Kate with turban

Rather reluctantly, as I think it spoils the atmosphere of the originally posted picture, I've rescanned the whole negative to show the crop. I also left out the added grain...

Whatever you say I don't think I'm going to change my mind about the jeans!

 

 

 

 

Jonathan - Thanks for satisfying my (and perhaps others') curiosity. I do certainly see why you've presented it the way you have (in the original). Although this composition does avoid the cut-off feeling, it does sacrifice the timelessness of the original. The jeans, in a way, force a certain interpretation of the picture.

 

Though it's difficult to evaluate in small size, I think I prefer it without the added grain. [And not from the academic perspective I mention above, strangely.] This way, it feels like better defined to me.

 

Enjoy.

Jonathan, you win on the cropping.

The cropped version is definitely better.

without reading through all 118 comments, i'm probably safe in assuming that the photo was called many things including flared out, washed out, grainy, and underexposed. its unfortunate that alot of photographers restrict themselves to the crusty idea that a photo can't be great if it isn't tack sharp or it doesn't span the entire range of zones. looking through the photographer's uploads, i'd say this is exactly the look that he was going for. anyone interested in this departure from the "correct" should check out Edward Steichen's work. cheers

to comment because so many others have already expressed my thoughts. i think this photo is beautiful. your model is beautiful. the cropping and grain are beautiful. it has the shy quality of the late 50's. beautiful.

I'm familiar with some of Steichen's work and I would tend to disagree with your opinions of the quality of his work from a technical standpoint but I'm glad you brought him up.

 

I'll post an example for other's to see.

 

Just want to add... Good idea to get the jeans out but looking at that shape it would have looked great if she wasn't wearing the jeans. I have to say that, except for the crop, I prefer the second image you posted.

Tom,

i never used the term quality in my statement. for me, his work sets a quality standard. also, i understand that he was a technical wizard, especially in the darkroom. i was only trying to say that his work was often much more flat and less sharp than people usually strive for. this was because of his technique, though, not because a lack of technical knowledge or facilities. i know that all his work wasn't totally impressionistic(i'm not sure that term works here), but alot of what he is known for falls into this category.

When I read that a lot of the grain was ersatz, I was disappointed. I even felt a little "cheated" (although it's not your responsibility in life to keep me happy, of course; my feelings were purely personal). Now that I've seen both versions, I'm doubly sure you made a mistake. I think you might have made more of an impact using just the original.

 

 

Tony, that's an interesting comment - I'm taking it as being serious (please tell me if I'm wrong).

 

From my viewpoint grain is grain, it doesn't matter how it got there. Obviously it's not part of the real scene so it's an added artefact either due to chemical manipulation (push processing etc.) or digital manipulation (filtered noise addition). So what's the difference?

 

From your previous perceptive, thoughtful & witty comments I didn't imagine you were a member of the photochemical puritan league. If so how come you are so active in a forum that depends entirely on the vagaries of scanning, JPEG compression & RGB monitors as its medium?

 

Do you think there might be some inconsistancy here?

 

Please don't take this as a personal attack, I should really like to understand your distinction.

 

Jonathan

 

Jonathan,

 

I can't answer for Tony but I have similiar sentiments. When looking at a small jpeg it's sometimes hard to tell but there's a big difference between adding noise and real film grain in prints from my experience. Grain on film changes properties depending on the density at that part of the negative while noise is pretty even but looks different in light and dark areas. There are plug-ins for photoshop that can recreate grain in a more natural fashion and can also convert color images to specific emulsions but I haven't tried them. This is coming from someone that likes playing with grain on film to get different effects. There's even an Add Grain filter in photoshop that might be a little better but it takes some time getting the right settings.

 

I'm sure if the technology existed to reach the same audience with images capable of reproducing the quality of the actual prints we'd all jump on it. In the meantime jpegs and rgb monitors beats sending prints out to a few thousand people :)

 

Tom

I have to add that I agree with Tony's sentiments to some degree. When you first said that the scene was overexposed when many were assuming it was underexposed, I had this sentimental feeling of some shots I had done as a student years ago where I overexposed negatives with the idea in mind that once I got enough light through the negative to get the image down on paper, it would have a nice grain with intended blown out areas and nice dark blacks, all with a nice heavy feeling.

 

While I definitely use digital manipulation to some extent, it sometimes seems too easy to throw on a filter, almost like cheating. What took a whole night in the darkroom 18 years ago can be done so swiftly now (when done effectively as you have done here), in a fully lit room with my wife and kids right here, the Flintstones on TV and a glass of sweet iced tea beside my monitor.

 

Some people have said that all they do with photoshop is to recreate what they could do in the darkroom, nothing more. Others feel just fine doing anything to a picture with photoshop, taking it far beyond what a traditional darkroom is capable of. This one seems in between. The negative did not lend itself to a grainy product in and of itself, but you created a picture that very easily could have come out of a "real" darkroom, just not necessarily with that negative.

 

You applied the grain very well, so I don't have any problem at all with how it looks, but something inside says maybe you made it look a way that it didn't look in your mind when you took it. No offense, I often crop and "touch-up" with photoshop because it looks better than how i saw it in my mind on the scene.

 

I'm rambling, bottom line for me is as I stated above, the digital enhancement looks fine to me, but there is a nagging feeling inside which feels like I wish you had gotten to that 1950's feel in a 1950's way. Not to speak for him, but maybe this is what gnaws at Tony.

 

BTW: agree with others that your crop is best. The jeans have to go.

As I said John, it's not your job to keep me happy, so my comment wasn't any more than that, a comment, from a personal point of view. It wasn't of the "thundering denunciation" type. I hope you took it as a benign expression of mild disappointment. That's how it was meant.

I read your tech note explaining how you made the "grain", and viewed the sample (not the same kind of pic, really, so it's hard to judge one against the other). To me, photoshop noise isn't identical to grain (I didn't think your example was "convincing" - admittedly that was after I knew the grain wasn't real). Your merging of your "grain" and "natural layers" trick I'm sure would come closer than just adding noise to more realistic-looking grain (I sort of half-tried it myself... but ran out of time) but.... oh, I don't know... your volunteering of the information about the ersatz grain just left me a little flat.

Good on you for being forthright about it, though. You obviously don't have any problem at all with the effect (actually, it's hard to tell with a thumbnail anyway).

Now, to "inconsistency". Firstly, I'm not a wet darkroom purist. Secondly, I think there is a difference between manufactured "grain" (it's not really grain, it's white noise, emphasised at the edge areas with some layer merging options) and real film grain. Not just from a purist-type "anti-fake" standpoint. I just don't think it works (at least in the example). Given that I have to imagine what the full resolution version would look like, I don't think you needed to do what you did. I think the pic might have been OK on its own.

Tom put it well when he said, "...I wish you had gotten to that 1950's feel in a 1950's way". He knows what I wanted to express better than I do.

I'd be interested to see either a detail at full resolution or perhaps the whole file at that size (JPEG level "0"!). Any chance? It'd be interesting to see what the final effect really looked like "as the photographer intended". An attachment to an email would be fine.

You don't have to, of course, but if you're feeling in an expansive mood...?

Cheers, and if I haven't already said it, congrats on POW. It's a very evocative picture.

Tony Dummet and Mary Ball... You just made me realize, that I really was out of my mind when I proposed this other way to select the POW... You are right about the different kinds of ratings around PN, as well as when you say that it would just make the war worse... The thing is, that there shouldn't ever be any war here, but that just doesn't seem to work - and here I disagree with you Tony, when you say that there are only people here who defend their opinion, and I rather agree with somebody who said that all this is often an ego battle...

Anyway, back to this POW... There have been many suggestions to improve his picture, and I find some of them were interesting, and some really an ego affair... but overall, I would say that none of the comments has convinced me that changing this or that in the shot would have made it really obviously better. That certainly means at least that this picture - which I find far less powerful than a few others by the same author - was decently done given the purpose and the style chosen for it. This image doesn't suggest that much to me, and doesn't make me feel much, but it works: it has a unity, and a cohesion that make it a decent image at least.

An opportunity to say that I haven't seen many people in here who can admit that a picture is well done though they don't like it !

A rating shouldn't be only the expression of what one likes, but also an attempt to judge objectively of the objective factors of an image. I think that such an approach would really help Photo.net to be the wonderful tool it could be... A tool for every one of us to improve his understanding of photography...

 

To me, this type of photo has zero originality. How many photo's of nudity have been taken? Billions? It really is just an ordinary photo.

A rating shouldn't be only the expression of what one likes, but also an attempt to judge objectively of the objective factors of an image. I think that such an approach would really help Photo.net to be the wonderful tool it could be... A tool for every one of us to improve his understanding of photography...

You're having a wet dream, Marc, but I feel your sentiment deserves to be repeated, even if it only does reach the precious few who feel the same way.

Marc, thank you for your fair comment. I would never expect any picture to make a positive emotional impact with everyone & as you say the ratings system would work a lot better if people were encouraged to be more objective in at least one of their scores. I've given some thought about the scoring system and my present feeling is that there are really a minimum of 3 independent parameters: originality, technical competence & personal impact. (I once worked in a scientific editorial committee and we would judge submissions by: "Is it new? Is it true? Does it matter?" which are broadly the same criteria). The first 2 could be combined as a kind of technical merit score (objective) which could still be independent of emotional impact (subjective).

 

Whatever method is used it's bound to be deeply flawed & open to abuse. I've practically stopped giving scores except occasionally to encourage photographers whose work I think has been scored too low. I don't think scoring should be abandoned though as it keeps the forum alive with controversy which is valuable in itself.

 

Tony, Tom & Michael, I quite agree that close examination of grain pattern will usually reveal the method used (I remember people arguing endlessly about the relative merits of Tri-X & HP5 grain patterns!). My point is that we should ask: 1 - what's the grain there for? and 2 - does this or that version achieve the goal successfully?

 

If you like to see grain only BECAUSE it's an unavoidable accidental consequence of the limitations of the film, then it seems to me you might as well spend your time looking at random ink-blots - there is certainly no creative input into your choice.

 

If your aim is an accurate copy of old - style photojournalist work using the original ciné film in the first 35mm cameras, then you will have to do something fancy with push-processing or very selective enlargement - but NB this is phoney, you're only pretending to be using old film.

 

If you want the grain to soften the details of an image - because they are not part of, or work against, the overall message - without making the picture look uncomfortably blurred (ie the eye is happier if it can see detail even if it's not of the scene) then you can choose whatever kind of grain / noise works best.

 

I also don't like random pixellated noise for the reasons you both mentioned, and I do like (for illogical nostalgic reasons probably) the pattern produced by real grain so my preference is to reproduce something similar to this. I should have said real B&W film grain because colour film grain doesn't appeal to me so I prefer my "ersatz" colour grain to the real thing!

 

FINALLY (I'm sorry this is so long) the grain on the small jpeg file is coarser than on the original. When I shrank it down the grain practically disappeared and because of the low contrast of the skin tones the jpeg compression produced ugly "contour-lines" and in the large view random square blocks. I therefore re-applied the grain on the small image at the same scale as had been on the full-size image to avoid this and to achieve the same texture.

 

Tony I'll happily send you the full file (you'd better leave it loading up overnight!)

 

Jonathan

 

 

Nice framing, lovely image--like an antique of sorts. I love the grain and the delicate contrast in your original printing, too.

When read as a thread, compiled over several days the discussion about whether the "grain" is grain looks silly. In reality, it's the kind of thing that a couple of photographers would swap a few coded phrases over in three or four seconds of conversation and then get on to the next pic. So this comment should be read in that context.

Jon, your three choices about why I (for one) "like" grain assumes that I do in fact like it. Insofar as it is part of the original medium of capture I guess I'd have to say that I do like to see it, but that is not the same as actually liking the grain, in and of itself.

The grain is part of the picture, like the texture of canvas is part of a painting. I know what you're going to say: hiss is part of an old analog music recording too... do I like that? No, I don't. So where does that leave me?

I guess I do have to admit that I like grain in itself (on a read-back, the hair is too fine to split), but, like Baby Bear, only when it's "just right" (how did you drag that out of me?). When I've evaluated hi-res digital pictures from CCD cameras I usually add noise to make ersatz "film grain" to get a kind of equivalence, to make it look like the medium I'm more familiar with, and yes, I add contrast to clip blacks, to make the CCD capture look more like film (I don't publish these pix, they are for private consumption). Seeing as I've never used a CCD camera for serious work (only for evaluations) I don't know what will happen when der tag comes. Will I give in and soup-up the images just as you have done here? I'll keep you posted. I think I'll have to wean myself onto CCD imaging slowly.

(Incidentally, part of the explanation for the common misconception that CCD images have low dynamic range is that they don't appear as contrasty as a film representation of the same scene. In fact, modern CCD chips have much more dynamic range than film. They reproduce more faithfully than film, especially shadow details. That's what throws us. The reason people get fooled into thinking the opposite is because CCD images, as a rule, don't deliver that "film" look).

What I guess I'm saying is that grain is part of the image, and if it's there I like to see it rendered as was, not enhanced by machine methods (where are those hair-splitting scissors?).

Grain gives a picture an impressionistic "natural look" (I'm aware of the monumental contradictions in that statement, by the way). It takes us one step away from a noiseless, grainless, reality (found so often in videotaped TV shows, for example) and provides a basic resolution, beyond which the image cannot be taken. In fact, many TV producers use similar effects to Jon's to create grain (and other effects like "filmlike" gamma) in studio video footage.

Maybe it's something like the addition of digital dither in CDs. Noise (at a subliminal level) is added to give the quiet moments of the recording some texture. There is nothing so silent as complete digital silence. There is nothing so black as complete digital black (like last week's POW had). Grain is good. It gives us something to hang on to.

But should we add grain when it's already there. Now that I could argue with you for hours, Jon. But only over a beer (or a nice glass of Australian un-wooded chardonnay). I think it's been done to death here.

(Send the JPEG, I'd like to see it now that I've gazed at my navel so much over it, but don't forget the lowest quality compression bit, PS Level "0"!)

It is not really anything special. It just OK.

Sorry, but that is my opinon.

Jonathan,

 

Thanks for posting the original. Like the others, I agree your cropping was excellent. I'm not sure about the grain, though--I'm still considering . . .

What I find interesting is the people that comment on how they don't like some of the "technical" qualities of the shot are being dismissed while the photographer performed a bit of technical tinkering to get the effect that he wanted.

 

Obviously these qualities (softness and grain) are important to the presentation of the photo or the photographer wouldn't have added them in. It's going to be a matter of preference wether you like the effect or not.

 

When Ted Turner added digital color to old black and white movies it came under quite a bit of criticism. The fact that digital is being used now to recreate those qualities is somewhat amusing :)

 

I don't know if it's the digital manipulation that made me think there were problems with this photo or not. I do know I like the second one better. That one seems to convey a sense of the past more than the top one to me.

 

For the record... I'm not some old timer that that's set in my ways. Before I ever even stepped foot in a real darkroom I was using digital imaging to play with photographs and I still do. As well as appreciating todays sharp optics and the beautiful irregularites caused by old lenses. Anyone that has looked through my portfolio knows I like both fine and coarse grain. I've even defended grain, softness and exposure problems together all in another POW.

 

But to me, the image above doesn't seem to represent some of the feelings that were expressed by people leaving comments. That doesn't make me right and them wrong. This image works for a lot of people but you can't please everybody. It has resulted in an educational thread though :)

It's realy nice portrait of pretty woman.

I just love it, Jonathan. Exquisite shape and form, beautifully candid. I hate cigarettes, but here it adds a really cool visual touch. Very nice work.