Bill Pierce
Well-known
In the days of the wet darkroom, developing and printing black-and-white film offered more controls over the final image than working in color. Perhaps because of this, a large number of serious photographers did the majority of their work in black-and-white. (The Pete Turners, Saul Leiters, Ernst Haases, Joel Meyerowitzes and Stephen Shores were outnumbered by the Gene Smiths, Richard Avedons, Don McCullins, Dorthea Langes, David Vestals, Ansel Adamses, Henri Cartier-Bressons, Robert Doisneaux, Edward Westons, Paul Strands, Man Rays, Sebastian Salgados and Ansel Adams.) Not so today. The preponderance of digital photography and the raw file has made controling the digital color image not only easier, but offered a greater range of controls, than the b&w film darkroom. The question is “Is it worth it and do you do it?”
The answer is obviously different for different people. If you are primarily looking at images on a computer screen and sharing them via the web or email, there are probably variations enough between screens that trying to make the equivalent of “the fine art print” is futile, but there are adjustments that can improve even the screen image beyond the obvious ballpark adjustment to brightness, contrast and color values. If nothing else, brightening up what you consider to be the important subject area and slightly dimming and dropping the contrast of the other areas, even if it’s just “burning the edges” can produce a more effective image that draws the viewer towards what you think is important. Even when it’s obvious what is important, this simple adjustment can almost always improve a picture.
At the other end of the scale is the “framed exhibition print.” It can be big on the wall, but, truth is, if it’s a print of something important to you, it can be any size; you just want to make it as good as you can. And what processing steps do you take to make it the print you want? The answer - all of them. A lot of the good printers I know literally go down the menu of the program they use, look at every control and say could this control do something that would, in my eyes, make this picture better? Often the answer is no, but they check every possibility, and, in today’s digital darkroom, that’s a lot of options.
Then comes the point of the entire process, making the print. I have friends who have double giant monitors that are calibrated regularly and friends with only laptops and a prayer. But a screen is not a print. As much as it hurts, the answer to a good print is often throwing away the first print and making the changes you think necessary in a second print. If you’re famous, your gallery can sell the first print as an “ARTISTS PROOF.”
So where do you fall in line in this process. The two photographers that went out of their way to help me when I started were Gene Smith and David Vestal; so, of course, I am a print maniac. But I’ve seen family albums that were gawd awful by those standards. But content was king, and what was in those albums meant more to the owners than any photo masterpiece. What is important? I don’t know. But there are digital tools now available that allow controls in color that were only available in black-and-white in film. Do you think they are important? Do you use them?
The answer is obviously different for different people. If you are primarily looking at images on a computer screen and sharing them via the web or email, there are probably variations enough between screens that trying to make the equivalent of “the fine art print” is futile, but there are adjustments that can improve even the screen image beyond the obvious ballpark adjustment to brightness, contrast and color values. If nothing else, brightening up what you consider to be the important subject area and slightly dimming and dropping the contrast of the other areas, even if it’s just “burning the edges” can produce a more effective image that draws the viewer towards what you think is important. Even when it’s obvious what is important, this simple adjustment can almost always improve a picture.
At the other end of the scale is the “framed exhibition print.” It can be big on the wall, but, truth is, if it’s a print of something important to you, it can be any size; you just want to make it as good as you can. And what processing steps do you take to make it the print you want? The answer - all of them. A lot of the good printers I know literally go down the menu of the program they use, look at every control and say could this control do something that would, in my eyes, make this picture better? Often the answer is no, but they check every possibility, and, in today’s digital darkroom, that’s a lot of options.
Then comes the point of the entire process, making the print. I have friends who have double giant monitors that are calibrated regularly and friends with only laptops and a prayer. But a screen is not a print. As much as it hurts, the answer to a good print is often throwing away the first print and making the changes you think necessary in a second print. If you’re famous, your gallery can sell the first print as an “ARTISTS PROOF.”
So where do you fall in line in this process. The two photographers that went out of their way to help me when I started were Gene Smith and David Vestal; so, of course, I am a print maniac. But I’ve seen family albums that were gawd awful by those standards. But content was king, and what was in those albums meant more to the owners than any photo masterpiece. What is important? I don’t know. But there are digital tools now available that allow controls in color that were only available in black-and-white in film. Do you think they are important? Do you use them?
