I didn't say less than perfection was "unacceptable" John. There's no such thing as perfection, or so I've been told, so we all have to accept "less than." But to actually be willing, or advocating, not to try for high quality, well, that just seems a bit strange.
I've worked with a few great printers, John, and every one of them worked to come as close to perfection as possible. When digital was starting to become more common, Rob Reiter at The LightRoom in Berkeley and i sat down for a few hours and he explained a lot about how he does his digi work, showed me his new gear, and so on. One of the things Rob does is specialize in making large giclee prints, and his work is outstanding. He instilled in me a certain sense of attention to detail, which is paramount when making large prints. He's sometimes go into an image and edit it on a pixel by pixel basis. Certainly that could be overkill in some circumstances, but you know, I never forgot his comments. And now, even when intending to make smaller prints, Rob is sitting on my shoulder, and whenever I decide to take a shortcut, he won't let me <LOL> I was at the shop one day when a woman came in to pick up a 4-foot by 5-foot print of one of her paintings. It was gorgeous - vibrant, alive, filled with incredible detail. It was the second print Rob had made. I looked at the earlier one, and I couldn't see the difference between the two. Rob and the artist showed me a slight difference in a small detail surrounding a few small details that were scattered around the print. Only then could I see that the small detail was just a scosh darker - probably imperceptible to anyone but the artist and Rob. Most people would not consider the difference worth all the trouble, but Rob and the artist did, and I agreed with them. Maybe I just have a different standard than others - maybe good enough is good enough, and most people when looking at a print can't see an off couple of pixels, but if I know there's something that can be made better, and I know how to make it better, I'll make the choice to spend the extra time and energy to do it better. I just can't stand that "good enough" attitude that we see so much of today. Sorry about going on so long, but I've been working on a particularly vexing image and an having some trouble getting some detail precisely as I want it prior to printing, so the subject is, if nothing else, timely right now, and I needed to give myself a bit of a pep talk before going back to the project ;-)) Shel > [Original Message] > From: John Francis > On Fri, May 06, 2005 at 07:51:39PM -0700, Shel Belinkoff wrote: > > And you have made my point, Tom. The results of a print from an improperly > > exposed negative and one that is properly exposed are different. true, the > > results may be "acceptable" and in some cases the differences subtle, but > > that acceptance often comes at a lower standard of quality. > > > > While i can accept that rational from a lot of people, I find it > > disheartening coming from someone who's a member of a photography list, > > who, imo, should be striving for excellence rather than making an excuse > > for mediocrity. > > Well, that's one opinion. Not everybody regard a photograph as unacceptable > if it's short of perfection by any given metric anyone might choose to apply.
