Darkroom + Scanning questions

Hi everyone!

I usually do beauty and fashion jobs for a living, and lately I have been really intersted in film.

I have seen that many other fashion photographers are doing manual prints from their negatives into C-Type paper in the darkroom to get the right tones.

After doing so, would you then proceed to scan those prints and retouch them (skin, d&b, etc)? What benefit does this have compared to scanning the negative directly?

Here are a few examples:

Jens Ingvarsson on Instagram: “Reprinted a few versions of this favorite shot of mine from last Winter, with the magical McKenna. 11x14” hand print, glossy.”

Alexander Saladrigas on Instagram: “Hand print of @mckennahellam in @louisvuitton. - Brooklyn ‘18”

Thanks and have a lovely Sunday!

Daniel xx

A quick analogy:

Why would you copy a vinyl LP onto magnetic tape before you digitise it in order to edit out the hiss and clicks?

Some people seem to think that complicating the image-making process automatically makes the image more 'hip' and 'arty'. They're deluded.

I'm neither a darkroom nor a digital post processing wizard. - What I manage to (semi?) understand: A process that feels to be working for an artist can't be wrong.

I don't want to judge a fist full of pixels on my fishy laptop screen but Jens Ingvarsson's picture looks as if at least the Instagram version would do without further retouching, since he threw as much out of focus as he could? - What is there to see & shout for retouching in the other image?

Didn't some folks get sufficiently acceptable results out of their darkrooms in the past? And if not: Wouldn't airbrushing be the usual way to alter them?

A quick analogy:

 

Why would you copy a vinyl LP onto magnetic tape before you digitise it in order to edit out the hiss and clicks?

 

Some people seem to think that complicating the image-making process automatically makes the image more 'hip' and 'arty'. They're deluded.

Because it's analog photography, and once we go down that road you can declare anything 'artistic' and the usual groupies will declare it 'fine art' and superior to digital methods while sane folks who aren't visually impaired walk away shaking our heads. #keepingitreal

Years ago producing an analog glossy print from a < 10mp dSLR and drum scanning the print was a common practice to 'up rez' limited digital capture. At the time there simply weren't very good upscaling RIPs on the market. Basically the analog conversion created enough noise to disguise the upscaling better than basic photoshop methods. The drawbacks however were that you had a big file but zero lattitude for making exposure corrections. Once you go to reflective print you've tossed out all the dynamic information in your shadows and highlights.

I've seen this guys work along with a few others that do the same, and not very impressed. The tonal shifts can be replicated by any number of photoshop plugins via direct scanning negatives or using digital capture. It's a popular post processing aesthetic with child and baby photographers. The photogs doing this already have an established market and just doing something to try and be different and get clicks. The myth is that they got popular doing it. Next we'll be hearing that pre-flashing paper under an enlarger was a recent invention.

analog photography,

The alternative I know to digital is called "film".

Some people seem to think that complicating the image-making process automatically makes the image more 'hip' and 'arty'. They're deluded.

I agree.

All that post processing is soooo pretentious.

I was told early that if you want to copy from LP to tape, you don't do it with a microphone in front of the speaker, but wired directly from the amplifier to the tape deck.

I suppose if you actually want some old style imperfections, scanning a print isn't a bad way.

A reasonably ordinary, good quality, film scanner should do a good job off the negative.

You can add various imperfections in digital processing.