Digital Soup

[Georgiy Romanov]

Viveza, ColorEfex Pro and SilverEfex Pro. No RAW here because my cameras often can't take RAW files and after all I find them inconvenient. Shooting in BW JPEG mode If I want a BW image. Same story with Color.

 

[Bill Pierce]

Bill: I am curious how you would differentiate this exercise from that of years gone by when photographers would spend much effort in finding that alternative developer that would set their work apart from the masses.

Bob, the difference between the wet darkroom development and digital development is huge. (However, I'm not sure either is capable of setting someone's work apart from the masses.) Your choice of developer in the wet darkroom fixes some of the qualities of that negative forever. The grain of a Microdol negative is never going to look like the grain pattern of a Rodinal negative. The tonal curve of a film pushed in D-76 is never going to look like the curve of a film exposed at the same rating and developed in Diafine. You make your choice, and you’re stuck with it.

When you process a digital raw file, a specific program may give you initial results that are different from another digital “developer.” Color saturation, contrast, where the curve places shadow and highlight values may initially be different. But usually, by tweaking the controls, most programs can be made to produce similar results. And, on the very rare occasion that they can’t, if you haven’t used a program that somehow permanently alters the raw file, you can reprocess the raw file in another program. Most folks can get by using any program they like or have a good deal of experience with.

Of course, there are minor exceptions. Iridient is going to handle the sharpening of a Fuji file a little better than Lightroom. Most of the time this will not be significant, certainly not in a screen image or small print. And even if you are a die hard Lightroom user, you can still use Iridient when it is beneficial or use Iridient X-transformer to produce DNGs with Iridient sharpening and Lightroom tonal control.

The difference between the wet darkroom and the computer darkroom is simple. You are not comitted to a permanent processing choice in digital. At any time you can redevelop the image in a different digital developer. (This is an advantage until you find yourself spending far too much time in the digital darkroom and the family pets no longer recognize you.)