Is that Such Camera or Skills???

[waileong]

...

Ansel Adams frequented the darkroom quite a bit.

On the contrary. Darkroom work is the ancestor of photoshop. How do you think PS features such as USM, dodging and burning came about?

Every picture done in a darkroom is a result of printing decisions made by the printer, even if the decision is limited to choice of developer, concentration and development time.

Few negatives will give a really good picture without any manipulation. Dodging and burning, toning and retouching, etc. are needed to make almost all negatives realise a master's vision.

 

[lsisaxon]

Just wanted to add that, one day in the very near future, a person's pp skills may well be as important as the phototaking skills! Very difficult for someone like me who has spent a considerable amount of time taking photos, but very little with pp.

The old saying is something like 65% shooting, 35% darkroom. But in those days it's because different film and paper emulsion (especially colour) has different bias, so you'll need to correct these. Contrast is usually altered by exposure timing, chemical concentration, developer timing and temperature. Now, these are easily done with an in-camera custom curve. So I guess, it's probably 90-95% shooting and 10-5% PP.

Burning, dodging and sponging (soaking a sponge with the developer and selectively increase developent time for portions of the print by rubbing the developer over the print, usually B&W because you get to see under red light, you can't see for colour printing) are very common techniques to control highlights and shadows in darkroom but for digital, they don't seem to work as well as if you did it in the darkroom.. the feel is not there and just doesn't seem right. Usually I just use levels to get what I want if it's still not exactly right straight out of the camera.

 

[lsisaxon]

I think it is still posible...this guy did it

www.anseladams.com

This guy knows how to control contrast by using the dynamic range of the film and paper to his advantage. He has to know quite a bit of darkroom to be able to do that. For B&W, film type, exposure time, processing time, chemical formulation/concentration and paper grade can alter the sensitivity curve of the image quite a lot, so it's very important to understand these before you can get what you want.

As for digital... it's just so simple... and limited by the dynamic range of the sensor.

 

[posez]

The old saying is something like 65% shooting, 35% darkroom. But in those days it's because different film and paper emulsion (especially colour) has different bias, so you'll need to correct these. Contrast is usually altered by exposure timing, chemical concentration, developer timing and temperature. Now, these are easily done with an in-camera custom curve. So I guess, it's probably 90-95% shooting and 10-5% PP.

Burning, dodging and sponging (soaking a sponge with the developer and selectively increase developent time for portions of the print by rubbing the developer over the print, usually B&W because you get to see under red light, you can't see for colour printing) are very common techniques to control highlights and shadows in darkroom but for digital, they don't seem to work as well as if you did it in the darkroom.. the feel is not there and just doesn't seem right. Usually I just use levels to get what I want if it's still not exactly right straight out of the camera.

Actually, I think most of us do 90-95% and 10-5% PP for sharpening, noice reduction, cropping, correcting light fall-off, distortion etc. However, I am sure that there are some pros, or even some of us, who do 50% PP - especially for more artistic shots or for commercials etc. I tend to think that this is the new wave of picture making - and PP on digital photos gives far more room for creativity then darkroom techniques. You can completely transform a picture by cropping, changing perspectives, colour and tone controls on PS 2. Especially as we see greater and greater resolution and dynamic range becoming available.

 

[lsisaxon]

I find it rather impossible to take good shots of bright sky without editing or using polariser... filters...etc.

Just need to get your lighting and exposure right. For example try to shoot with the sun behind you and if the sky is overcast, don't expect to get blue sky.. you can't even see it, how can it be there in your image?
This is shot with D70s with sRealav2 curve. Straight out of camera JPEG, no PP.. just resize.

 

[night86mare]

On the contrary. Darkroom work is the ancestor of photoshop. How do you think PS features such as USM, dodging and burning came about?

Every picture done in a darkroom is a result of printing decisions made by the printer, even if the decision is limited to choice of developer, concentration and development time.

Few negatives will give a really good picture without any manipulation. Dodging and burning, toning and retouching, etc. are needed to make almost all negatives realise a master's vision.

:dunno: Why on the contrary? Isn't that what I said, he spent some time in the darkroom? =(

 

[lsisaxon]

However, I am sure that there are some pros, or even some of us, who do 50% PP - especially for more artistic shots or for commercials etc. I tend to think that this is the new wave of picture making - and PP on digital photos gives far more room for creativity then darkroom techniques. You can completely transform a picture by cropping, changing perspectives, colour and tone controls on PS 2. Especially as we see greater and greater resolution and dynamic range becoming available.

I don't call that PP. I call that digital artistry. You're basically painting over your image. In the old days, photography just stop at the image. Any other additions are in the hands of the graphic artist who literally airbrush over the prints. So there is some convergence of the role of the artist and photographer.

I still remember after printing most of the time I'll need to touch up the prints due to dust using a fine artist brush, have to mix the water colours properly so they blend into the picture..

In the past, perspective correction is done using PC lenses, now you can straighten the perspective with Photoshop.. :thumbsup: PC lenses are not cheap.

 

[posez]

I don't call that PP. I call that digital artistry. You're basically painting over your image. In the old days, photography just stop at the image. Any other additions are in the hands of the graphic artist who literally airbrush over the prints. So there is some convergence of the role of the artist and photographer.

In the past, perspective correction is done using PC lenses, now you can straighten the perspective with Photoshop.. :thumbsup: PC lenses are not cheap.

Haha, that's another debate. What is PP and what goes beyond PP. I would certainly call it PP though, and I think the digital artistry will soon become as much part of good photo-making as picture-taking. I think that PP in film at least covers a lot of this, splicing, cutting, editing, overlaying sound, adding things to blue-screen, special effects etc etc.

I think even now, a lot of us will shoot a picture every now and then with the precise intention to do extensive PP and present something very different from what the the scene actually looks at.

I am not saying I am very comfortable with this. My extent of PP usually is noise-reduction, cropping, sharpening, adding filters, saturation etc. Simple stuff. Most often, when there are many photos, its just crop and auto-levels! I seldom have the time or energy to play with the curves or to do "digital artistry". But I think I will have to expand my horizons a bit.

 

[lsisaxon]

Haha, that's another debate. What is PP and what goes beyond PP. I would certainly call it PP though, and I think the digital artistry will soon become as much part of good photo-making as picture-taking. I think that PP in film at least covers a lot of this, splicing, cutting, editing, overlaying sound, adding things to blue-screen, special effects etc etc.

I think even now, a lot of us will shoot a picture every now and then with the precise intention to do extensive PP and present something very different from what the the scene actually looks at.

I am not saying I am very comfortable with this. My extent of PP usually is noise-reduction, cropping, sharpening, adding filters, saturation etc. Simple stuff. Most often, when there are many photos, its just crop and auto-levels! I seldom have the time or energy to play with the curves or to do "digital artistry". But I think I will have to expand my horizons a bit.

This reminds me.. One good example of PP is posterization.. Now it's just a click of a button.. :sweat: But it does not give the same feel as you do it manually by creating litho masks although it can be done similarly in PS using layers and masks.

I was thinking solarization might be another technique but then it probably has the same effect as the brightness control.

 

[angiee]

Hi all, i was wonder is there any digital camera or any kind of "legendary skills"
that enable a photographer to shoot professional pictures without using any equipments and going thru graphic software editing?

What i meant by "Professional" as in those really contrast, sharp beautiful photos...(Landscape, humans, marco...)

Can anyone take a "ending photo" without using any editing or any professional equipments or even a polariser?

Possible?

::

in clubsnap? No. Not possible.

 

[night86mare]

in clubsnap? No. Not possible.

To the contrary, I think some people here are able.

CLUBSNAP PRIDE!!!

 

[theRBK]

that's the thing with digital cameras and PP... because one can see instant image reviews, people thinks its so easy, that they take their pictures and expect great results, and if not, they blame their cameras, digital technology being inferior to film, that there is some kind of esoteric techniques that will instantly make their images incredible that people selfishly refuse to tell them about, etc...

could it be that PP is the intervening factor... you know what happens when film is handed over to the developer, a technician who would adjust the film so that the images are optimised... or the people who developed film on their own, who would have to go through the chemical processess, mixing chemicals, timing the processing for control over the image...all that is PP...and in the digital age, PP is on the computer screen...its just that its very accessibility to everyone has made it look like cheating, as opposed to the impression that when film is given to developer, it somehow magically transforms itself into prints without the developers input...;p

PP has always been an important part in the past, it will still be important in the foreseeable future...oh and there is of course the very important skill of proper exposure...

 

[posez]

that's the thing with digital cameras and PP... because one can see instant image reviews, people thinks its so easy, that they take their pictures and expect great results, and if not, they blame their cameras, digital technology being inferior to film, that there is some kind of esoteric techniques that will instantly make their images incredible that people selfishly refuse to tell them about, etc...

could it be that PP is the intervening factor... you know what happens when film is handed over to the developer, a technician who would adjust the film so that the images are optimised... or the people who developed film on their own, who would have to go through the chemical processess, mixing chemicals, timing the processing for control over the image...all that is PP...and in the digital age, PP is on the computer screen...its just that its very accessibility to everyone has made it look like cheating, as opposed to the impression that when film is given to developer, it somehow magically transforms itself into prints without the developers input...;p

PP has always been an important part in the past, it will still be important in the foreseeable future...oh and there is of course the very important skill of proper exposure...

I certainly agree with you. One difference though - the amount of control and scope of changes / effects that can be had in PP in the digital age is far greater with current technology than what we could do with film in the past. And the ability to manipulate the pictures will probably increase as dynamic range and resolution on cameras increase on the one hand, and computer software and hardware improve on the other.

 

[hazmee]

Why is the medium or method used so important to us when creating art? I can show you the technique but what you can do with it is entirely up to you. There's no such thing as an 'untouched', no PP or even raw images. There's only good and bad images. Even then, its still subjective. I quote Saiful Bahar, "Its not what you use, it's what you produce."

BTW, digital sensors can only 'guess' the colors so what you see is not really what you get. Hence, that is where colour correction comes in handy. Its all based on guesstimate technology. E.g. how white is white? Some people think my gray isnt gray but does it really matter?

The only reason I can think of when people rant about their camera is they don't have a vision in mind but put blame their equipment when something goes wrong or do not capture what they 'think' it should look like.

I've been shooting digital for the past 5 years and went through quite a number of cameras before giving up buying. Its not the camera but more on the lens and quality of light. All cameras can capture good light IMHO given that its light source goes through a good set of glasses. If I didn't discover the beauty of post-production, I wouldn't have been interested in photography at all. There's no camera in this world that capture the images inside my head.

Vision -> Execution -> Post production -> Print

The camera is only a tiny part of your actual goal, creating the image.

Hope that helps. Cheers!

 

[posez]

Why is the medium or method used so important to us when creating art? I can show you the technique but what you can do with it is entirely up to you. There's no such thing as an 'untouched', no PP or even raw images. There's only good and bad images. Even then, its still subjective. I quote Saiful Bahar, "Its not what you use, it's what you produce."

BTW, digital sensors can only 'guess' the colors so what you see is not really what you get. Hence, that is where colour correction comes in handy. Its all based on guesstimate technology. E.g. how white is white? Some people think my gray isnt gray but does it really matter?

The only reason I can think of when people rant about their camera is they don't have a vision in mind but put blame their equipment when something goes wrong or do not capture what they 'think' it should look like.

I've been shooting digital for the past 5 years and went through quite a number of cameras before giving up buying. Its not the camera but more on the lens and quality of light. All cameras can capture good light IMHO given that its light source goes through a good set of glasses. If I didn't discover the beauty of post-production, I wouldn't have been interested in photography at all. There's no camera in this world that capture the images inside my head.

Vision -> Execution -> Post production -> Print

The camera is only a tiny part of your actual goal, creating the image.

Hope that helps. Cheers!

Great post - agree with you entirely :thumbsup:

 

[angiee]

Why is the medium or method used so important to us when creating art? I can show you the technique but what you can do with it is entirely up to you. There's no such thing as an 'untouched', no PP or even raw images. There's only good and bad images. Even then, its still subjective. I quote Saiful Bahar, "Its not what you use, it's what you produce."

BTW, digital sensors can only 'guess' the colors so what you see is not really what you get. Hence, that is where colour correction comes in handy. Its all based on guesstimate technology. E.g. how white is white? Some people think my gray isnt gray but does it really matter?

The only reason I can think of when people rant about their camera is they don't have a vision in mind but put blame their equipment when something goes wrong or do not capture what they 'think' it should look like.

I've been shooting digital for the past 5 years and went through quite a number of cameras before giving up buying. Its not the camera but more on the lens and quality of light. All cameras can capture good light IMHO given that its light source goes through a good set of glasses. If I didn't discover the beauty of post-production, I wouldn't have been interested in photography at all. There's no camera in this world that capture the images inside my head.

Vision -> Execution -> Post production -> Print

The camera is only a tiny part of your actual goal, creating the image.

Hope that helps. Cheers!

so why gone through so many digital cameras? admit that you think like the rest for 5 years.

 

[angiee]

that's the thing with digital cameras and PP... because one can see instant image reviews, people thinks its so easy, that they take their pictures and expect great results, and if not, they blame their cameras, )

yadayada. Can you name 5 people who do that? i.e blame?

 

[Andy Ang]

so why gone through so many digital cameras? admit that you think like the rest for 5 years.

Why does he needs to admit to anything. In his sharing notes, he is already telling you that he have after these 5 years, at last found out that the cameras don't really matters too much.

 

[Andy Ang]

yadayada. Can you name 5 people who do that? i.e blame?

He also don't have to provide the names to prove his point. What's your purpose of jumping into the thread, demanded answers to your one line questions? Without you even sharing anything? You waiting for everyone to come and flame you is it?
:dunno:

 

[judeseah]

most of my PP skill,
i learn from him.
cos, he did it the tradition way,
i use computer.

jude

I think it is still posible...this guy did it

www.anseladams.com