology that blows the current technology out of the water. The technology they use, 20-microdot stochastic screen, is probably the best in North America. It's also the most expensive. The printer who does that work should be given a medal. I've spoken to him once or twice... very nice guy. Knew his stuff, was very sharp. Gave me a price that was well worth the printing of FOCUS back then... just couldn't afford it. Still can't... however Brooks can afford to pay the printing bill without any advertising is something short of a phenomenon.

[PViapiano]

I had some issues with that latest editorial. I was going to post something about it but am still digesting it. However, to say that a reproduction is better than the original implies that something exists in the reproduction that doesn't exist in the original, and that doesn't make any sense to me. Sure, maybe you can get deeper blacks and whatever else, but I can't imagine anyone saying that about other art forms, such as painting or even music ("...the cymbals on this CD sound better than real life!")

Are we taking digi-tality and technology to its extremes by saying that the repro is better than the real life experience?

To say that reproduction technology is superb these days is one thing, but to assert that it looks better than the real thing, the original thing, as created and viewed and painstakingly worked on by the artist in his chosen medium and materials, is quite another.

[Brian Ellis]

I read Brooks Atkinson's essay. I think it's clear that he meant the Bullock print he made was technically superior, not aesthetically. As I recall he had a couple measurements that formed the basis for his statement, one I think was dMax, I forget what the other one was. So as I recall he had at least a personal standard for his statement.

Unfortunately I can't double check my recollection because I threw this issue of LensWork away. I thought the portfolios were the most uninteresting I've seen in over ten years of subscribing to LensWork. Am I the only one getting tired of these portfolios of inhabitants of exotic countries or people in some sort of oddball occupation or location? I don't mean to demean the photographers who make these photographs, they're excellent work, it's just that every issue of LensWork seems to contain one or more portfolios of this type. Or maybe I'm just getting bored with the magazine after reading it religiously for so many years but lately it's just seemed to be the same ole same ole every issue.

[tim atherton]

Pretty much Brian - been that way for a while now

[Doug Howk]

Any time you convert an image from one media to another, you lose information. Converting from negative to print is most obvious. If one digitizes a negative rather than the print, the resulting file could have more information; but then you would have lost the photographer's efforts in the darkroom.

Agree with Brian E. above, the magazine is becoming more dispensable.

[Marko]

And personally I think it's one of the best LensWork issues in some time for both the articles and portfolios. LensWork keeps showing it's not about equipment, but the photographer. It's seen in the range of equipment each of the photographers uses to capture and produce their images. To me, it simply blows the rest of the magazines off the magazine racks. Ok, I'm biased, but aren't we all?


If the image turned you on - everything else is superfluous.

Aparently, the folks over at apug strongly disagree - there are 18 screens full of indignant rants about Lenswork betraying the holy cause and - gasp! - introducing digital at the same level as analog in the magazine! To them, the equipment is obviously sufficiently more important than the photographer or even the photograph itself that they are swearing to cancel their subsciptions to Lenswork because of it.

To be fair, there are a couple of rational souls who beg to differ and, to be even more fair, they have not been banned or even deleted yet. Which is a tremendous change in attitude. Tremendous enough, when I stop to think about it, that it may cause mass cancelation of subscriptions to apug itself... :D

[Marko]

Any time you convert an image from one media to another, you lose information. Converting from negative to print is most obvious. If one digitizes a negative rather than the print, the resulting file could have more information; but then you would have lost the photographer's efforts in the darkroom.

True, but then you introduce photographer's efforts in Photoshop. Which, if done properly, amounts to the same thing - the artist's touch.

[tim atherton]

BTW, this is nothing new at all.

Richard Benson has often said that the plates they produce via photo offset lithography for the likes of the Gilman Paper Company book with his precise and sophisticated printing at times "looked better" than some of the originals. Lee Friedlander has said the same, comparing the "original" silver gelatin prints with the plates in some of the books Benson produced for him, such as Factory Valleys.

Bearing in mind that a.) "looked better" was subjective and in such cases of "looking better" they also sometimes look b.) quite different from the originals

(for the Gilman Paper Company book, they used different papers and different inks for almost every plate - and it has about 480pp and covers photographs from across the whole history of photography)

[Turner Reich]

What ever floats your boat; This is just another approach to promote the magazine.

[Wayne Lambert]

As I read through the article I kept thinking "but what if the photographer didn't want his blacks that black?" Obviously to him the lithographic reproduction would not be as good as his original. I agree with Kirk: that would have been for Wynn Bullock to decide. Personally, in these days of sufficiently black blacks in both ink-jet and traditional prints, I tend to judge print quality more by whose got the most gradation in the whites rather than by whose got the blackest blacks. Re Brooks' other criterion for print quality, sharpness. Is he saying a reproduction is sharper than a contact print? And re his statement on p. 13: I for one wouldn't find it ridiculous at all to ask the lithographer "to hold back ink" so as not to make the black in the reproduction darker than in my platinum/palladium print. The print would not have left my darkroom if it did not have the black I wanted. And finally, I have to put my faith in the supremacy of the print that the photographer actually held in his hand. I wish Brooks had addressed this issue in more detail and how the collector might view all this.

[reellis67]

True, but then you introduce photographer's efforts in Photoshop. Which, if done properly, amounts to the same thing - the artist's touch.

Not entirely true, at least for everyone. The artists touch as Doug put it make the print worth having for me - the end product was made by the artist themselves rather than by some machine. I think that a magazine is a very appropriate use of mechanically produced prints, but I would never pay more than ten or twelve bucks for a machine-made print regardless of how moving it was. Someone may have created the image after hours of hard work at the computer, and their touch is certainly there in that electronic work, but the printout of that effort is just a mechanical reproduction of that effort regardless of how technically perfect it is.

Before anyone feels the need to play the Luddite card, obviously I recognize that not everyone feels the way I do, and I applaud them for making that decision as long as they didn't blindly adopt it from someone else, but for me personally, without the direct hand of the artist in creation of the object itself, all you have is mass produced identical copies no matter how moving the original might be...

- R

[tim atherton]

Not entirely true, at least for everyone. The artists touch as Doug put it make the print worth having for me - the end product was made by the artist themselves rather than by some machine. I think that a magazine is a very appropriate use of mechanically produced prints, but I would never pay more than ten or twelve bucks for a machine-made print regardless of how moving it was. Someone may have created the image after hours of hard work at the computer, and their touch is certainly there in that electronic work, but the printout of that effort is just a mechanical reproduction of that effort regardless of how technically perfect it is.

Before anyone feels the need to play the Luddite card, obviously I recognize that not everyone feels the way I do, and I applaud them for making that decision as long as they didn't blindly adopt it from someone else, but for me personally, without the direct hand of the artist in creation of the object itself, all you have is mass produced identical copies no matter how moving the original might be...

- R

You just excluded a lot of artists who didn't or don't print their own work themselves for one thing.

And aside from contact prints, most photographs are mechanical (essentially machine made) reproductions...

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

Aparently, the folks over at apug strongly disagree - there are 18 screens full of indignant rants about Lenswork betraying the holy cause and - gasp! - introducing digital at the same level as analog in the magazine! To them, the equipment is obviously sufficiently more important than the photographer or even the photograph itself that they are swearing to cancel their subsciptions to Lenswork because of it.

To be fair, there are a couple of rational souls who beg to differ and, to be even more fair, they have not been banned or even deleted yet. Which is a tremendous change in attitude. Tremendous enough, when I stop to think about it, that it may cause mass cancelation of subscriptions to apug itself... :D

Oh, please don't get me started on APUG. As someone who views hundreds if not thousands of photographs every day, I have my own bias and likes and dis-likes regarding a hand-crafted photograph and anyone who knows me knows that I prefer a gelatin silver or traditionally created photograph over a digital one. However; I have seen, as of late in the MoMA of all places, some pigment inkjet prints that were absolutely outstanding. Should I dis-credit the photograph and the merit it deserves by not only looking extraordinary, but to be hung in the frickin Museum of Modern Art?? To have an opinion is one thing and a healthy debate over which printing method is superior I also find great, but to take it to such an extreme as some of the people over at APUG have done is a bit demoralizing for me and I find it unfortunate.

To allow reasonable debate that analog photography is not the end all and be all of existence itself on APUG means hell must have frozen over. Is Sean still running the joint?

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

What ever floats your boat; This is just another approach to promote the magazine.

I promise you I am not on his payroll. Though with the money he must make to afford his printing bill, I wish I was!!

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Haven't read the article, probably never will. But if I understand correctly, is this guy saying his ink jet is better because of a higher Dmax?....This has got to be a joke. One more digital BS. I agree with Kirk, the person who made the original is the one to determine which one would be better, not the wannabe.

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

As I read through the article I kept thinking "but what if the photographer didn't want his blacks that black?" Obviously to him the lithographic reproduction would not be as good as his original. I agree with Kirk: that would have been for Wynn Bullock to decide. Personally, in these days of sufficiently black blacks in both ink-jet and traditional prints, I tend to judge print quality more by whose got the most gradation in the whites rather than by whose got the blackest blacks. Re Brooks' other criterion for print quality, sharpness. Is he saying a reproduction is sharper than a contact print? And re his statement on p. 13: I for one wouldn't find it ridiculous at all to ask the lithographer "to hold back ink" so as not to make the black in the reproduction darker than in my platinum/palladium print. The print would not have left my darkroom if it did not have the black I wanted. And finally, I have to put my faith in the supremacy of the print that the photographer actually held in his hand. I wish Brooks had addressed this issue in more detail and how the collector might view all this.

Are you willing to consider the possibility that offset commercial printing can generate a darker black than the traditional photography process? The black he discusses, "skeleton black" is actually black with a little bit of blue in it to make it appear darker and more rich. I used to use a variation of this called "dark horse black." Now all of our blacks are reproduced in 4C so there is no longer a need to use that.

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

Haven't read the article, probably never will. But if I understand correctly, is this guy saying his ink jet is better because of a higher Dmax?....This has got to be a joke. One more digital BS. I agree with Kirk, the person who made the original is the one to determine which one would be better, not the wannabe.

Please do not compare, nor confuse inkjet with commercial offset printing. That's like comparing Outback Steakhouse to Peter Lugar's.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Please do not compare, nor confuse inkjet with commercial offset printing. That's like comparing Outback Steakhouse to Peter Lugar's.

Same difference. In the end, the one to judge if the print was better would be Wynn, not the offset guy. I agree that LW is very well printed, stochastic screens have been around for quite a long time. In fact, Dan Burkholder when he started he whole negative from digital files relied on service bereaus to make the screens for him. While advances in ink might allow for greater Dmax, this is not the only basis for a good print. Many of us have not made a print with Dmax higher than 1.5 in years.. :)

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

Not entirely true, at least for everyone. The artists touch as Doug put it make the print worth having for me - the end product was made by the artist themselves rather than by some machine. - R

In an upcoming interview with Bruce Daivdson and this part will probably never make the final editing cut so this will be the only place you can ever read it, Davidson says and I quote:

"The only printing I do are master prints. Well, my printer can make a better print than I can make. He makes prints every day. If I just gave him the contact sheet, then when he made the print the mood might not be right. When I print it myself I print the way I think it should be, but it may be at the end of the day one or two of the pictures could be printed a little better. Generally I don't let my master prints out of here, because I'm not in the business of printing, Two exceptions are in the hands of The Museum of the City of New York. They acquired my Type C color prints of the Subway, and they acquired, through a patron, all of Central Park."

So would you never think about buying a print of Bruce Davidson's?

[Bill_1856]

LensWork putting out those damn reproduction prints while Bullock's copywrite is still in effect sure as hell didn't do the price of my original, signed print any favor.

[Marko]

Not entirely true, at least for everyone. The artists touch as Doug put it make the print worth having for me - the end product was made by the artist themselves rather than by some machine. I think that a magazine is a very appropriate use of mechanically produced prints, but I would never pay more than ten or twelve bucks for a machine-made print regardless of how moving it was. Someone may have created the image after hours of hard work at the computer, and their touch is certainly there in that electronic work, but the printout of that effort is just a mechanical reproduction of that effort regardless of how technically perfect it is.

Ah, yes, the old, tired craft-of-art vs. art-of-craft argument.

To add to what Tim said, even contact prints are made with the help of a mechanical contrivance. It's called the camera. All you have to do to get the picture is: aim it and push the button. ;)

Aside from that, what about slides? Are they less of an art than even ink jet prints because they use no paper at all? Or are they superior to even wet prints because they entail less manipulation? And if so, what about that famed artist's touch?

[Marko]

Oh, please don't get me started on APUG. As someone who views hundreds if not thousands of photographs every day, I have my own bias and likes and dis-likes regarding a hand-crafted photograph and anyone who knows me knows that I prefer a gelatin silver or traditionally created photograph over a digital one. However; I have seen, as of late in the MoMA of all places, some pigment inkjet prints that were absolutely outstanding. Should I dis-credit the photograph and the merit it deserves by not only looking extraordinary, but to be hung in the frickin Museum of Modern Art?? To have an opinion is one thing and a healthy debate over which printing method is superior I also find great, but to take it to such an extreme as some of the people over at APUG have done is a bit demoralizing for me and I find it unfortunate.

I beg to differ - such as it is, it serves a very important purpose. Without it, we would be having those "discussions" everywhere. A nice, comfortable place for those guys to breed themselves out without bothering the rest of us. ;)

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

I beg to differ - such as it is, it serves a very important purpose. Without it, we would be having those "discussions" everywhere. A nice, comfortable place for those guys to breed themselves out without bothering the rest of us. ;)

18 pages and it's all bashing LensWork??? I can only imagine how horribly they are degrading LensWork for accepting digital submissions. I can only imagine the things they say about Focus on there. If they're pro-traditional only magazines, why don't they start one of their own?

[Nigel Smith]

Marko, why are you so concerned with what others discuss?

[Brooks Jensen]

Please, please don't get sidetracked into yet another discussion of digital versus analog. I wrote this article to express a completely different point -- one that I think deserves a lot of thoughtful discussion, and this is clearly an excellent place to have that discussion.

I am not advocating one technology over another. The focus of this thread has been on whether or not my claim about the Bullock print is true, or valid, or meaningful, etc. That is not the point, not the discussion we photographer should be having, nor should it be the focus of comments about my article.

I am hoping to see photographers think and talk about the changes I see in the printing world. I tried to call attention to this by comparing the quality of printing of yesteryear to the quality of printing in today's world -- especially compared to original prints. Whether or not there is parity now is clearly based on judgment, opinion, and personal tastes. That is not really the issue -- and, IMHO, not even an important discussion. What is important is the narrowing gap between reproduction quality and original quality -- and let's set aside for the short term the tired argument about what is and is not meant by the slippery term "quality." Look at this through the eyes of the public -- the non-photographer who we all assume is the basis of our audience and market. How will they react to this narrowing gap? What will this mean for all of us? What need we do to prepare for, adapt to, or prosper from these changes?

I have some concern that we photographers are so busy discussing and arguing the analog/digital, or the silver/platinum, or the original/reproduction, or the traditional/new methods dichotomies so much that while we are doing so, all around us Rome may be burning. These are serious issues for all of us. I tried to raise serious questions. I certainly don't have any answers, but I do see the changes and hoped that my article might bring them to other's attention.

So, let's not be ostriches. Instead, let me ask specifically, what will your strategy be in light of the changes in the printing world? What role do you see for your original prints? What role do you see for your work in ink? What makes sense? What will make sense to the public? What will you do if this gap narrows even further in the next 5 to 10 years? How will this affect our efforts in traditional galleries? If you are a gallery owner, what will you do in light of these changes?

These are difficult questions and even uncomfortable ones. Sorry to be the messenger (and I hope not to be shot!), but anyone with any eyes can see the changes I'm talking about by simply looking at today's books and comparing them to the books of 40 years ago. So, as a community of creative souls, what are we going to do?

Brooks

[Gordon Moat]

If you look at the work produced by Alinari (http://www.alinari.it/) as an example of high end press work, then the level is quite different than what people might consider in the average magazine. Definitely Lenswork is not average in printing; it is in the high end. What I might compare this magazine to would be the book Cyclops, which is a collection of some B/W images by Albert Watson (http://www.albertwatson.com/). The printing quality of B/W images in that book are by far the best I have seen.

There are those of us who enjoy images printed in magazines, or as books. Paper quality is a separate issue, as much important as how the press is run, or what type of screening (or even screenless) is used.

Would I rather have a framed silver print on the wall . . . . . . I suppose, though then the problem becomes that I find more works to like than I could hope to afford. So my way of having many examples of prints is through books and magazines.

With my own images, too often I have not enjoyed the quality of my work in newprint, and sometimes I have been disappointed with the printing quality in corporate publications. This is the downside of commercial imaging, that all the effort and work towards compelling images of high quality might be diluted through the printing process.

I can only hope that if some higher quality magazine reproduces my images that they put as much as they can towards making the images appear as best as they can. Then it would be up to the viewer/reader to enjoy them, or skip over them. At least Brooks is doing that with Lenswork, even if it is biased towards B/W imaging.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat (http://www.gordonmoat.com)

[Marko]

Marko, why are you so concerned with what others discuss?

I'm not concerned, I simply find it ridiculous, to the point of being hilarious.

It's all nice and dandy when they do it there, that's why they have that board in the first place. I practice both digital and traditional. When I go to any of the digital boards to read about digital, that's exactly what happens. But I can't seem to find useful information about traditional or even hybrid processes without having to wade through tons of whiny nonsense about digital, all from people who have no clue about it. And when it starts happening on this and other normal boards, it becomes annoying.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

So, as a community of creative souls, what are we going to do?

In my case nothing, posters have been around for a long time and regardless of how well they are made, they are still posters. As for books, well if you cannot afford a real print I guess getting the book, cutting off the print you like and frame it, it will do. Regardless of how much those doing digital want us to beleive the process does not matter, to some it does. In some processes no matter how well the photograph is reproduced it will never give the same feeling as the real thing.

[Brian Ellis]

I read Brooks Atkinson's essay. . . .

Let's make that Brooks Jensen, not Brooks Atkinson who spent a lifetime writing reviews but none in LensWork that I know of. Thanks Ted.

[Wayne Lambert]

Brooks, it's probably not what you wanted, but it would appear your article has set the stage for a whole new rancorous discussion of imaging technology. Now it will be "what's best, traditional/digital or offset printing?" See, we've already gotten into it here, and I don't think that's necessarily bad, this discussion of image quality and what constitutes it. (However, everyone's a little fatigued by the traditional vs. digital discussion, and it may take a while for us to warm up to this one.) However, if, as you say, the elephant is already here and Rome is burning, we ought to make some comments. Mine is this. At first thought it seems to me that the people who will buy these "better-than-traditional/digital" offset lithography prints will be the same people who buy posters today, the people who want something nice to hang on the wall and they want it fairly cheaply. I believe the "original print" (something more-or-less printed by the photographer's hand and not something printed in runs of 8000 by a giant machine) will still be what the serious connoisseur or collector wants. And I assume many of us would like to sell to serious connoisseurs or collectors. What I'm saying is that I'm not too worried about it. However, I am delighted to hear that offset lithographic reproduction technology has advanced to the point you have observed.

[Brian Ellis]

Same difference. In the end, the one to judge if the print was better would be Wynn, not the offset guy. I agree that LW is very well printed, stochastic screens have been around for quite a long time. In fact, Dan Burkholder when he started he whole negative from digital files relied on service bereaus to make the screens for him. While advances in ink might allow for greater Dmax, this is not the only basis for a good print. Many of us have not made a print with Dmax higher than 1.5 in years.. :)

I think the principal point of the article have been missed in many of the comments posted here. The point of the article as I recall it had nothing to do with whether an offset print was "better" than the original. The main thrust of the article was to point out the tremendous improvements in technical quality that have taken place in offset printing during the last 50 or so years. There was some comparison of a darkroom print to the offset print, not to claim that the offset was "better" but rather that it had greater dMax and something else that I've now forgotten. In other words, in two technical ways the offset print had better numbers but I don't remember any claim that the offset was simply a "better" print. There certainly was no suggestion that higher dMax was the only basis for a good print.

Again, I don't have the article around any more to refresh my memory so if I've misstated anything about it, my apologies.

[Doug Howk]

Brooks doesn't get it. The quality of book reproductions may be improving to the point that some of us will be satisfied with them. However, the real paradigm shift is that most consumers of images will be satisfied with a digital display of digitized images. For the latter group, Bill Gates is the trend setter with his digital wall screens displaying his rather large collection of artwork. I suspect book purchases are not an upward trend in our anti-intellectual society. If you've spent most of your leisure time watching TV or viewing a VCR/flat panel, then thumbing thru a book of pictures will be too retro.

[jetcode]

In some processes no matter how well the photograph is reproduced it will never give the same feeling as the real thing.

Which is why I collect original drawings, oils, and watercolors.

For what it's worth my ink prints meet and exceed anything I've ever done in silver, but then again I'm not much of a printer.

[Marko]

I think the principal point of the article have been missed in many of the comments posted here. The point of the article as I recall it had nothing to do with whether an offset print was "better" than the original. The main thrust of the article was to point out the tremendous improvements in technical quality that have taken place in offset printing during the last 50 or so years.

I don't think the point has been missed, I think it's the "craftsmen" among photographers feeling threatend and defending their turf. Some people simply have too much invested in one particular aspect of photography - the craft - and are unable to adopt to the ongoing transition. So they try to fight the new, and in that fight there is no place nor use for facts, they pick any and every roof to scream from, no matter how distantly connected to the topic, or not at all. It's about appearance, not substance. Hence all the distortions, screaming and lunacy.

It is essentially the same thing that drove Nedd Ludd back in his day. And it will, in the end, be equally successful.

[Marko]

Brooks doesn't get it. The quality of book reproductions may be improving to the point that some of us will be satisfied with them. However, the real paradigm shift is that most consumers of images will be satisfied with a digital display of digitized images. For the latter group, Bill Gates is the trend setter with his digital wall screens displaying his rather large collection of artwork. I suspect book purchases are not an upward trend in our anti-intellectual society. If you've spent most of your leisure time watching TV or viewing a VCR/flat panel, then thumbing thru a book of pictures will be too retro.

The affectation with "the artist's touch" came as a consequence of the painters' backlash against threatening new medium back when photography was new and was not considered art because it was "something made by a machine" and that "lacked the human touch" or whatever other "arguments" of the day. The Print, as venerated by today's traditionalists, was simply an attempt to gain credibility by mimicking paintings.

Photography has always been about content and to many of us it still is. I think Bruce gets it, it is those screaming about it who don't. Or perhaps they do, especially the consequences for them, otherwise they wouldn't be screaming. ;)

Oh, and BTW, from one book-lover to another: chances are that most any book you pick today was written, laid out, produced and printed using a computer. It is very likely that it saw no paper whatsoever until it reached the printing press. And even there, the same argument still goes: Luxury, leather-bound limited runs, hardcover or paperback, any book is only as good as its content.

Like with any intellectual activity, Content Is King.

[Neal Shields]

There are only two ways to measure the quality of a print or reproduction: objectively and subjectively. Unless we are looking for baseball diamonds in Cuba, we are viewing prints for arts sake and subjectively is the right approach. (Note: Juran said that:" quality is what the customer perceives")

If we are judging subjectively it is all opinion and one person's is as good as another. However, the market is the final judge.

Objectively, I can see no standard other than the ability to capture visual information. The least subjective and most defendable way of measuring information content is MTF. Physics and economics probably dictate that for the foreseeable future, for a given sensor size, "traditional" wet dark room methods will always surpass silicon based methods.

There should not be a reason for debate. There should simply be reproducible data and opinions.

One of the things that cause the debate is the amount of hype that has been spread to try to convince the less technically literate that digital is "better" then film. Someone must say the that emperor has no clothes when Nikon and Sony are shouting to the world that he does.

How many people purchased very expensive 3 meg cameras thinking that they would surpass the objective quality of their 35mm cameras? How many people right now believe that 300 dpi reproduces all the detail that the human eye can perceive?

Even in a magazine like Lens Work were the majority of readers understand the concept of dynamic range, I think we should be careful to qualify as opinion statements of "better" when they are not backed up by reproducible data generated with valid test methods. I.E. don't try to measure the information content on a 35mm B&W negative with your flat bed scanner.

While I have never seen an ink jet print I liked, I suspect that there may be inks out there that can produce a blacker black than is available with a silver process. If that is true, I have no problem with someone saying so. (I would like to see it quantified though.)

I might add, that having been around electronic engineering all my life, I don't consider the technology in a digital camera to be anymore "high tech" than the chemistry in modern film. If you really get into what film can do with a photon, it knocks your socks off.

However, now you guys have me going. I always keep a few old Kodak Darkroom guides around for reference. The old ones have real comparison prints in them, on different samples of paper. I am fairly sure that they are contact prints from medium format negatives. (probably second generation though.) When I get home tonight, I will pull out a few copies of Lens Work and do some side by sides.

Neal

[jetcode]

The dialogue at the photo section of the newsstand two days ago:

him: are you analog?
me: (mumbling not wishing to engage) hybrid
him: I hate digital
me: (great, here we go again) that magazine in your hand is digital, there's no silver in it whatsoever
him: (caught off guard) I've never seen a digital print that is better than ...
me: walk away

[Marko]

him: are you analog?

Next time, look conspicously at your watch and reply accordingly. :D

[Blacky Dalton]

Great advertising campaign Mr. Jensen. You have successfully gotten your publication into a controversy which has led to the mention of LensWork repeatedly on this site and another. That is exactly how the big boys in Holly Wood do it.

I have been thinking about all of this and I see little merit in the basic discussion. I can’t seem to get past the continuous annoying rattle of the publisher. Then a friend sent me this post from another site last evening. My hat is off to this person, known only on that other site as Zone III, for summing up my exact feelings. Please see the comments from this gentleman below. I could not have said it better, thank you Mr. Zone III!!!

B. Dalton



I'm letting my subscription for LensWork Extended lapse not only because it is drifting more and more to digital but, more importantly, because Brooks Jensen, as nice a guy as he seems to be, simply talks too much. He talks a subject to death! I think he just likes to hear himself talk. For that reason, I have been turning the audio portion off but his articles are just as long-winded. I haven't even looked at most of the last two DVDs I have received. LensWork needs some fresh blood. As it is, everything is filtered through Brooks Jensen. It also needs to be edited much more tightly.

Zone III

[jetcode]

the market is the final judge.


Provided one let's the market be the judge. There is no given jurisdiction over subjectivity.



Physics and economics probably dictate that for the foreseeable future, for a given sensor size, "traditional" wet dark room methods will always surpass silicon based methods.


This statement is a contradiction and there is nothing like absolutes when addressing a volatile technology like electronics. It's only a short matter of time when digital will supersede anything film is capable of. 100 years from will tell the story well. Emulsion technologies have been around for well over 100 years and digital less then 20. When digital has been around for 100 years your statement will be interesting to evaluate. I'm an embedded systems engineer.

Joe

[jetcode]

Next time, look conspicously at your watch and reply accordingly. :D

That's a good giggle but I haven't worn a watch in years. If I do I'll make sure I'm wearing an analog and a digital surely to imply the ultimate in hybrid.

[Jim Galli]

Only read page one of these comments so will post and go back and read p2 and p3.

So far all have missed the point. What Brooks states very succinctly is that offset printing can achieve more sharpness and a greater range between the darkest area and the whitest area than the finest traditional silver gelatin paper. He has the measurements. His point is the "wow" factor. Throughout the history of the best possible printing, it was the original print that snatched your breath away. Brooks is simply maintaining that with the current technology, the one in the book has the potential to be more breathtaking than the original. That opens up a myriad of possibilities and questions for collectors / producers / what is the original / where is the value / ad-infinitum. Questions I raised right here 5 or 6 years ago.

BTW Brooks carefully states that as good as his mag is, it isn't anywhere close to the threshold he is describing. He has to keep costs under control also.

Again, what has changed is the wow factor or whatever you want to call it. You might mail the $1500 print back to the photographer after you get the museum book with the same picture, because the one in the book for $70 is better.

[Blacky Dalton]

Just remember, when your long gone there will be fresh blood to fill your shoes and most likely they won't be using film.

I agree 100%. But, if we don't pass along what we know, it will be lost forever. That is the burden we carry. It is up to us to educate those that are new to the medium so that film will not be lost forever. I don't care what medium anyone chooses, I just want to be sure they have the choice.

B. Dalton

[Joe Lipka]

Only read page one of these comments so will post and go back and read p2 and p3.

So far all have missed the point. What Brooks states very succinctly is that offset printing can achieve more sharpness and a greater range between the darkest area and the whitest area than the finest traditional silver gelatin paper. .

What he said.

[Wayne Lambert]

Jim Galli, Joe Lipka--- educate me. How can a reproduction of a gelatin silver contact print be sharper than the original gelatin silver contact print?

[Donald Miller]

Aparently, the folks over at apug strongly disagree - there are 18 screens full of indignant rants about Lenswork betraying the holy cause and - gasp! - introducing digital at the same level as analog in the magazine! To them, the equipment is obviously sufficiently more important than the photographer or even the photograph itself that they are swearing to cancel their subsciptions to Lenswork because of it.

To be fair, there are a couple of rational souls who beg to differ and, to be even more fair, they have not been banned or even deleted yet. Which is a tremendous change in attitude. Tremendous enough, when I stop to think about it, that it may cause mass cancelation of subscriptions to apug itself... :D

Let's recognize one thing and that there is a form of fanaticism inherent for some on this issue of film and digital. For some there appears to be some form of insecurity that translates to digital being a threat to the holy grail of film based photography. There are even those who have voluntarily taken the position that they have been blessed by the Gods on high and that by consequence they have a responsibilty to further this pure art form for succeeding generations. I do not feel, nor do I accept, any such mandate...apparently my Gods do not speak to me about what photography is or is not.

Apug has, if nothing else, been a propogating force for this viewpoint. I am saddened by this attitude on Apug and it is one of the reasons that I voluntarily took the steps to remove myself from that corrosive and destructive atmosphere. Please understand that I am not saying that all on Apug are fanatics...but if one spends a little time there and observes the outright flame wars and vitriolic comments by some than you can readily determine for yourself who will fit into the camp of "film based fanaticism". Fanatics, by and large it has been shown, are usually those who have not developed a sufficient sense of self to allow for alternative means and views. That is as much true of those who are fanatics on Apug as it was the Nazis in WWII Germany.

When one mistakes a given process for artistic expression than it would appear to me that artistic expression will ultimately be lost.

Having said that I use both large format film and digital. I believe that both have the ability to depict photographically what I wish to depict. Both engender the ability for individual artistic insertion and thereby subjective translation of a given objective reality.

There is nothing about film that is purer in this respect. Both film and digital capture become a translation of some aspect of objective reality...nothing more and nothing less.

I applaud Lenswork for having the maturity and for taking the well reasoned position to recognize the reality of that.

[tim atherton]

I don't think the point has been missed, I think it's the "craftsmen" among photographers feeling threatend and defending their turf. Some people simply have too much invested in one particular aspect of photography - the craft - and are unable to adopt to the ongoing transition. So they try to fight the new, and in that fight there is no place nor use for facts, they pick any and every roof to scream from, no matter how distantly connected to the topic, or not at all. It's about appearance, not substance. Hence all the distortions, screaming and lunacy.

It is essentially the same thing that drove Nedd Ludd back in his day. And it will, in the end, be equally successful.

On the invention of his colour daguerreotypes by Levi Hill in 1850:


"When Hill announced his process, he was visited by a group from the New York Daguerrean Association. They told him to keep quiet or they’d wreck his lab. Daguerreotypes were becoming obsolete and they feared for their livelihood.

Hill bought a revolver and a mean guard dog, and he forged ahead. People like Samuel F. B. Morse inspected his work and declared it sound. In 1856, Hill published a rambling account of what he now called the Hillotype process. But he also used the book to attack the Daguerrean Association. They, in turn, got a court order requiring all copies of the book to be destroyed..."

http://photo-muse.blogspot.com/2007/11/early-colour-daguerreotypes.html

[paulr]

While I fully respect the idea that print quality is subjective, I've seen quite a few cases where the reproduction in a high quality book has appeared to be more thoughtfully done and better crafted than the original prints. This is most common with photographers who just didn't care much about the printing process (and who often had someone else do their printing). Walker Evans comes to mind. Many original prints of his are done quite carelessly ... more in the spirit of newspaper prints than fine art prints. But I've seen other prints from the same series that were done beautifully, and I've seen book reproductions of the same that were drop dead gorgeous.

I agree that you'd have to exhume Walker and ask his opinion to know which prints best show what he wanted to show. But not being able to do that, I find myself responding more strongly to the ones that look like they were made with care ... whether with silver or with ink.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Only read page one of these comments so will post and go back and read p2 and p3.

So far all have missed the point. What Brooks states very succinctly is that offset printing can achieve more sharpness and a greater range between the darkest area and the whitest area than the finest traditional silver gelatin paper. He has the measurements. His point is the "wow" factor. Throughout the history of the best possible printing, it was the original print that snatched your breath away. Brooks is simply maintaining that with the current technology, the one in the book has the potential to be more breathtaking than the original. That opens up a myriad of possibilities and questions for collectors / producers / what is the original / where is the value / ad-infinitum. Questions I raised right here 5 or 6 years ago.

BTW Brooks carefully states that as good as his mag is, it isn't anywhere close to the threshold he is describing. He has to keep costs under control also.

Again, what has changed is the wow factor or whatever you want to call it. You might mail the $1500 print back to the photographer after you get the museum book with the same picture, because the one in the book for $70 is better.

I disagree Jim. In fact the limiting factors in any reproduction are the size of the screen dot and the paper on which is printed. Measure the reflection Dmin and Dmax of any reproduction and you will see that at the most you get 6 stops. The "wow" factor could be due to the apperent depth which the new printing materials allow, but this is not necessarily a good thing or better. Like I said before, some of us have not printed anything with a Dmax greater than 1.5 in years.

In the end, people still prefer wood to plastic, even if the plastic can be made to look even better than wood. Besides, this is nothing new. I saw some AA prints that I thought were better in the book than the real thing, and this was some 20 years ago. I still rather have the original though. I would rather have the original because as you say the "wow" factor is an intial reaction, studying the real thing you can see the great control some of these people had. Of course, for those who believ "craft" is a bad word, and mediocre results are "good enough" this is heresy. :)

[Wayne Lambert]

Marko, Donald Miller---Whoa! Pretty harsh words you've applied to those of us who don't do digital. Lunacy? Nazi? Actually, for the record, I'm really not afraid that digital will destroy my work or take away my livelihood or harm my cats. And I'm ok wtih those who do want to do digital.

[Wayne Lambert]

But we do have a little trouble spelling.

[Jim Galli]

I disagree Jim. In fact the limiting factors in any reproduction are the size of the screen dot and the paper on which is printed. Measure the reflection Dmin and Dmax of any reproduction and you will see that at the most you get 6 stops. The "wow" factor could be due to the apperent depth which the new printing materials allow, but this is not necessarily a good thing or better. Like I said before, some of us have not printed anything with a Dmax greater than 1.5 in years.

In the end, people still prefer wood to plastic, even if the plastic can be made to look even better than wood. Besides, this is nothing new. I saw some AA prints that I thought were better in the book than the real thing, and this was some 20 years ago. I still rather have the original though. I would rather have the original because as you say the "wow" factor is an intial reaction, studying the real thing you can see the great control some of these people had. Of course, for those who believ "craft" is a bad word, and mediocre results are "good enough" this is heresy. :)

Jorge, exactly. Brooks claims offset printing at it's best and most expensive / difficult can achieve a 2.25 d-max. He claims whites can be whiter than the best silver gelatin papers. He also states that dot matrix is now far beyond the sharpness of any of our tools. That's all he's really saying.

[Donald Miller]

Marko, Donald Miller---Whoa! Pretty harsh words you've applied to those of us who don't do digital. Lunacy? Nazi? Actually, for the record, I'm really not afraid that digital will destroy my work or take away my livelihood or harm my cats. And I'm ok wtih those who do want to do digital.

Wayne, Apparently you did not read what I wrote as I wrote it. I have no axe to grind insofar as film or digital. I do have problems with those who are fanatics in either realm. I said nothing more or less than that.

[Marko]

Marko, Donald Miller---Whoa! Pretty harsh words you've applied to those of us who don't do digital.

Wayne,

No, not to those who don't do digital, but to those who actively fight digital. There's a world of difference between the two.



Lunacy?

Of course. How else does one qualify some of the things being said over there, and occasionally even here by some of those characters?

I mean, you don't need any extra effort, just read a few threads and it'll jump out at you. There is hardly a thread over there without anti-digital rants obviously written by individuals with no clue about it. I saw a thread recently about using glass cookie jars for keeping chemicals which sounded interesting enough.

Well, to make the story short, how do you qualify not one but a bunch of people who go off on an anti-digital rant based on that topic?

I too use and enjoy both film and digital. I develop my own b&W and I actually enjoy reading about the traditional processes. But what I don't enjoy is having someone scream into my face about how evil and worthless my computer and my other cameras are at every turn. It kinda ruins the effort and makes me view anybody who actively participates there with a certain amount of suspicion.

Yes, I call that kind of behaviour lunacy and I believe that I am being charitable at that.


But we do have a little trouble spelling.

??

[Marko]

I applaud Lenswork for having the maturity and for taking the well reasoned position to recognize the reality of that.

Me too. I will seriously consider subscribing now that I read through all of the comotion. Not because of digital and not to oppose those who decided to cancel because of it, but primarily because the publisher has shown integrity and the will to bring up a worthwhile subject despite the criticism. That tells me that the magazine will keep picking topics based on merit rather than mob reaction.

[jetcode]

I agree 100%. But, if we don't pass along what we know, it will be lost forever. That is the burden we carry. It is up to us to educate those that are new to the medium so that film will not be lost forever. I don't care what medium anyone chooses, I just want to be sure they have the choice.

B. Dalton

I didn't think my comment was fair to you and others which is why I deleted it.

There are aspects of both worlds that I find very enticing. To me photography keeps growing extensions not shrinking to one over the other.

Joe

[Wayne Lambert]

Marko, I understand your feelings. I just hate to see those kinds of words used. To be honest and to express my feelings exactly, I need to add to my statement that I am ok with those who do want to do digital. I need to add that I'm just not sure it's always photography. And I don't intend those to be fighting words. To me some digital images have moved beyond what I personally consider photography. To me photography is more about scenes and events "out there" and to me some images are not much about that. But that's not saying that these images are insignificant or not valuable. It seems to me, in many ways, we can all be under the same tent. And I'm not a Republican.

[Blacky Dalton]

I didn't think my comment was fair to you and others which is why I deleted it.

There are aspects of both worlds that I find very enticing. To me photography keeps growing extensions not shrinking to one over the other.

Joe

Not a problem in any way Joe. I see new mediums as exciting also. More choices, more creativity!

I just want to be sure that one medium is not canceled out by false hype. My concern is that newcomers to photography may be led to believe there is only one medium. It is up to those that practice any particular form of photography to support it and keep it alive. I try at every opportunity to tell people about what I do. I shoot film, that is my choice. Just don't tell me or anyone else that film is dead, or that any other form of photography is a replacement. It is only another imaging medium, choose what best suits you.

As to the main topic here, the measured value of the whites or the blacks has little to do with the emotional impact of an image. Regardless of the medium, it is the application that creates the emotional response, not the measured values. You just cannot replace the human factor with technology.

B. Dalton

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Jorge, exactly. Brooks claims offset printing at it's best and most expensive / difficult can achieve a 2.25 d-max. He claims whites can be whiter than the best silver gelatin papers. He also states that dot matrix is now far beyond the sharpness of any of our tools. That's all he's really saying.

This is where the confusion arises. White is white, a Dmin of 0, which no paper can acheive. Most papers have a Dmin of 0.05 to 0.1. All of the silver papers can acheive this "whitness". Now, adding brigtheners, to silver and offset papers gives the apereance of greater "whiteness" but it is not a real quantifiable measurement.

As far as blacks go, the same thing. Azo could acheive Dmax of 2.6 I beleive. Any silver paper toned in selenium can easily acheive a Dmax of 2.4.

As to the sharpness of dot matrix, the average grain size of a silver halide particle is about 2 microns. I doubt there is any dot matrix finer than this in any of the stochastic screens they are making presently. Apparent sharpness, whiteness etc, that Jensen is seeing I beleive stems from a biased opinion not from real facts.

I beleive this is once more falling in love blindly with the new technology without giving it any thought. Like some here who say are tired of the analog people but who are equally rabidly digital and just as tiresome.

[Paul Metcalf]

I think whether his print is superior to Wynn's would be for Wynn to determine not Brook. It seems rather presumptuous. He should try that with a living photographer.

Having said that there are images that I can print better in ink than I could in silver. I agree. The originator is the only valid judge. All of my prints are better in silver than ink. But of course, I don't do any ink printing!:D

[Marko]

Marko, I understand your feelings. I just hate to see those kinds of words used.

Actually, I try not to mix feelings in it. It's all about logic to me and logic leads me to call crazy behaviour lunacy. That's very simple. ;)


To be honest and to express my feelings exactly, I need to add to my statement that I am ok with those who do want to do digital. I need to add that I'm just not sure it's always photography. And I don't intend those to be fighting words.

Wayne, that's perfectly fine, you are certainly entitled to your opinion, just like we all are. And I don't see anything wrong bringing it into a discussion where discussing photography per se is the topic. I don't mind engaging in such a discussion, as long the purpose is to discuss it and not insult or belittle the other.


To me some digital images have moved beyond what I personally consider photography. To me photography is more about scenes and events "out there" and to me some images are not much about that.

To me, photography is anything that is produced by using a camera with a lens on one end and light sensitive medium on the other. How it gets processed is absolutely unimportant as long as things that did not exist in the original scene are not added, as long as what does exist is not altered beyond mere corrections and as long as nothing that existed is not removed, aside from human artifacts (such as hanging wires, garbage and such). This applies to both digital and traditional alike because people did those things way before digital arrived.

As for those "some digital images" you mention, those are indeed not photographs any more, and I think the artists usually state that. Nobody's ever tried to pronounce them as such, so there's no need to bring them in this context.

But to be honest, what really makes me curious is why so many self-declared traditionalists feel such a need to bring the fact up at every possible turn? If one is so much better than the other, why such a desperate need to emphasize the distinction? Shouldn't it be obvious?

:)

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

Me too. I will seriously consider subscribing now that I read through all of the comotion. Not because of digital and not to oppose those who decided to cancel because of it, but primarily because the publisher has shown integrity and the will to bring up a worthwhile subject despite the criticism. That tells me that the magazine will keep picking topics based on merit rather than mob reaction.

Well besides the state-of-the-art reproduction and printing technology that LW uses, what I really love about it is Brooks' approch to photography. He has the enthusiasm of a 5 year old kid in a candy store when he talks about fine art photography. He then takes his enthusaism and shares it with the reader as if the reader is an intellectual equal with him. It's really refreshing to see the publisher/editor of a magazine not talk down to his audience.

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

Wayne, Apparently you did not read what I wrote as I wrote it. I have no axe to grind insofar as film or digital. I do have problems with those who are fanatics in either realm. I said nothing more or less than that.

I've never seen a digital fanatic before...

[Wayne Lambert]

Donald and Marko---Showing my inexperience in forums (it is digital, you know) I failed to carefully note respondents' names in posts 18:01 and 18:02 and wrote my response (18:34) as if Marko had written both. Apologies to you, Donald. My response should have addressed you both. And I haven't figured out yet how to include quotes in posts.

[Marko]

Wayne, no problem, it was pretty clear what you meant. :)

As for quotes, there are three buttons at the bottom of each message. The first one, "Quote", quotes the entire message directly and the second one is meant for multiple quotes - you keep clicking it in each message you want to quote and then hit "Quote" in the last one. That pastes all the quotes in a single window. Once there, you can edit them just as any other text. Dodge and burn as needed, if you will... :D

[Wayne Lambert]

Thanks, Marko. I'll try to concentrate on dodging, not burning.

[paulr]

The dot size of ink has become completely irrelevent, since the dots in printers are smaller than what can be resolved by the naked eye. If you want to compare sharpness / perceived detail of two printing methods, what will influence your impression is the contrast achieved in the 1lp/mm to 5lp/mm range.

If anyone in the NYC area would like to see an example of this principle, I can show you silver prints next to same-size ink prints, made from the same image. Everyone who's made the comparison so far has been surprised.

[Gordon Moat]

Jorge, exactly. Brooks claims offset printing at it's best and most expensive / difficult can achieve a 2.25 d-max. He claims whites can be whiter than the best silver gelatin papers. He also states that dot matrix is now far beyond the sharpness of any of our tools. That's all he's really saying.

Whiteness and brightness are values for commercial printing papers readily available from any paper company. Usually the Brightness value is the primary concern. An excellent individual to contact about this would be Daniel Dejan of Sappi Paper.

In North America the Brightness scale is 0 to 100 for commercial papers. Whiteness is the shade or blueness of a paper. These terms might not match those used for photographic papers, and cause some confusion. It is extremely difficult to achieve a brightness value greater than 92 without using an optical brightening agent, the most common being Flourescence. The downside of an OBA is that there is no known stabilizer, so all papers using OBAs will eventually yellow with age.

So while commercial printing on high brightness value papers might appear to get a whiter white, the downside is that the paper will oxidize and yellow over time. A more conservative approach using lower brightness values, while avoiding papers with OBAs, can give a resulting print that retains near the same brightness over a longer time.

So maybe that photographic (chemical) print is not as bright, or does not seem as white, as a commercial print of the same image, but it likely may change less over time. These are choices that people will need to make when their images are printed.

Other differences are the smoothness of commercial papers, which can create less scattering of light rays, potentially increasing apparent sharpness. This will affect how the (commercial) ink will sit on the paper, allowing greater detail and a broader tonal range on smoother papers. Smoothness is another specification available from paper companies, often based upon the Parker Smoothness Indicator set of parameters. Often the most apparent effect is on the tonal range, probably more apparent in colour images than B/W images (even tritone or duotones). Then there is the dull to gloss ratio, which will affect the contrast.

Coatings in commercial papers are another aspect affecting smoothness and gloss. Coating fills peaks and valleys in paper. This can also affect the tactile quality of papers, though we might expect people to handle magazines and books, but not be handling individual prints, so tactile quality can affect perceived quality of a paper, but only in situations when that paper is handled.

All paper choices are compromises, either on cost, difficulty of printing, availability, longevity, or other factors (finish, tactile quality, ink holdout, etc.). Those coating their own photographic papers will also run into many of the same issues as those choosing papers for commercial printing. Then it comes down to, as Kirk and others mention, personal taste in how people want their printed images to be viewed. I don't see any of this as right or wrong, best or worse, nor even vastly different . . . quite simply they are decisions that need to be made.

Just a quick note on printing ink technologies; Creo Staccato is 10 to 50 microns variable, AGFA have a similar system with slightly finer smallest dot size. There are also screenless printing methods, or dotless printing, but what you can achieve sometimes is more limited, or simply not cost effective. Alinari (http://www.alinari.it/default_en.asp) with their Collotype printing might be able to exceed many commercial printing technologies, despite this being very old technology. Last, inkjet doesn't even belong in this discussion, because the ink holdout and dot gain are so poor in comparison to commercial printing.

The biiggest difference I see is the difference in continuous tone prints, and printing technologies that attempt to simulate continuous tone. It is difficult to see dot patterns or screening is very high end commercial printing, but look at enough of this stuff and you can see a difference from that to continuous tone prints. Chemical photographic prints are continuous tone, and only a few not so well done contact prints from digital negatives ever loose that continuous tone feeling and look. My personal preference is towards continuous tone images, though I can thoroughly enjoy fine commercial prints.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat (http://www.gordonmoat.com)

[paulr]

It is difficult to see dot patterns or screening is very high end commercial printing, but look at enough of this stuff and you can see a difference from that to continuous tone prints.

I would challenge anyone to look at top end monochrome books (like ones printed by Richard Benson and Steinhauer Press) and identify either dots or lack of continuity in tones.

I used Benson's Paul Strand book as a benchmark for some of the darkroom prints I was making in the '90s. It's printed with four quadtone plates, two background tints, and two varnishes. The richness and subtlety of the tones in those reproductions was completely intimidating. I was happy to even come close.

[Gordon Moat]

Exactly Paul. There is a good reason printers loupes are used to inspect prints. There is still a difference, but I don't see any way to clearly state one is better than the other (continuous tone photographic prints). It really comes down to tastes, personal preferences, and opinions; though some people seem to have convinced themselves that one technology is better than the other, despite enough variables to confuse direct comparisons.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat (http://www.gordonmoat.com)

P.S. - Just so none misunderstand what I wrote, I am not claiming super-human eyesight that allows me to see the finest dots unaided. There is a difference, but it has nothing to do with seeing dots, nor patterns. It is very tough to quantify . . . such as me explaining this and someone else stating "Oh! I see what he means!" . . . I would have to type a frikkin' book to describe the subtleties, and I have no interest in that for this discussion . . . besides, it would not change many of the opinions here.

[Louie Powell]

That's purely an opinion.

AFAIK, there is no OBJECTIVE standard that allows one to determine that one print is "superior" to another.

I got my copy of LW today and was able to read the essay.

What Brooks is saying is that the quality of lithographic printing is becoming damn good. He does not say that pictures reproduced in lithographic printing are superior to the photographic originals - that would be patently absurd since it would mean that the printing process actually adds quality that wasn't there in the original.

I do have to agree that someone could prefer a reproduction to the original. That would be an opinion, and each of us is entitle to at least one opinion - and some of us have more than one!

Brooks also goes so far as to define his basis for comparison - dot density and opacity. And if they constitute objective criteria, then I suppose that creative printing techniques may eventually exceed what can be accomplished with an original photographic print when measured on those criteria. But those are arbitrary criteria and don't necessarily measure the emotional content of an image.

To use only dot density and opacity as the objective measures of image quality would reduce photography to an exercise in mechanics. It's already too easy to fall into the trap of making content-free photographs solely for the purpose of demonstrating what the photographic process is capable of doing. As David Vestal once said of one of my prints - "technically perfect, pictorially empty".

My sense is that Brooks' essay was intended to stimulate discussion - and that it has done. But I think he was pretty careful to not state that reproductions are "better" than originals.

[Joe Lipka]

Jim Galli, Joe Lipka--- educate me. How can a reproduction of a gelatin silver contact print be sharper than the original gelatin silver contact print?

Let me take a shot at it. Dare I suggest that there are computational algorithms that can increase the apparent sharpness of the digitized file of an image. These can be used to increase the apparent sharpness of the final image. This is strictly a judgement call on the viewing of sharpness by each individual. The reproduction of the contact print had undergone an additional process to make it appear sharper.

A generic name for this is "unsharp masking" which is a hold over from the methods used in the wet darkrooms.

One of the technical points made was the measurement of the Dmax of the various prints. This is a measurable quantity and is not open to as much interpretation as sharpness.

[Wayne Lambert]

Let me take a shot at it. Dare I suggest that there are computational algorithms that can increase the apparent sharpness of the digitized file of an image. These can be used to increase the apparent sharpness of the final image. This is strictly a judgement call on the viewing of sharpness by each individual. The reproduction of the contact print had undergone an additional process to make it appear sharper.

A generic name for this is "unsharp masking" which is a hold over from the methods used in the wet darkrooms.

One of the technical points made was the measurement of the Dmax of the various prints. This is a measurable quantity and is not open to as much interpretation as sharpness.

I had wondered if the answer might be unsharp masking, but wouldn't unsharp masking be used if the image was already a little fuzzy? I'm thinking of a gelatin-silver contact print portraying a landscape in which a slender bare tree branch is several tens of yards away and against the sky. And let's go ahead and put it in the (tilted) plane of best focus. I'm sure you are familiar with an example like this. From a normal print viewing distance the image of the branch is incredibly sharp to the naked eye, and it is even sharp under a 10x hand lens. What I have trouble with is how the reproduction can make the image of the branch seem even sharper. Would the branch be x number of microns narrower in the reproduction? I can see how an out-of-focus branch could be made sharper, but not one that is already sharp. I'm having trouble visualizing what I would see in the reproduction. It's sort of like those old late-night campfire discussions when we all tried to visualize what lies beyond the limits of the known universe. (Harlow Shapley said he could prove mathematically what was there, but that's another story.)

And then there's that other issue, which we've already pretty well beat up in the early parts of this thread, of whether or not the photographer wants his image to appear sharper in the reproduction. But let's don't get into that. Joe, I appreciate your helping me on this.

[Wayne Lambert]

I didn't think of this yesterday, but I assume the digital procedure produces an edge contrast effect that increases the apparent sharpness of the image. That would make sense. In traditional photography different film/developer combinations exhibit varying degrees of this effect. I was sort of hung up on the edge of the universe thing.

[ondebanks]

I had wondered if the answer might be unsharp masking, but wouldn't unsharp masking be used if the image was already a little fuzzy? I'm thinking of a gelatin-silver contact print portraying a landscape in which a slender bare tree branch is several tens of yards away and against the sky. And let's go ahead and put it in the (tilted) plane of best focus. I'm sure you are familiar with an example like this. From a normal print viewing distance the image of the branch is incredibly sharp to the naked eye, and it is even sharp under a 10x hand lens. What I have trouble with is how the reproduction can make the image of the branch seem even sharper. Would the branch be x number of microns narrower in the reproduction? I can see how an out-of-focus branch could be made sharper, but not one that is already sharp. I'm having trouble visualizing what I would see in the reproduction.

Unsharp masking increases the apparent sharpness by enhancing edges. Even when the tree branch was imaged with all of the sharpness that the image capturing system could deliver - and let's assume zero optical aberrations, perfect focus, and an ultra-fine grain or pixel matrix - diffraction still convolves all points in the image by a point-spread function (ideally a sinc function) which has a finite width. This causes all edges to "bleed" or slope. That tree branch has edges which slope from dark to bright. So unsharp masking will still enhance it, by steepening the slope of the edge. Edge enhancement can be taken too far, resulting in ringing (overshoots on the bright side of the edge, undershoots on the dark side)...this is more than just steepening the slope, this is digging a trench at the bottom of it and piling the excavated rubble up at the top of it. The edge really stands out then, but it looks obviously artificially manipulated. (Something that is done rather too often by inexperienced digital image processors).

BTW unsharp masking is not the same as deconvolution, which attempts to restore the PSF towards a delta-function of zero width (in practice, this means a single pixel). The PSF in an unsharp-masked image is still much the same but it has had its lowest-frequency components removed or reduced.

Frequency filtering works for both analog and digital domains, which is why unsharp masking was invented in the good old-fashioned wet darkroom.

[Marko]

I didn't think of this yesterday, but I assume the digital procedure produces an edge contrast effect that increases the apparent sharpness of the image. That would make sense. In traditional photography different film/developer combinations exhibit varying degrees of this effect. I was sort of hung up on the edge of the universe thing.

I never tried the traditional unsharp masking, but I always thought that it was based on the same principle of increasing accutance.

There are three basic elements in either procedure - the amount of blurring, the density and the contrast of the mask. What differs is the mechanism for applying it, which naturally, depends on the medium used.

But the principle and the result are the same.

[reellis67]

Ah, yes, the old, tired craft-of-art vs. art-of-craft argument.

To add to what Tim said, even contact prints are made with the help of a mechanical contrivance. It's called the camera. All you have to do to get the picture is: aim it and push the button. ;)

While this is getting far off the main thread, I feel compelled to say that I'm afraid that you have missed my point. All I intended to say is that I would not spend much on a reproduction of someones work of art - in the example at hand the work of art exists in a computer and the print is something that is made by a machine, and thereby a reproduction in my opinion. I never said, nor do I feel, that art made with a machine (in this case a computer) is not art - that was your inclusion and it does not accurately reflect my sentiments in this thread - to wit; the artist is the only one who can decide how best to express their own vision, I reserve the right to form my own opinion on what is 'superior', and that I feel reproductions are of less value that originals.


Aside from that, what about slides? Are they less of an art than even ink jet prints because they use no paper at all? Or are they superior to even wet prints because they entail less manipulation? And if so, what about that famed artist's touch?

Now you're just being intentionally inflammatory by recalling the pointless traditional film v. digital rhetoric, not to mention getting quite far off the original post.

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

While this is getting far off the main thread, I feel compelled to say that I'm afraid that you have missed my point. All I intended to say is that I would not spend much on a reproduction of someones work of art - in the example at hand the work of art exists in a computer and the print is something that is made by a machine, and thereby a reproduction in my opinion. I never said, nor do I feel, that art made with a machine (in this case a computer) is not art - that was your inclusion and it does not accurately reflect my sentiments in this thread - to wit; the artist is the only one who can decide how best to express their own vision, I reserve the right to form my own opinion on what is 'superior', and that I feel reproductions are of less value that originals.

Why would it matter of the print was made with a machine or by a man if the man is controlling the machine? The amount of imperfections in a reproduction would decrease with a machine, while in a man it would most certainly increase. Isn't part of creating something creating it to the best level of quality that you possibly can? If a machine increases that quality, why would it have less value?

[reellis67]

In an upcoming interview with Bruce Daivdson and this part will probably never make the final editing cut so this will be the only place you can ever read it, Davidson says and I quote:

"The only printing I do are master prints. Well, my printer can make a better print than I can make. He makes prints every day. If I just gave him the contact sheet, then when he made the print the mood might not be right. When I print it myself I print the way I think it should be, but it may be at the end of the day one or two of the pictures could be printed a little better. Generally I don't let my master prints out of here, because I'm not in the business of printing, Two exceptions are in the hands of The Museum of the City of New York. They acquired my Type C color prints of the Subway, and they acquired, through a patron, all of Central Park."

So would you never think about buying a print of Bruce Davidson's?

I see your point, and I think that you have a well defended stance, but it does not change my mind. While I admire some of his work, I would not likely pay the asking price of his prints knowing that they were made by someone else. I prefer to spend the tiny amount of money that I have on art on works created by the artist themselves - it lends an intimacy and direct connection to the artist that I just don't get any other way. I make no argument that everyone should follow my choice - only that I place a far higher value on art made by the artist directly that that made by others, be it man or machine. I would like to add that regardless of the form, my stance in no way belittles the impact of the artists vision on me - a moving photograph is still a moving photograph regardless of it's means of creation.

[reellis67]

You just excluded a lot of artists who didn't or don't print their own work themselves for one thing.

And aside from contact prints, most photographs are mechanical (essentially machine made) reproductions...

I understand that, but it does not change the fact that, for *me*, knowing that the person who created that artwork made that very piece with their own hands allows for a connection to the artist. That personal connection is broken, again, for *me*, when the artist does not do the work themselves, regardless of whether it was done by human assistant or machine.

I respect the artists' vision, and I have been moved many, many times by works created by computer and digital camera. The method of creation is up to the artist in my mind, but if I am to spend my hard earned money on it, I want to know that the artists hands were directly involved in the creation of what I am buying, to know that they made it themselves. That is what makes something superior to me.

[Marko]

While this is getting far off the main thread, I feel compelled to say that I'm afraid that you have missed my point. All I intended to say is that I would not spend much on a reproduction of someones work of art - in the example at hand the work of art exists in a computer and the print is something that is made by a machine, and thereby a reproduction in my opinion.

Well, you are essentially saying that the craft determines the art with this, so I don't see how exactly I missed your point.

For me, the art does not exist in the craft but in the artist's head. In other words, the art is in the content and not in the medium. Therefore, the art cannot exist in the computer nor in the print, those are inanimate objects whose only meaning is the one we choose to assign to them. Mostly arbitrarily, at least when it comes to art.

And for this reason, photography can be the ideal medium because it has the potential to liberate the art from the medium as no other tool of artistic expression.



I never said, nor do I feel, that art made with a machine (in this case a computer) is not art - that was your inclusion and it does not accurately reflect my sentiments in this thread - to wit; the artist is the only one who can decide how best to express their own vision, I reserve the right to form my own opinion on what is 'superior', and that I feel reproductions are of less value that originals.

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, just like everybody else. But once you post it in a discussion forum, it should be open for, well, discussion.

As for the rest, here is exactly what you said:


The artists touch as Doug put it make the print worth having for me - the end product was made by the artist themselves rather than by some machine. I think that a magazine is a very appropriate use of mechanically produced prints, but I would never pay more than ten or twelve bucks for a machine-made print regardless of how moving it was. Someone may have created the image after hours of hard work at the computer, and their touch is certainly there in that electronic work, but the printout of that effort is just a mechanical reproduction of that effort regardless of how technically perfect it is.

In essence, you said that an inkjet print is not art but reproduction of art. If this is not the art-of-craft argument taken to an extreme, I don't know what is. Even some of the hard-core apugers would disagree with this, as they scan and print digitally.


Now you're just being intentionally inflammatory by recalling the pointless traditional film v. digital rhetoric, not to mention getting quite far off the original post.

Inflammatory? How's that? I just asked you a simple question - if traditional print is art because it has an artist's touch and was not created by machine and as such superior to an inkjet print which was created (in your opinion) by a machine and as such not an art but a reproduction, where does the slide stand in that equation?

It (the slide) was created by machines (the camera and the processor) and it is projected by another machine (projector). It does not involve paper at all and it is always reproduced (projected) in exactly the same way, so where exactly is the Artist's Touch there?

I don't see what's inflammatory in this, these are perfectly logical questions following your line of reasoning. I use both digital and film, I'm not opposed to either.

So how exactly is this inflammatory?