Aaron ... You misread my message. I didn't make the digital print, my mentor did, and he's been doing this a while. Some of his stuff is quite nice, but, in fairness to him, he was working with my negative, which was not processed for digital reproduction. Exactly what that may entail I don't know, but with typical B&W stuff I can manipulate contrast, move shadow and highlight detail around, etc., and the neg he chose to work with was just a simple portrait in flat light with a camera/lens combination I'd never used before, shooting a film that was rather new to me as well.
So, there's a bit of apples and oranges here. However, my point, which you easily grasped, is that it takes skill and practice to get a good print regardless of which method one chooses. To answer you questions, the first time I was in a B&W darkroom it took me 2 minutes to make a print. From then on it took quite a bit longer ;-)) I had no schooling in making prints in the darkroom. I've actually had more education in making digital prints, and I've only been involved in the process for about an hour <g>. Aaron Reynolds wrote: > > On Tuesday, November 20, 2001, at 12:27 PM, Shel Belinkoff wrote: > > > I suppose a lot depends on how your system is calibrated, just like how > > your darkroom is calibrated. However, it took me less time in the > > darkroom to print that particular picture than it did to print it > > digitally, and the quality was superior. Perhaps on the next print the > > differences in quality and the time involved won't be so great. > > How long have you been printing digitally? How long have you been > printing conventionally? > > This month is the first birthday of our Epson 7500, and I would estimate > that I now take less than half the time that I did to make a print when > we first got it. I'm also working with it five or six days a week for > several hours a day. > > Calibration is a very big part of digital printing, just as it is for > film processing, or particularly for conventional colour printing. But > also, experience is important. The first time you were in the black & > white darkroom, how long did it take you to make a print? > > Plus, did you have any schooling in conventional printing? Or in > digital? > > Digital, for all it's instant-gratification appearance, has its own > learning curve and its own pitfalls. I've found that it is very similar > to the conventional darkroom in one very important way: you get better > with practice. -- Shel Belinkoff mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://home.earthlink.net/~belinkoff/pow/enter.html http://home.earthlink.net/~belinkoff/cameras/pentax_repair_shops.html - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
