The beauty of digital b&w

[tonmestrom]

"And fussy people have always initially thought they were silver prints"

 

that's the whole point Brad.

[GerrySiegel]

Ton,Seems that black and white conversions in photoshop with color filtration scales has made the conversion of

a plain old JPEG file simpler and 'better.' As a PS novice after all this time,- simple but pure of heart in my

head-do I see that upgrade correctly,folks? I am using PSE on a Windows box and have just installed CS3 on a new

iMac. Never messed with RAW biggies but one day...Dr Wrotniak persuaded me to be lazy and not feel compression

guilt:-) aloha, gs

[hansio]

When we moved from Holland to Hungary we had to clear a lot of junk. One of the things were all the old papers from the darkroom and amongst them very much Ilford warmtone. Boxes loaded with beautifull paper. The guy who came to buy it for a very, very fancy price had just packed his car with all my gear when his purist eye ( still working analogue) fell on some prints I made. "You'r not gonna tell me that you......."

Yes sir, printed on the Epson 3800 and that comes very... very close to what I did for many years, spending hours in the DR and printing on Barryth paper and more.

Since not to long now I also bought the new plugin from NIK, named Silver Efex Pro and believe me, it's almost as magical as the old days. And yes, you also have to remember what exactly you did for filtering.

To bad that I can't stand still with for old wet methode... it was great, but this is much more convenient for me and my clients are more happy then ever.... because they can still feel the 'old' material and but also see modern craftmanship. Flexibility is much greater and the final result makes me more then happy.

Yes... those old days.......... Glad to have time to sit back after so many years of pure torture.

 

By the way. This discussion look simular to me to the the one around the transition of so named gaslight paper to electrical cold lighted paper. Without the yellowish tint many people wanted that sepia look again and so all photographers started to color their paper again with chemicals that I don't know the name of in English ( I only remember (K4Fe(CN)6.3H2O. The result was that the had brown fingers of this processing. The fun was that even photographers who were NOT busy, also kept their fingers in the chemicals just to show how busy they were. Yes, guys, those were the days... were they?

[GerrySiegel]

My wee Nikon Coolpix will at my command do an in camera conversion and save the image in monochrome. Now would Mr

Nikon let me do that if I lost control to a false 'god?'. I still have to press a button!.Recall the labs'

automated so called 'machine prints" in the old days-- not bad for 90% of stuff, well maybe 50%.

[GerrySiegel]

My first task as an Airman Apprentice photography striker (lower than whale dung which is pretty deep down) at

NAS South Weymouth MA in the late fifties was to mix D-76 from raw chemicals in bins. Take 100 grams of borax and mix

with one liter of water and stir thorouglly..(.I used to love the smell of borax in the morning,NOT....Truly,

that is what the older NAVY did in its labs, chemistry and time even for the well trained.)And those were the

days when no silver was recovered eihter

 

I would love to hear from some recent military photographers or

photojournalists. Do you still get basic training in the old alchemy?

[tonmestrom]

Gerry,

 

just dive into CS3 and RAW. It'll be great fun.

[andre_reinders]

Kari Vierimaa - I agree with you , but should have been more specific (about my tastes). I generally use Ilford FP4+, PanF+, HP5+. I tend to stay away from Delta, and T MAX for the same reasons.

[tonmestrom]

Andre, in that case you should try Tri-X, better than HP5 I think.

[squareframe]

"I'm no longer constrained by sigmoidal response curves. I can shape response curves however I like, to emphasize or de-emphasize different elements of the image." --Sarah Fox

 

CS4 (and perhaps CS3) has a 'black & white' adjustment mode where you can map any colour to any shade of gray. quite radical if desired .. and yet, the same arguments surface about digital being less 'noble' than film. in reality, we can now do so simply what used to take a myriad of filters and techniques .. to garner a very small percentage of control and range that can now be done in Photoshop. and so the argument continues ... is it 'manipulation'. of course it is.

 

this same level control now begs the question, at least to me, why would you want to ever use B&W film anymore? though I have a $1000 worth of Tmax in the refrigerator .. it makes far more sense to use colour-negative film and then explore the extreme translational capabilities of Photoshop colour-mapping to a gray-scale.

 

what was the question?

 

cheers ...

 

tillerman

[jtdnyc]

Daniel, you can only map what has been recorded in the first place. Since, even today, many negative films can record a

broader range of tones than a digital sensor can, that's a reason to use film (though I wouldn't say film is "nobler" -- just

better in certain situations).

 

Now, if you're going to use film, I agree with you that color negative may be the way to go in many instances. However,

there are still arguments in favor of using b&w negative film: permanence; a desirable curve, straight out of the camera with

minimal manipulation; cost, if you do your own developing; and the option of wet printing at home. (I realize that wet prints

can be made from a digital file, but the technology is still too expensive for most hobbyists' home darkrooms.)

[squareframe]

I was basing my response on the fact that colour negative film scans better than silver B&W films. the other

issue was simply the control and range of manipulation. if I want to render a blue-sky darker, I can use a

red-filter. my point was, that it makes more sense to use colour negative film, and do the Photoshop mapping of

colours to gray-scale with far more control. again, even though you might be a B&W purist, ultimately you have

more control using colour film. I say this with a goodly amount of B&W negative films in the refrigerator and all

the chemistry to develop them myself. however, from a pragmatic perspective ... scanning, colour mapping

(manipulation ... the horrors), scanning Kodak 160VC is probably as cheap, better scanned, and affords a better

B&W print. and this .. is what the subject line refers to. the print.

 

and of course, the same thesis applies to digital. many cameras have the capability of storing an image as B&W.

this is limiting, considering the control we now have in Photoshop to segregate colours and translate them into

gray tones.

 

considering new options .. we might find B&W films rather limiting now. since my cat just ate my negatives, your

argument of permanence escapes me at present!

 

cheers,

 

tillerman