On Wed, 8 Dec 2004 04:51:19 -0800, Shel Belinkoff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi Juan ... > > I'm not sure if I'm a "purist" but I don't care for anything fake. I make my living by making "fake" images. I suppose my skin is thicker in this regard because of that. I wouldn't do things like deleting one person from a picture, but something like adding grain seems minor, almost like running an unsharp mask or desaturating the image by some process aimed to getting a pleasant look. I suppose I consider it "minor" because it is global to the image. > For > years we've worked with grain in film, trying to reduce or eliminate it as > much as possible, or, at times, trying to enhance it, all for creative > reasons. Now we have digital, which has it's own type of "grain", and the > argument is made so often that digital is its own medium, and film is its > own, but sometimes the digi guys want their digi pics to look like film. Well, one could argue that since the camera sensor is designed for color pictures, making an image black and white is also a case of " the digi guys want(ing) their digi pics to look like film", no? > So, after years of struggling and after new technology to reduce or > eliminate film grain, here we are trying to add it back. It all seems > rather bizarre to me. > > That said, if someone wants to add grain to their digi pic, that's OK with > me. Can "good results" be had by adding noise and gaussian blur? I don't > know. Having played with it myself, and seen your recently posted example, > I'd say acceptable results can be had, results good enough for some people > in some circumstances, but thus far I don't like what I've seen. Maybe the > purist in me is looking too hard to find fault, but, at least at this > point, I want my digi prints to look digital, my Tri-X to shout Tri-X, my > 35mm work to look like 35mm work, and the photos made with the 6x6 to look > like medium format. I just want my images to look good :-) The point is that the process is arbitrary. With film you have to decide how you develop it, what paper you use, etc. With digital there's also a set of parameters, and the choice is yours. "Digital grain" is artificial, but so is sharpening, and the difference is of degree. [...] > Since we saw Salgado's exhibit together, let me ask you this: do you feel > his photographs would have been improved, and by that I mean would they > have conveyed greater impact and more passion, had they been shot with > "grainless" digital techniques, or do you think the grain may have > contributed to the intensity of the photos, giving them more impact? To > me, the grain added a certain raw dimension that helped give the photos > their great power. I don't know if a grainless print would have had the > same impact for me. I agree with you, grain did add to those images. I would like to see prints of some of his latest Pentax 645 work, to see how they compare in that regard. j -- Juan Buhler http://www.jbuhler.com blog at http://www.jbuhler.com/blog
