Don't Like Digital

[Bifurcator]

I need to move back and forth. I need to be able to take one image and print a Duratrans,

How large are the backdrops? I did this kinda stuff and the photographing of them (digitizing) for movie sets and so fourth. Usually this is done in the digital matting department these days. Are they translites from a mural enlarger like in the old days, or is it for a digital process?

and then turn around and send it off for publication in a magazine. I'm working on building up a portfolio of editorial work for smaller-time designers and boutiques. Some of it will go store-front. Some of it will end us as a magazine advertisements.

Define "store front"? For the magazine (offset printing) stuff you're really giving the machines more resolution than their screens use with an 8mp frame for something like the cover of Life or National Geographic. Inside pages are even lower resolution yet.

I, of course, have that vain hope that I'll shoot an ad for a clothing designer who will end up breaking out into a Conde Nast publication.

That's pretty much all social skills tee-hee-hee or knowing someone through family or friends - after you've got your chops that is. But that's all offset printing and the required resolutions stated above apply here as well.

 

[Bifurcator]

hmm, and I thought houses were even more expensive over there than here in Europe

Not really, no. Depends on location.

 

[Alpha]

How large are the backdrops? I did this kinda stuff and the photographing of them (digitizing) for movie sets and so fourth. Usually this is done in the digital matting department these days. Are they translites from a mural enlarger like in the old days, or is it for a digital process?

Define "store front"? For the magazine (offset printing) stuff you're really giving the machines more resolution than their screens use with an 8mp frame for something like the cover of Life or National Geographic. Inside pages are even lower resolution yet.

Store front literally meaning store-front. Posters or Duratrans at 30x40+ inches. Printed on a LightJet if budget allows. Otherwise wide-format inkjet.

That's pretty much all social skills tee-hee-hee or knowing someone through family or friends - after you've got your chops that is. But that's all offset printing and the required resolutions stated above apply here as well.

Yes and no. Landing editorial work as a magazine photographer is different than shooting an advertisement that ends up being published in a big magazine. The former requires a lot of networking. The latter not as much.

I'll be shooting sort of "standardized" advertising materials. Shots that can go from web-sized to magazine ad to large display materials without a hitch. I don't like the idea of having to re-shoot for different display purposes. If someone only needs a web-sized jpg, but then comes back and says they want to make a poster of it, I'd like to say, "no problem."

 

[Bifurcator]

Also Alex_B is right. Almost all serious studios I know are shooting the digital backs on Mamiya, Has, and etc. Part of it is resolution but color fidelity more than that and most of it seems to be convenience and prestige. The tools and abilities (transfer speeds, formats, cable and connector security and quality, etc.) of the MF digi-backs just fit in a studio environment. This is similar to the "strobist" discussions we have here. Both will work fine but one is just better suited to the working environment.

 

[Alpha]

It's not even strictly about my resolution-loving ego. To echo what I originally started saying in this thread, even for magazine work I don't know that I'd be comfortable doing a retouch of a full-length portrait.

It doesn't really matter that the final print will only end up using some fraction of the original shot's resolution. I need to be able to really get in there and touch things up for the final print to be as good. What I mean is that I need a flawless file to edit that's about 2-3 times larger than the final shot, for me to really do good work.

 

[Alpha]

color fidelity

Have a stash of 4x5 Agfa RSX II for just that! Natively, it produces the most spot-on colors I've ever personally laid eyes on, though I'm sure digital backs come just as close and perhaps sometimes better.

 

[Bifurcator]

It's not even strictly about my resolution-loving ego. To echo what I originally started saying in this thread, even for magazine work I don't know that I'd be comfortable doing a retouch of a full-length portrait.

Not to offend but in that case your approach and technique (in post processing) is inappropriate for the task at hand.

It doesn't really matter that the final print will only end up using some fraction of the original shot's resolution. I need to be able to really get in there and touch things up for the final print to be as good. What I mean is that I need a flawless file to edit that's about 2-3 times larger than the final shot, for me to really do good work.

Yeah, you need to work on technique then. Honest. If you're finding yourself needing many times the output rez for the editing and retouching steps you're doing something wrong.


EDIT: Besides the massive BG printing, it sounds to me as if you could save some money by getting into a high-level (doing hollywood film and high-street rags) photoshop user group and following their advice and tutorial.

 

[Bifurcator]

This is effects centric but I learned allot from here over the past 10 years: http://www.highend3d.com/

See: http://www.matteworld.com/ <-- Example Artist (company)

Other forums I'm on that are very good:
http://www.mattepainting.org/index.php?categoryid=12&p17_sectionid=17
http://forums.cgsociety.org --> http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=196
http://forums.thegnomonworkshop.com/forumdisplay.php?f=2
and probably thousands of others.


I'm an FX guy so all my links are FX related. Sorry. But at the same time that's the epitome of editing and post processing.

 

[Alpha]

Not to offend but in that case your approach and technique (in post processing) is inappropriate for the task at hand.
Yeah, you need to work on technique then. Honest. If you're finding yourself needing many times the output rez for the editing and retouching steps you're doing something wrong.

Hardly. It's do-able but a pain in the ass.

Here is an example, a 100% crop from a full-length shot I'm retouching. It's mighty hard to do a great retouch of the face with this.

My retouching has room from improvement. But in the stylistic aspects of technique, not the technical ones. I do 100% non-destructive editing in Lab Color. I know exactly what I'm doing.

 

[prodigy2k7]

Simple solution, better models and better makeup

 

[sabbath999]

Because dSLR's are the standard for most people, and at this point if I bought a digital camera it would be a dSLR. Plus I don't have the option to rent a digital back. I've never even shot with one. As far as I'm concerned, right now, dSLR's are my digital option.

Not to be argumentative but the 50mp Hassy H3DII-50's ARE dSLR's.

I would be surprised if you would find one of them quite as lacking.

 

[Alpha]

Simple solution, better models and better makeup

Models with flawless skin and great makeup mean less retouching. They don't make what retouching you still have to do any easier when you're working at less-than-ideal resolution.

 

[Alpha]

Not to be argumentative but the 50mp Hassy H3DII-50's ARE dSLR's.

I would be surprised if you would find one of them quite as lacking.

That was pointless. I'm so sorry. Please forgive me for not specifying "non-modular dSLR's"

 

[Bifurcator]

Hardly. It's do-able but a pain in the ass.


I did not write the above text - in red Yet there it was and still IS - as if I had written it. Apparently someone is messing with posts here. Very strange.

 

[prodigy2k7]

Models with flawless skin and great makeup mean less retouching. They don't make what retouching you still have to do any easier when you're working at less-than-ideal resolution.

prove it