Re: Quality of prints from digital files on photo paper

[Bill Glickman <bglick@xxxxxxxx>]

Curt, very well said!....Ditto my thoughts!   I drum scan my 8x10 chromes
and I quite often use 1gig files, so I too wonder what all the hoopla over
20MB files is all about?

Bill G

> I think Zonghou is correct in many ways, particularly with regard to image
> quality.  And here I'm talking objective quality (what the image
> qualities - grain, gradation - are), not subjective(or, how
> an image "feels").  I'm a longtime "fine art" photographer, having shot
> film for 40 years now and making enlarged prints using traditional
> opto-chemical technology.  I have a problem I need to solve digitally:
> putting credible copies of my images on my web page.  I'm no luddite but I
> am skeptical about substituting digital for anything more demanding than
> this project at hand.  So, I went to a digital imaging meeting last night,
> hosted by an Apple techno-geek/salesperson.  There were lots of what the
> gurus of the medium were calling top quality digital photographs on
> display for all to see...
>
> the stuff was OBJECTIVELY mediocre at best.  To compare this output to
> film prints is like comparing a Yugo with a Mercedes.  And, yes, this was
> touted by all these folks with their (I won't mention the name of the
> national photography organization here) medals dangling from their necks
> as being the greatest of the state of the art.  As an economist by day, I
> tried to put the digital revolution in its perspective as appropriate for
> news and wedding work (with a Phase One equivalent back - very high
> quality capture).  For purposes of the 100 roll per year amateur, it makes
> no sense and can't be written off on taxes.  But, for me, the stunning
> reality was how crude the digital image quality really was. It's really
> still in its infancy and far too expensive for the average photographer,
> particularly where OBJECTIVE image quality is concerned.  Now, where you
> want to talk about Tango drum-scanned 4x5 negatives output to a $300,000
> LightJet printer, I agree.  The results may even be said to be better
> than can be produced through opto-chemical means. Still, remember, this is
> hybrid technology.  While everyone is touting the
> quality of output from a 18 MB file from a Nikon D1, I am reminded that my
> 8x10 negatives would require a 2 GIGABYTE file to give me the
> equivalent to film quality.
>
> The price/performance ratio of digital imaging compared to film is still
> way too high.  It will probably take 5 to 10 years for the curves to
> cross.  While the purchaser of $10,000 woth of digital imaging equipment
> watches their investment decline to $zero over the next five years, the
> Leica buyer can watch that investment remain stable - or even grow.
> Doesn't make any sense to me.  But it does make sense for my phot-editor
> buddy who shoots 15 rolls of film per day for the newpaper and can write
> down the cost of the equipment while saving a ton on film and processing.
> We just need to accept the appropriate uses for this stuff and discard the
> rest until the technology goes from the equivalent of a Model T Ford to a
> year 2000 Taurus.  And the dawn of that day is certainly not upon us.
>
> Curt
> Curt Miller, MPA
>
> On Thu, 19 Oct 2000, Xiong, Zonghou wrote:
>
> > I think it is important to say the advantages of digital photography are
> > digital manipulations on a computer.  You achieve this either by
> > film+scanner
> > or by a digital camera.  Having seen a few local people struggling
selling
> > fine
> > art photos using digital cameras,  I wouldn't recommend this option.
The
> > advantage of digital cameras is speed, not image quality. One photo
> > journalist
> > I met thought everybody was using Nikon D1 at the Olympics.  However,
for
> > fine
> > art prints, a cheap point & shoot plus a consumer scanner would beat D1.
> >
> > Zonghou Xiong
> -
>