[Leica] Re: dry & wet darkroom :-()-:

[Jim Brick <jim_brick@agilent.com>]

Well Ted... what can I say.

What do you have in the darkroom? An enlarger (lamp, neg stage, lens, and
easel.) A box of paper, a tray of chemicals, water. What can go wrong? The
lamp can burn out. That's about it. If your timer quits, you can count. one
thousand one, one thousand two, etc...

What's in your computer printing system? I could explain it in the same
detail the I explained your wet darkroom but I would be writing here for a
week.  From a very "top level" view... Motherboards, CPU, I/O cards, DMA
channels, SIO, USB, Video, Keyboard, Printer, Ink jets, ink supply,
Scanner, Operating system, PhotoShop, Scanner software, and this is just
the beginning. What happens if just one of a million chips, transistors,
capacitors, resistors, connector pins, solder joints, disk records, etc...
ad nauseam, goes bad? It happens hourly here at Agilent and everywhere
else. You either cannot produce a print or the print is crappy in one way
or another and you will bust your butt thinking it is some way you misused
the scanner or PhotoShop.

Again, what can go wrong in your darkroom? The neg can pop, lamp burn out,
or timer quit. Will you recognize these failures? In a heartbeat. Can you
fix these failures? In a heartbeat.

Can you make a good print from a reasonable negative? In a heartbeat.

What if your neg is overexposed and/or overdeveloped? Farmers reducer. What
if it is so thin, you can't find the image? Chromium intensifier. Or any of
the various combinations of reducer/intensifier/redeveloper products
available. They all work. They are all simple.

If I were you, I would embrace your new computer technology as a prototype
for the future. It is going to take you a very long time to understand all
of the interconnections and controls that you have. You will indeed be able
to make good computer prints from the start. But you thought you made good
prints when you started printing in a darkroom, back when photography was
invented ;-) , And now look at what you can do in a darkroom. No... not
that... I mean printing. I suspect that over the years, your darkroom
printing improved ten fold. A hundred fold.

So be prepared for a long haul in understanding how a scanner sees and
delivers a digital file from a neg. How PhotoShop views the digital file
and what each of the "hundreds" of PhotoShop controls do and how they
interact with each other. How your printer prints the image you are viewing
on the screen. And recognizing when there is something out of balance or
simply out within your scan/manipulate/print scenario.

This is not a simple endeavor. But it is indeed worth learning. Just don't
be in a hurry and continue to use your darkroom for "real" printing.
Remember the old adage... "use it or lose it." So don't abandon your
darkroom and lose those techniques you've developed over the centuries.
Oops, I mean decades.  ;-)  (I can say these things because I'm not too far
away from Ted in that department!)

Go get 'em Ted. If a PhotoShop class comes your way, take it, as long as it
is not one of those classes for manipulating your image into oblivion.
Books and classes by Barry Haynes are great. Here's a great Photoshop book
review site.

http://www.jetcity.com/~davidh/psbooks/photobooks.html

:-)

Jim




At 06:11 AM 10/17/00 -0700, Ted wrote:
> But then there was this afternoon!!!!!
>
>The amount of time I fiddled, deleted, re-scanned, didn't save, started
>all over, fiddle again, said naughty words,  several times!!!!!  Then
>finally gave up out of incompetence & frustration I could have knocked
>off a couple dozen wet prints. I realize one doesn't replace 50 years
>wet DR experience in a few weeks on the dry side. Certainly attempting
>to cope with these electronic monsters that talk back to you, put
>strangely
>worded phrases framed in little boxes on the screen that point
>out............... you're an idiot!  And leave you whimpering like a new
>bride who just burned her first cake! 
>
>ted