E-Projects

Norma Desmond · July 17, 2009

Hey, Steve and Jeff, my apologies. I was attributing to Steve what I now realize Jeff Spirer actually said about not changing his printing for different lighting situations and my last post was written as if I were responding to Steve having said that. Still a lot of the points remain, and I'd be curious to hear if others work like Jeff, and print for only one standard of lighting conditions. Would you only now (with the advent of monitors) be suddenly concerned about loss of definition of detail after years of those details getting lost because you were printing for only one standard lighting situation? Since Steve seems so concerned with people not seeing what he intended, I thought it a strange thing had Steve made this comment about printing for only one lighting situation in all cases. I'm curious if it's been a big concern to all the printers here all along, the way lighting conditions will affect what people see in your prints. I can only assume it has, judging by your concern for accuracy and detail, unlike the case for Jeff.

Norma Desmond · July 17, 2009

In all fairness, in Arthur's last post he did talk about how printing can be changed and controlled for different lighting conditions, so obviously it's a been a concern for him. That seems quite consistent with his standards and it seems a significant recognition.

luis_g · July 17, 2009

I thought today about Steve's specific concern about detail and preserving his visualization of space. One way to address it, in a way that fits and preserves his aesthetics onscreen, would be to selectively and ever-so-slightly sharpen the foreground objects in the frame more than those in the background. Steve's work, I notice, is rich with signature subtleties and color, which are going to require careful work to carry their essence into digital.

One of the problems with extreme subtleties is that the variations from monitor to monitor may nullify or overemphasize them. One way I dealt with this was to get an idea of the range of these variations. I did it by asking a friend who owns a large IT based company to let me come in and using a flash drive, view a few pictures, gray scale and color chart on dozens of uncalibrated monitors of different brands, models and ages. I came to the hard realization that this is a problem that presently, for me, has to be dealt with statistically.

This is not a new problem/medium by any means. Those that began in digital and mostly show on the web have addressed this from their entry point in the medium, and is not an interim mode before making art prints. They do have it over those still engaged in approaching that medium. It is the way they show their work. The images finished at that point are in the final display medium, and one can learn a lot by studying them.

Remember good old Ansel pre-visualizing all the way to the finished print? One does the same for monitor display.

Arthur, prints aren't as consistent for viewing as you make them out to be, either. There are variations that affect them, too. The softness, type and angle of the lighting in which they're displayed makes a difference. The color temperature of the lighting shifts colors (in paintings, too) in color and toned B&W prints. The background (wall) brightness shifts the values, as does its color, if any.

luis_g · July 17, 2009

Oops, yes, I see now where Arthur touched on this. Apologies to Arthur.

jtk · July 17, 2009

Still talking about monitors?

That's a temporary medium. Get a projector :-)

jtk · July 17, 2009

Still talking about monitors?

That's a temporary medium. Get a projector :-)

jtk · July 17, 2009

Still talking about monitors?

That's a temporary medium. Get a projector :-)

aplumpton · July 17, 2009

Luis, I agree with your last paragraph and am glad you acknowledge that prints can have their issues, too. It's really a question of which you can control better. For the moment, I believe prints are the best form of presentation and not challenged in that sense by the screen, which for me is too variable (as a presentation system, not as a post capture creative system, of course; there is a difference) to be trusted to reproduce something I want to present. For non critical presentation, it is OK.

I don't want to be particularly meticulous or critical, but I just want to use the system that for me works most easily and best. It's subjective of course.

Norma Desmond · July 17, 2009

John--

I was actually counting on you for some answers here, to the very pointed questions Jeff and I have been asking, since you have so much experience printing. Seriously. So pretend we're talking about projectors and address the question, because you should have some important insights. If projection were your output goal, how would you change your visual aesthetics to fully utilize that medium, as distinct from print? Are you seeing your photographs exactly the same way, from start to finish (though we've agreed there's really never a finish line) when you gear them for projection as when you geared them for print? Has it changed your way of seeing at all, when you first approach a photograph, even at the point of shooting? Do you see differently, depending on the output? Is it at all similar to the differences in the ways you might have approached large format vs. Polaroid, if you did in fact approach them differently?

Thanks.

Norma Desmond · July 17, 2009

Luis--

Thanks for an actual response. You and Arthur are da men.

I'll keep that in mind about the slight sharpening in the foreground.

I do already check most of my images at least on my own laptop (in addition to my desktop) and usually the important ones get checked on a couple of friends' as well to deal with the statistical thing you talk about.

What about your actual previsualiztion, to the extent it's operable, and aesthetic. Does the backlighting play a role in how or what you shoot at all? Does it have any effect on how you approach either the shot or the processing? Do you think of the print still as your final product or are there shots you know will be for monitor viewing only?

Thanks.

jtk · July 17, 2009

Please pardon my triple post, above: Vista.

Fred, I have zero creative experience with digital projection, but I'm stunned by its current technical capability and its relative economy (many middle class homes already have it, simply for TV sports). Middle priced Epson projectors (and others no doubt) are far better than television/computer monitors for display because they fill any space (bigger=better) and are the heart of various spins on small home/studio theaters...ranging from highly refined to lash-up. Projection quality is incredibly good in a proper space, just as prints can be in their proper environments. I wouldn't know this except that I've been forced to Super Bowl visits in well-equipped homes.

It's hard to imagine any serious photographer producing for digital displays without some kind of sound. Warhol's Factory did hugely-projected audio/vidios using crude video cams and crude projectors back in dinosaur times...it was good then and it's visually better (presumably comparable in terms of "art")... exquisitely high quality audio recording is easily accomplished with $500 toys (we're not aware of how much professional recording is done with pocket sized recorders). Projection exhibits are routine at Site Santa Fe and, currently, at the Albuquerque Museum, if anybody's interested.

As for prints, we'll have them always...if only because my neigbor hangs Picasso original drawings and I hang Puerto Rican travel posters from the 30s, and fine adobe walls call for paper objects...as much as dorm rooms and cracking plaster walls do.

I have no personal experience with visualizing/serious photography/post-processing for digital display. My monitor is poorly calibrated because I am an old-school printer, I like to make test prints and correct them in various kinds of light, just as with Ektacolor, Ciba, or B&W. I imagine that would be easier with digital display than with inkjet printing.

I've never seen any kind of internally lit display that rivaled rear projection using superior optics (eg Buhl) onto frosted mylar, taped in door frames of Victorian houses, back when I thought slides were interesting.

Norma Desmond · July 17, 2009

John--

Thanks. I just took the three posts as emphasis :)

Seriously, though, I'm also curious about printing for different lighting situations.

Jeff said that he's never met anyone who prints for different lighting conditions. That seems so strange to me. If you know the particular lighting conditions your work is going to viewed under for the most part, wouldn't you adjust your prints based on those conditions? Any thoughts there?

jtk · July 17, 2009

Fred, I study test prints in open shade and in harsh direct sunlight..and importantly, in tungsten because that's where they're likely to be displayed.

It often takes me two days to get from test to final because I do rely on two real daylight conditions and because prints change over a few hours after printing. Daylite fluorescent, which lights my work space, isn't much like a sun-lit room and nobody I know of displays under it...but I'd use it (in combination with tungsten) if I had to do production work. I discard a lot of prints, sometimes just because my theory about the print changes after I've looked at it over a few days.

Metamerism isn't an issue with my 3800 and the semi-gloss or matte papers I use, and wasn't with my favored matte papers with 2200.

Norma Desmond · July 17, 2009

John, thanks, what I'm getting at is this. Let's say you have a photo that you're printing for two different people. One who you know will be hanging it in a room that gets really full daylight most of the day and one for a NY City apartment that is always under tungsten and gets virtually no light. Would you make two different prints or just make the same print and hope for the best?

luis_g · July 18, 2009

Jeff is right: Very few people customize prints for specific lighting. I can't think of one top-tier artist using photography that does. Customarily, the collector is expected to handle it. If the buyer is oblivious to the issue, it won't matter, and if they're savvy, they'll know what to do.

Of course, how are they supposed to become savvy unless someone educates them?

Matching prints to display lighting involves a lot more work. It should drive up the cost of the print considerably, and appeal to a tiny market segment. Very few people have the visual sophistication/literacy to get this, although it seems everyone I meet nowadays is an oneophile, gastronomist, thread counter, PS expert, scriptwriter, well-versed in physics, and of course, a coffee connoisseur :-)

Most say "the eye compensates" and let it go at that. Museum directors don't spend the extra money on this either, and know that 99.999% of the viewers, including photographers, are clueless.

In general, cold-toned prints get darker (and the tones are suppressed) in tungsten, lighter under some fluorescent bulbs. Warm-toned prints get darker/suppressed under fluorescents and deep shade, lighter in tungsten. Textured papers can get lost in flat lighting, over-emphasized under angled specular lighting. There are guys who take color temp readings of the lighting and print accordingly. With color, this is much more of an issue, since there is the problem becomes complex, as certain colors/tones shift up, others down.

Most of the time, the responsibility for this is left up to the buyer/collector to provide lighting that best shows off the print. It would be to the good to specify what that should be, but it might turn many buyers away who have antagonistic lighting, and into purchasing other's prints thinking they're good under all kinds of lighting.

DISCLAIMER: Regarding the above lighting issues, and the earlier comment on slight sharpening of foreground objects, it is extremely important to keep in mind that in the latter comment, I was addressing Steve's particular problem, after taking into consideration the kind of light, subjects and colors he favors, and coming up with something that would retain as much as possible of his aesthetic, both from what I saw and what he said. For many photographers, and for many reasons, this is not an issue, and/or with their aesthetics, perhaps best solved via other means (and there are many). These things are not to be taken as a recipe, program, pheasant under glass, or honey-do list for particular problems, but more along the lines of the scrawled notes the explorers in Verne's _Voyage to the Center of the Earth_ find along the way. They are above all to be questioned, interpreted and tested before being incorporated into one's work.

aplumpton · July 18, 2009

"Matching prints to display lighting involves a lot more work. It should drive up the cost of the print considerably, and appeal to a tiny market segment. . (Luis)

Luis. No and Yes. No that it does not cost much at all, and virtually nothing when compared to all the post-capture tweaking or modification that goes into very good print making.

Yes, it (and probably the photograph itself) appeals to only a tiny market segment. When I sell a B&W print off the wall, I sometimes suggest (depending upon the interest exhibited by the buyer) that the print will likely look best under the same lighting (halogen spot or flood). When someone asks for a custom made print (because they would like it in a different size), and mentions where and how the intend to light it, I will make the small effort to match the print to the viewing conditions.

I am certainly not a "top" photographer, but my approach is influenced from what I have learned from more than one well-known photographer, usually via books or articles. I do not sell prints at high prices as my reputation in the market does not allow this. Nonetheless, at 100 to 250 dollars per print I do not find it difficut at all to tailor the print to match lighting if presented with the opportunity to do so (as a custom print of a particular work).

"Most say "the eye compensates" and let it go at that. Museum directors don't spend the extra money on this either, and know that 99.999% of the viewers, including photographers, are clueless." (Luis)

No, the eye won't compensate for poor tonality caused by mismatched viewing illumination, it simply ACCEPTS a lesser result (and will judge it accordingly, of course). Please, I'm sure you know that museum personnel are very adamant about the type of paper you use for a print. It is hardly likely they will accept a print that doesn't look good under their lighting (mainly artificial and of a colour temperature and force easily understood by the artist-photographer).

The recent Louvre exhibition (250 works) in our local art museum required 5 years in the planning and making (and numerous transatlantic trips and consultations, which no doubt registered in the admission prices). Every element of the manner of exhibition (lighting, angles, placement, environment, relationship to other works, etc.) was highly studied and worked out before the actual opening. If your museum showing photographic works is cavalier about such things, you might want to initiate some discussion and try to improve their practice.

The viewing conditions for an exhibited photograph are no different than the acoustics of a hall in which you listen to music.

jtk · July 18, 2009

Fred, The print becomes mine, especially when I give it away. The recipient will respect it according to his ability. My hope is incidental.

<a href="

Norma Desmond · July 18, 2009

Luis--

But doesn't that mean that, in many cases, you are letting go of what people will see? As you say, many viewers won't notice the difference or won't really have a clue that their lighting conditions are not optimizing the prints. I'm sure as a photographer you, like me, are horrified to see how some people matt, frame, light, and display prints. I think the same is true with monitor viewing (though I'm sure the problem is more severe here). What we as photographers obsess about, rightfully so, the average viewer will not notice at all. They have long been doing many things to "compromise" our work. I do understand that monitor viewing has a more extreme differential that we are currently dealing with. I understand that the concern over this differential is legitimate, but the way it's being treated as if it were a new and strictly monitor-driven issue leads me to believe that there is also a bit of resistance-to-the-new-way-of-doing-things going on here. That's really just a hunch. Were the discussion strictly about quality concerns, I would think these concerns about prints would have at least been mentioned by someone before I did, someone more experienced with prints. Since they weren't, I tend to think there's something more at play about the new way of doing things and ties to the more familiar.

Clearly, Steve has expressed more than a concern for the actual translation of his prints in a monitor situation. He is not able to interact with works on a monitor in as personal a fashion as he is with prints. I think that's true for many. And I think it's their issue, not an issue about monitors. Younger folks, who are pretty much glued to monitors, I would think have a much more personal relationship to what's on a screen than to what's hanging in their parents' homes.

jtk · July 18, 2009

"Younger folks, who are pretty much glued to monitors, I would think have a much more personal relationship to what's on a screen than to what's hanging in their parents' homes."

"younger folks" with the most obvious potential are often more athletic, exploratory, and social than their parents (who may be chubby nerds living in cubicles, asocial). In other words, the best may not be glued to the screen.

Some use blog formats (and, in the interest of greatest control and best appearance, not facebook et al) to craft something well-produced for their important and often distant relationships...still, video, audio, careful writing.

Monitors and digital presentation and web pages are not the same phenomena. Monitors have very limited futures. We will abandon them...say 2012. We might, with privacy in mind, find ourselves exchanging a new format on SD cards.

jtk · July 18, 2009

This thread has a retro feel to it. Like "The Future of Glass Plates" For more recent retro, browse "Nam June Paik"....alleged inventor (1970?) of the concept "information superhighway" and (tongue-in-cheek) "The George Washington of Video" <a href="

(note mix of performers, audience, space, stage, cables, monitors, projection, planned and unplanned sound)

...relates directly to punk , "street," Xerox PARC, Warhol and Internet, if you follow the scent.

Or browse "Fluxus" , see where participants scattered, and consider the richness in which few standard concepts of photography even flutter. (Fred, browse "Fluxus San Francisco State")

Norma Desmond · July 18, 2009

John--

Thanks for the references.

I think there is a future in photo prints, images on screen, slideshows, multi-media events, and lots of stuff related to the world of the visual and auditory that hasn't even been thought of yet.

I saw a dance performance in Maastricht when I visited that included, of course, music, but also slide projections and it also used the architectural surroundings in a way I'd never seen.

And this thread is about an understanding of photographic prints and viewing still images on monitors, which is also interesting to me and why I've been participating and asking questions.

Thanks.

By the way, lots of athletic kids I know, and kids who are doing much outward and inward exploration of all kinds, use their monitors and cell phones a lot. One doesn't seem to preclude the other. "Glued to" was a misleading choice of words on my part. Some are "glued to" these devices but others have just simply grown up with a certain acceptance and relationship to them different from those of us who didn't grow up with them as an intimate part of our landscape.

Norma Desmond · July 18, 2009

"The recipient will respect it according to his ability. My hope is incidental."

This seems significant. Thanks for it.

I seem to vacillate back and forth.

As I said above, I've had to let go of what I may suppose others are seeing on their monitors because I'm aware they're seeing something somewhat different from what I'm seeing on my screen. I generally put all the nuance and attention to detail (as well as a lot of energy into the big picture) into my photos as I can. I assume that even if the specifics won't always be seen by others, having put that effort and care into it will still have an effect on some level.

At the same time, as I use PN and the web in general as a means of sharing my photos, mostly to people with monitors, and I often get into discussions about my photos and the photos of others, it is sometimes annoying when it's clear that someone else is commenting and experiencing my photos very differently than I am, due to the variation so obvious in monitors.

My question to you about making up different prints for very different lighting situations is, in part, answered by your comment about viewers viewing to their ability, but it also does not address some of what I mean. They may have varying abilities to appreciate or experience what you've done and that's one thing. But you are giving them something. Are you offering them something that will maximize their ability to experience what you've done? If you give them a print that you know looks just the way you want it in your studio but does not allow them to see detail in the viewing situation they have set up, I'm not sure why you might not adjust your fine tuning a little for that.

Norma Desmond · July 18, 2009

John--

I also don't see it strictly as being about the ability of the recipient of my photo. It's about the product I give him, the raw materials I'm providing him to experience.

It is the case that many people can't afford or don't know much about optimal lighting in their homes. If I'm giving or selling someone a print and I know the lighting conditions they will be viewing under, it seems like I would consider (though it may not be practical or cost effective) tailoring the print to those lighting conditions. It will likely enable the recipient to see the print better, no matter his abilities, and thereby I'd be supplying him with a superior product.

That having been said, I respect the fact that I seem to be in the minority here and there may be some naivete operating on my part due to lack of experience. I'm glad I asked.

sobeystudio · July 18, 2009

Free internet vs. expensive prints -do I have to spell it out? The irony being, my art is, partly, pics of prints as installations, that I then blog! www.beaconart.blogspot.com

jtk · July 19, 2009

You don't need to "spell it out" to Marx or Limbaugh, who center on money.

Free vs expensive are irrelevant...unless you're a charity. A gift is valued as-received, not as-given.

I make gifts when I feel like it. I do send files sometimes, usually post-processed because I actually care about the recipient.

Failure to post-process/print may measure value for some of us.. = near-zero value

My prints are made to my standard. I MAKE prints, I USE files. Apples/oranges.

Many on this very thread are undoubtedly better printers than I am. I'm not making a special claim.

I expect the recipient to do her / his best... but they don't have to see what I see.

I don't "hope" they'll do their best, I assume it. I've given equally fine prints to arts patrons who hang and light expensively, and to Navajo people without telephones (or Internet) or indoor plumbing but who do keep things nicely filed and do ponder them in their way...and who seem to have better-than-common visual acuity (eg finding arrows).

Gift is a value, purchase is a price. In some societies extra value has to do with the damage the giving does to the wealth of the giver (Pacific Northwest.."potlatch")...not my value, but perhaps worth considering.

A gift has inherent advantage over a purchased item. You keep things you're given, that you wouldn't keep if you purchased.

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