Does the internet make digital look better than it is?

[steve_phillipps]

<p>Let me clarify the title. Whenever someone posts a picture scanned in from a print it looks (in general) between dull and awful, while digital images sparkle and look amazing (again, in general!) Would this be a very different story if you were to print a 16x20 from the neg and a 16x20 from the DSLR? I'm not saying that the neg would look better but I just wonder if it would be a lot closer than it is on the computer?<br>

I've only ever had a minute amount of prints made from DSLRs and wasn't actually totally blown away by them, but have had some nice neg shots blown up, and this is my point really - if we're print makers rather than wanting to upload pictures to the web, are we too easily swayed away from film SLRs into digital because the comparisons we see on the web show such a massive superiority to digital, which is only such a huge gap when seen on the computer?<br>

Steve</p>

 

[Karim Ghantous]

<p>You have a point to some degree. Now, most 35mm photographers don't scan from prints. Probably very few would. Usually they'll work from a scan of the negative done at the lab. But here's your problem: many labs don't give you the option of TIFF output. So you have to work with a JPEG version of the negative. I even had one idiot tell me that I don't want TIFFs because JPEGs were better. A true moron if there ever was one.</p>

<p>And I guess that silver b&w films don't scan that well, so there's another issue.</p>

<p>However, it can go the other way, too, in that pure digital files can look worse whichever way you print them. That would apply to blown highlights and output from small sensors with high pixel counts.</p>

[sattler123]

<p>No! It's the operator of the editing software and has nothing to do with digital vs. film.</p>

[will_daniel1]

Steve, it might be a mistake to consider everyone here print makers. For the last five years before I retired, I was content editor for a web site. We had about five people in the office shooting for that site using everything from cheap point & shoots to Nikon DSLRs. During the five years I worked there, we published lots of professional-quality photos on the web and never made a single print. I know that addresses only part of your statement -- not your overall question. I'll leave that for others, since I'm not much of a print maker.

[William Kahn]

<p>It's not really a fair comparison. A scanned-print image will be inferior to a scanned-negative image, as well as a digital camera image. All images posted on the web are digital at that point. The key is the number of steps and kinds of processes needed to get them to that point. A scanned-print JPEG image is basically a copy of a copy of a copy, and and every step, something is lost in image quality. Scanning a print is something you do as a last resort, when there is no other source image. The same is true for a scanned-negative JPEG, with one less step involved (copy of a copy), so less is lost. For internet purposes, digital images are closest to the original (copy), so it's not surprising that digital camera images on the web might "look" better.</p>

<p>Before the "Aha!" flood begins let me add that alll of this depends on the processing skills involved at each step for each example including the photography skills at the start. Also, the comparison does not necessarily hold up for other presentation media, such as prints.</p>

[akgraham]

<blockquote>

<p>"Whenever someone posts a picture scanned in from a print it looks (in general) between dull and awful, while digital images sparkle and look amazing (again, in general!)."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The vast majority of people viewing my web gallery would not be able to tell the difference between scans from reversal film and various flavours of B&W negatives, and the digital files alongside which they sit:<br /> <a href="http://gallery.me.com/akgraham#gallery">http://gallery.me.com/akgraham#gallery</a><br /> <br /><br /> The prints in most cases are utterly indistinguishable all the way up to A2. The difference is in the scanning, and people often will submit to a website a 'quick and dirty' scan to illustrate a point. This is where your generalisation falls.</p>

[steve_phillipps]

<p>I'm certainly not doing a film vs digital which is better argument, I'm sure we've all heard enough of them! I'm just wondering whether we think that the gap is bigger than it really is after seeing lots of side by side shots leaving the impression that it's not even remotely close, and it might be a shame for those folks who are mostly wanting to make prints (not me neccessarily) either for family albums of for exhibitions for example because they might get much nicer results from neg film than they might be led to believe.<br />Steve</p>

 

[andylynn]

<p>I think the real problem is the vast majority of users have no idea how to do a <em>good</em> scan but most digital cameras know how to make a good shot. All things equal, an inexperienced shooter is going to get better results from a decent digital than from film and a scanner (or prints and a scanner) because the digital gives him fewer opportunities to mess up.</p>

[William Kahn]

<p>Good point, Andrew.</p>

[stp]

<p>It has been my experience that output from a digital camera in RAW does not look as good initially as a transparency from a film camera. The RAW file simply needs to be processed, at which point the two will be difficult to distinguish. If the film output is then scanned, more chance for degradation is introduced if the scan is poorly made and especially if the scan is made from a print rather than a transparency. If the digital output is in the form of a JPEG and the camera settings for JEPG conversion are appropriate, it should look very similar to a transparency or to a properly produced print. Ultimately, both digital and film will give great results that are directly proportional to the skills of the operators.</p>

[GerrySiegel]

<p>I don't think so. You must be seeing things I don't see,sorry. Digital has different response curves,, but once adapting to same with judicious use of software, the results are comparable. Whatever the output,print of monitor.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>mmh, an interesting take and another way of discussing the issue..."My prints don't match my screen".</p>

<p>From my experience it's often rare for both film and digital to look optimum on a print without editing. There's often a wide variance of dynamic ranges to deal from the actual scene captured to the devices used to map this DR so it fits the lowest DR output and that being a print. Film or direct digital offer DR capturing capability variances so it's not about film vs digital.</p>

<p>A calibrated display which has a wider dynamic range than a print but not more than the DR of certain scenes captured can allow both digital and film mediums which have slightly less DR than a display to be mapped successfully to the lowest DR capable device which is the print.</p>

<p>Some editing is always required either by the lab or by the software used to render and map the DR so it looks good on the display first before going to print.</p>

[steve_phillipps]

<p>The reason I posted this is that I flicked through the latest Nikon Wednesday pictures on the Nikon forum here on Photo.net (2010 no.16), and amongst the masses of dazzling digital shots there was the odd one on print film and I thought, ooh, that's good to see, but immediately it looks totally flat and basically poor in comparison with those surrounding it. It just made me wonder what the results would look like if you printed some of these digital shots and put them next to the film shot.<br>

Steve</p>

 

[thomas_hardy1]

<p>I have prints (B&W) from scanned film that look very much like prints made from a dslr.</p>

<p>They files were both uploaded to an online printer and the prints mailed back to me.</p>

<p>It is much harder for me to get a comparable print from an optical enlarger. Photoshop brings a lot to the table<br>

that I can't do in the darkroom.</p>

[akgraham]

<p>Andrew Lynn has nailed it. It is not quick, easy or cheap to scan film <em>well</em>.</p>

<p>A good scan really can sparkle though, on screen or in print. This shot looks great printed large and nobody would guess (or care) that I was messing around with film when I took it.<em> </em></p>

<p><img src="http://www.me.com/ro/akgraham/Galleries/100114/2005-06-30%20at%2012-52-44.jpg?derivative=medium&source=web.jpg&type=medium&protocol=roap&item=galleries&asset=media&ver=12565300890001" alt="" /></p>

<p>It is hard to disentangle impressions of the medium from the aesthetics, from choices of subject matter and processing methods and all of the other things that can impinge on how photos look.</p>

[akgraham]

<p>Sorry</p>

[edgreene]

<p>(Print) Film is meant to be viewed by reflected light-digital files and reversal film to be vewed back-lit. </p>

[steve_phillipps]

<p>Yes, Ed, that's the sort of thing that I was postulating - if your final goal is a print either for handing around family and friends or to hang on the wall, would prints from negs stack up vs digital more than internet comparisons might otherwise suggest.<br>

Thanks,<br />Steve</p>

 

[steve m smith]

<p>Surely the internet and generally viewing on monitors and digital frames makes everything look crap regardless of origination method.</p>

[akgraham]

<blockquote>

<p>(Print) Film is meant to be viewed by reflected light-digital files and reversal film to be vewed back-lit.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I have been getting great prints for years using slide film, 'chromes and scans, even though I apparently wasn't meant to.</p>

<p>I'm with Gerry Siegel on this one - I don't see the big differences Steve Phillipps claims.</p>