You know what bothers me?

[Buckster]

Many of the finest pics to have ever existed were done with Kodachrome, where PP was a physical impossibility.

Do tell. I didn't know that.

So, can you explain how any photos made on Kodachrome would get into a magazine or onto a poster? Or were they only seen at the photographer's house on a slide projector?

I'm interested to know the technique involved that prevented anyone from doing any PP in that process; no possibility for introducing filters, masks, sandwiching, vignetting, drawing, dying or painting on the slide itself before projecting, etc. Explain how and why it was physically impossible to place anything at all between the slide and the paper while making a print, and how it was impossible to use dyes and paint and so on directly on the print for touch ups and so on, because I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around how that would be "impossible".

This will no doubt be fascinating! I love to learn new stuff!

 

[epp_b]

Many of the finest pics to have ever existed were done with Kodachrome, where PP was a physical impossibility.

As mentioned, much work with film involves pre-processing: selecting filters, multiple exposures, lighting techniques, etc.

Colour slide film could also be considered pre-processed itself for it's typical high levels contrast and saturation.

EDIT: OK, Buckster has a much better retort than I

 

[Garbz]

Ok, maybe I slipped, mostly because I know crap about film but it just made sense since no one had computers 30 years ago like we do now..

Nah you did kinda have a point. The only issue is that the anger is misdirected. The ability to take a 1000 ready to burn to CDs photos in about an hour has bred a world of people who don't take care anymore. They make errors in the camera photography and then dedicate photoshop to fixing them. This is a mistake a lot of amateurs and happy snappers fall into. I think the real seasoned pro is the one who dedicates the time in the original image and then uses post processing as PART of his process rather than a bandaid.

 

[CSR Studio]

Ok, maybe I slipped, mostly because I know crap about film but it just made sense since no one had computers 30 years ago like we do now..

Nah you did kinda have a point. The only issue is that the anger is misdirected. The ability to take a 1000 ready to burn to CDs photos in about an hour has bred a world of people who don't take care anymore. They make errors in the camera photography and then dedicate photoshop to fixing them. This is a mistake a lot of amateurs and happy snappers fall into. I think the real seasoned pro is the one who dedicates the time in the original image and then uses post processing as PART of his process rather than a bandaid.

Exactly, photoshop is used to tweak, not save an image.

 

[Big]

I think the real seasoned pro is the one who dedicates the time in the original image and then uses post processing as PART of his process rather than a bandaid.

Well said Garbz!! :thumbup::thumbup:

 

[Battou]

Ok, maybe I slipped, mostly because I know crap about film but it just made sense since no one had computers 30 years ago like we do now. I just got frustrated that's all. It's like taking a completely crappy singer and running their voice through a vocalizer or whatever they use and make them sound like a pro...

Your anology is so far off base it's almost funny. I'm suprisesd no one has said it yet....It does not matter how much processing one does to a photo, a shitty photo will be shit regardless of the persons photoshop ability. One simply can not make a bad photo an award winner with photoshop, it must be an award winner from the time the shutter is released. Something modern beginners can not phathom.

A more appropriate anology for what you are reffering to would be cutting and polishing a peice of quartz and trying to sell it as a dimond.... No matter how fine and beautifully the rock is cut, it's still just a peice of quatrz.


I do know your frustration though....but that is a different rant all together

 

[CSR Studio]

Ok, maybe I slipped, mostly because I know crap about film but it just made sense since no one had computers 30 years ago like we do now. I just got frustrated that's all. It's like taking a completely crappy singer and running their voice through a vocalizer or whatever they use and make them sound like a pro...

We did have a type of photoshop, it was very expensive and was only used by the biggest magazines.

What I can't get over is all of these people that are new to photography thinking that they invented it, we did the same things with film it was just different and most of the time better because we took our time and didn't take 1000 images to get one good shot.

 

[Torus34]

Oh, my! I thought that this type of discussion had been put to bed many years ago when someone discovered how to tweak a tintype. Apparently, this is not the case.

So ... let's get it over with.

Consider, for a moment, oil painting. It's art, right? [OK, OK. It's art in the hands of a talented practitioner. I'll concede that point. Let's not nitpick. We've more important fish to fry here.]

But what is oil painting? It's ALL process. The entire thing is individual, manipulated brush [or sponge or palette knife] strokes. The artist decides every single 'pixel' which appears on the canvas, one way or another. And s/he twists and tweaks and changes and modifies until s/he is satisfied -- that is, as satisfied as any artist ever is with an individual work.

Anyone care to put down oil painters for doing what they do? Processing?

'Nuff said.

 

[Plato]

Many of the finest pics to have ever existed were done with Kodachrome, where PP was a physical impossibility.

As mentioned, much work with film involves pre-processing: selecting filters, multiple exposures, lighting techniques, etc.

Colour slide film could also be considered pre-processed itself for it's typical high levels contrast and saturation.

EDIT: OK, Buckster has a much better retort than I

My error. I thought that the discussion involved post-processing, i.e. after exposing the film.

Regarding filters, etc., for printing. Again, my error. I thought that the discussion involved improving the photo.

 

[Buckster]

Regarding filters, etc., for printing. Again, my error. I thought that the discussion involved improving the photo.

Whether it's an "improvement" is highly subjective, but we might note that an entire industry dedicated to PP, especially in fashion, glamor and advertising, has been a part of the professional photographic world for a long time, going back at least to the early days of Hollywood, so someone certainly thinks they're improvements.

For at least most of the last century, entire studios and workshops of expert re-touchers who didn't necessarily shoot any photos themselves have worked on photos by the top photographers of their day and made a good living at it. No blemish or pimple or wrinkle survived, unless by artistic choice. Legs were lengthened, hair was colored, faces and bodies were thinned, things were erased and other things cloned in, and all the rest of it.

Those techniques for PP started being invented at the birth of photography, and continue to this day. It's nothing new to the world with the invention of Photoshop. Photoshop was made to intentionally emulate what was already being done in those studios so that it could be done digitally instead.

Still looking forward to your demonstration of how that was all "impossible" with Kodachrome.

 

[Big]

You people get too feisty! It was just a statement. Now that I know more from what you all said it's not a big deal I guess. It's just that I feel like I need to spend more time practicing my photoshop skills rather than my camera skills... I'd rather have it the other way around. Please do get mad at each other or me because I brought the subject up again.

 

[CSR Studio]

Still looking forward to your demonstration of how that was all "impossible" with Kodachrome.

I'm interested in seeing that as well.

 

[Buckster]

You people get too feisty! It was just a statement. Now that I know more from what you all said it's not a big deal I guess. It's just that I feel like I need to spend more time practicing my photoshop skills rather than my camera skills... I'd rather have it the other way around. Please do get mad at each other or me because I brought the subject up again.

I don't think anyone's mad at each other here. I know I'm not. It's just a discussion. It can sometimes be difficult to 'read' a person's feelings from just their printed words, unless they're pretty obviously worked up or something. I try not to read much emotion into posts.

You should absolutely work on your camera and composition skills most of all (IMHO). As others have stated, you can't make a crappy photo into a masterpiece with PP. You have to start with something that works already. PP is best used the way a wash and wax is used on a vehicle. If you start with an old rusty piece of junk that's falling apart, you're not going to get much out of a wash and wax of it. If you use it on something that's already pretty but has some mud and fingerprints on it, the polish just brings out the real beauty of it.

On the other hand, read Ansel's "The Camera", "The Negative" and "The Print", and you'll find that each step of the photographic process is important. It's never ever been about getting it all done at the time of the shutter press. That's always just been step one towards a great photo.

Whether those final two steps are done chemically and with hard objects and materials you can hold in your hand like in the "old days", or whether they're done digitally here in the present - they need to get done, so you should learn them as well.

 

[CSR Studio]

You people get too feisty! It was just a statement. Now that I know more from what you all said it's not a big deal I guess. It's just that I feel like I need to spend more time practicing my photoshop skills rather than my camera skills... I'd rather have it the other way around. Please do get mad at each other or me because I brought the subject up again.

I don't think anyone's mad at each other here. I know I'm not. It's just a discussion. It can sometimes be difficult to 'read' a person's feelings from just their printed words, unless they're pretty obviously worked up or something. I try not to read much emotion into posts.

You should absolutely work on your camera and composition skills most of all (IMHO). As others have stated, you can't make a crappy photo into a masterpiece with PP. You have to start with something that works already. PP is best used the way a wash and wax is used on a vehicle. If you start with an old rusty piece of junk that's falling apart, you're not going to get much out of a wash and wax of it. If you use it on something that's already pretty but has some mud and fingerprints on it, the polish just brings out the real beauty of it.

On the other hand, read Ansel's "The Camera", "The Negative" and "The Print", and you'll find that each step of the photographic process is important. It's never ever been about getting it all done at the time of the shutter press. That's always just been step one towards a great photo.

Whether those final two steps are done chemically and with hard objects and materials you can hold in your hand like in the "old days", or whether they're done digitally here in the present - they need to get done, so you should learn them as well.

I couldn't agree more. An image can live without (so to speak) post processing but you can't live without the image. Work on your photography first then work on the other stuff. And nobody is mad that I know of. Just having a discussion.

 

[Randall Ellis]

I don't think anyone's mad at each other here. I know I'm not. It's just a discussion. It can sometimes be difficult to 'read' a person's feelings from just their printed words, unless they're pretty obviously worked up or something. I try not to read much emotion into posts.

Well stated. The lack of interpersonal cues that we normally have when conversing in person makes holding a discussion online somewhat difficult, at least for me. This has been, for the most part, a very interesting discussion so far. Lots of well considered points have been made and no one has resorted to ad hominem attacks that I can recall.

I also agree with the rest of your post, I just didn't include it for clarity

- Randy