Post-processing photos (with or without scotch)
messydesk
Posts: 20,004 ✭✭✭✭✭
I know how some people recoil at the thought of someone using Photoshop as an extension of the imaging chain found in their cameras to "finish" their coin photos. I stumbled across this while looking for something else:
The black-and-white photography masters (such as Ansel Adams, Minor White, and Gene Smith) also burned and dodged in very complicated ways. Someone once asked Gene Smith how he made a print and he replied, “I go into the darkroom in the morning with a gallon of Dektol in one hand, a package of 11x14 Polycontrast J under my arm, and a fifth of scotch in the other hand, and come out twelve hours later with a print.”
To them, the image hitting the film sheet was not the end of the process of photographing their subject, but merely the event that let them take their subject into the darkroom. Now, the fifth of scotch and 12 hours eludes to the fact that it's much easier to screw up a photo in the darkroom (i.e., post-processing) than it is to get it right, but the end result they were looking for required the effort.
The fact that the Dektol was in a gallon bottle and the scotch was in a fifth was probably a fortuitous coincidence that helped spare Mr. Smith from the fate of J. Sanford Saltus. The messydesk studios are currently scotch-free zones. I'm probably more likely to knock it on the floor than mistake my bottle of PlastX for it, though.
(Link to full article)
The black-and-white photography masters (such as Ansel Adams, Minor White, and Gene Smith) also burned and dodged in very complicated ways. Someone once asked Gene Smith how he made a print and he replied, “I go into the darkroom in the morning with a gallon of Dektol in one hand, a package of 11x14 Polycontrast J under my arm, and a fifth of scotch in the other hand, and come out twelve hours later with a print.”
To them, the image hitting the film sheet was not the end of the process of photographing their subject, but merely the event that let them take their subject into the darkroom. Now, the fifth of scotch and 12 hours eludes to the fact that it's much easier to screw up a photo in the darkroom (i.e., post-processing) than it is to get it right, but the end result they were looking for required the effort.
The fact that the Dektol was in a gallon bottle and the scotch was in a fifth was probably a fortuitous coincidence that helped spare Mr. Smith from the fate of J. Sanford Saltus. The messydesk studios are currently scotch-free zones. I'm probably more likely to knock it on the floor than mistake my bottle of PlastX for it, though.
(Link to full article)
John
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
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Just got eight listings done this morning and the pot is now empty.
BTW being one that learned back in the days of film. I have always thought of PhotoShop as like in the old days of going into the darkroom and printing my own prints on surplussed 33MM film I got from the tailing of the gun camera stocks in the Air force. It was just as much a part of the art of the hobby as the lighting and focus on the subject was. Remember having to use a light meter because it wasn't in the camera?
who doesn't do post processing.
As Mike and Mark say, the trick is not overdoing it.
Lance.