ABSTRACT
In this digital age, a skeptic might ask: why bother with negatives at all? Why not just print the image on some fine art paper, using the latest inkjet printer, and be done with it? As the quality of digital printers continues to improve, it is true that many photographers will find that a digital print is an excellent end point for their images. However, it can be argued that the look and feel of classical printing processes has yet to be equaled, and may never be equaled, by digital prints. There is no question that digital prints can be beautiful. But, just as silver/gelatin prints never really replaced platinum/palladium prints, we think it unlikely that digital printing will completely replace the older printing methods. In fact, current photographers can enjoy the best of both the digital and analog worlds. Many of us, for example, still prefer to capture the original image on fine-grain analog film using a 4 5 view camera. This approach affords tremendous control and is still the most cost-effective way to capture and store a high-quality image file. These film negatives are then scanned with a scanner that essentially resolves the grain structure of the film, thus capturing all of the information in the negative. Once digitized, images are worked on in Adobe Photoshop®, which offers a powerful array of tools for maximizing the expressive potential of the image. Finally, the images are printed out as full-size digital negatives with contrast range precisely adjusted to match the requirements of whatever printing method is desired. This approach weds the undeniable power of Photoshop to all the lovely hand-coated printing methods that have been devised throughout photographic history.
