«Have a plan and keep and log. take a scientific, methodological approach. Logging failures and mistakes is important too.» This!
When I taught photography, I had to keep insisting to everyone the importance of putting everything down in the darkroom logbook, even the failures. Nay! Especially the failures. Also, the importance of detailed logs. Saying, “Sunday → Did normal exposure/development. Results were good, Jimmy Jim” was not at all helpful. A better entry would have been, “1994-04-17, 17:30 EST → Based on enlarger light-meter and test sheet, exposed my FP4, (‘Castleton Gardens,’ Roll 2, frame 23A, ‘Gladiolia by the Cascades’ with proper exposure), on Hasselblad 23C enlarger at 45 cm (18 inches) with the 50 mm lens at f/11 on 12×8 in Ilford Ilfospeed RC Deluxe Glossy grade 3 paper on the 11×14 adjustable easel, for ten seconds. Developed in 1 litre fresh Ilford multigrade developer, 1:14 dilution, at 24°C for 3 min. Results: Exposure came out perfect, and the tone was quite neutral. Blacks properly saturated, and no fogging in the highlights. Went on to make eleven more prints of this frame, (12 total), then one print each of frames 4A, 6A, 12A, 17A, 21A, 29A, and 33A, with the same settings. All results as the first. Not happy with contrast of 33A, ‘Babling Brook.’ Will retry another day with higher contrast paper. Used developer stored, labeled and documented, (20 12×8 in prints, including initial test sheet) in the refrigerator. Fixer was used, and previous logs, plus bottle documentation, indicated it was near exhaustion. Tested, and was adequate, but recommend a fresh batch. Left note for DR manager, and on fixer bottle. James ‘Jimmy Jim’ Matthersen.” In our case, it was extremely vital, as it was a shared darkroom, but it was also a huge time saver when one comes back in four days to retry frame 33A on higher grade paper. It makes reproducing results far easier, especially when one gets several more requests for prints of “Gladiolai by the Cascades,” Having a plan before entering the darkroom is also a huge time-saver. None of this changes for the digital workflow, save that a great deal of the logging is done automatically. One still has to enter their own comments on the results, (and not have to worry about other users, or chemicals being exhausted). Sincerely, Karim Hosein Top Rock Photography 754.999.1652 On Wed, 30 Dec 2020 at 10:26, Anton Aylward <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 29/12/2020 10:16, Dr. A. Krebs wrote: > > > > > > dt seems to require quite a bit studies to find out the appropriate > steps to image > > processing. As we can see, there are people searching for a > beginners-type GUI. > > > > For me some type of such "beginners workflow" helped a lot; however, > there should > > be a physical / arithmetical backup for such workflows. > > Yes that makes more sense than a beginners-type GUI. > No matter the GUI, it is the ability to use it that really matters. > > > > Overall, there might be some type of knowledge-system in the background > to analyse > > a selected pic. From there he system could offer a questionnaire to > concrete the > > targets and, at last, suggest some reasonable steps to improve a pic. > > HO! What you are asking for is a AI like scene recognition and > classification. > Yes they exist, online. Many exist. Some do things like 'sharpening' and > colour > balancing and correcting skin colour. But they require more resources > than you > have on your PC or laptop. > > However yu DO have a tool that can do scene recognition etc etc and do the > correction the way you want not according to some algorithms in the AI > determines > by a means even the original programmer wouldn't know. > > It's called 'natural intelligence'. > It's called taking the time to learn tool. > > If the idea proposed by some pundits that it will take 10,000 hours of > practice to > fully master that craft puts you off, well the answer isn't "suck it up!'. > It's much simpler than that. It's like using a vacuum cleaner. You keep > pushing > forward in the direction you care about bit by but, 'sucking up' little by > little > as you go along. You don't need to master it all. What you do need to > master you > don't need to master all in one go. > > > Any image is unique, and if you are anything like me, any film roll with > have a > number of different types & style of image. > > Dealing with every possible image in the way you ask is too much for this > list. > It gets back to the AI situation. > > > All of the above ignores the fact that anything you do is not set in stone. > You can always re-edit the same image at a later date as your knowledge > grows. > Even in one edit session you can experiment to learn. It's not like > film and > paper where there is a delay before you see the result and cost to the > material. > > But if you DO experiment, don't rely on your memory. Have a plan and keep > and > log. take a scientific, methodological approach. Logging failures and > mistakes > is important too. > > -- > "Success is 20% skills and 80% strategy. You might know how to read, but > more importantly, what's your plan to read?" -- Jim Rohn. > > ____________________________________________________________________________ > darktable user mailing list > to unsubscribe send a mail to > [email protected] > > ____________________________________________________________________________ darktable user mailing list to unsubscribe send a mail to [email protected]
