John_K
addict
Reged: 03/09/2006
Posts: 584
Loc: North Yorks
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This is almost certain to ruffle a few feathers but it is not intended to be so.
Last night the club to which I belong held its first competition of the season. The slide section went as it normaly does - without any controversy. However the prints, most of which were inkjet whilst bright, breezy and 'proper', but were in the main overcooked, and the judge said so, (but in the nicest possible way). It seems because it is infinitely possible to alter the colours in whatever computer programme one happens to use, it is done, and almost always goes over the top. It not as if the subjects were 'off beat' or 'unconventional', they were given the wrong unsuitable treatment. As it happens the one that won was also a inkjet, but was a monochrome high key portrait which had been handled in a very sympathetic way and would rival any 'conventional' print.
The inkjet users commumnity would get a far more sympathetic hearing from the conventional photographers if they held in check the impulse to go after lurid yellows, blues, greens and reds, and be a little more, shall we say discrete.
Some it seemed a little like Velvia that had been force fed steroids!
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Fen
BAD WOLF
Reged: 12/03/2002
Posts: 21375
Loc: London'ish
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Perhaps it's just down to lack of experience and no colour management.
I've been entering inkjet prints at our club for years and you can;t tell the difference between convention 'lab prints' and inkjets prints if you do your job right.
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Fen .......... My Galleries - My Blog - My Flickr
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John_K
addict
Reged: 03/09/2006
Posts: 584
Loc: North Yorks
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Yes I agree it can be difficult to tell them apart, but these were way over the top. One of these images in particular was made up from at least two individual pictures. The bottom of the scene (A Lake District Landscape) was grainy, lurid, with bright geens and yellows whilst the sky which to be truthful did match the image, was grain free and smooth texture.
If you are going to 'mix and match' at least get them closely similar. It was just too obvious.
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Lounge Lizard
Old Wrinkly
Reged: 17/01/2004
Posts: 17885
Loc: Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
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Note that there has been a skill shift here. Only about 10% of club workers ever did their own colour prints in the darkroom and the majority had them printed by a lab with a vast experience in getting colours realistic. Now it is mostly under user control with the attendant disadvantages. The typical club photographer is normally male and close to retirement if not retired. Males suffer more from colour blindness than females and eyesight tends to fail as we grow older. Thus print finishing in terms of sharpening, contrast and colour balance has moved from skilled lab operator to relatively unskilled club photographer.
As a judge, I find the biggest 'give-aways' to poor quality digital workflows to be
- Blown highlights
- Muddy or indistinct shadow areas (often due to over-inking)
- Colours 'wrong' - not realistic
- Oversharpening (halos around dark objects and the onset of pixellation esp. if the image was shot as a JPEG)
- Wrong choice of paper (or wrong print driver settings)
As Fen said, a decent digital print should not be distinguisbale from a wet chemistry print. Many home printers still have a lot to learn.
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Lounge Lizard
Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.
Winston Churchill
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John_K
addict
Reged: 03/09/2006
Posts: 584
Loc: North Yorks
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David, I couldn't agree more. I also judge and am a holder of the ARPS certificate.
But going back to the print I was talking about, it was produced by a well experienced photographer who has been producing prints, both B&W and Colour RA4 for years until like me became alergic to colour chemistry.(mine is no under control so I still print RA4 with due care) The tonality is not in question, so I think the problem of colour blindness doesn't come into the equasion, they are simply TOO bright! He knows a good print, judges himself, but when it comes to producing work from his computer it all goes to rat s**t. This particular example was probably the most blatant but there were about 1/2 of the remainder heading down the same route. There is just no sense of restraint
Why do some people do it? I would say they do it because they can. It is not very clever and brings digital into disrepute.
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Fen
BAD WOLF
Reged: 12/03/2002
Posts: 21375
Loc: London'ish
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As I said, it's probably a lack of (computer) experience and no colour management.
Either that or they fact that they 'can' produce pictures that look like that they now want to produce them.
I remember when one of the 'older' members at my club went digital, he kept using 'trace edges' and all the other cr@p actions 
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Fen .......... My Galleries - My Blog - My Flickr
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Benchista
Wich Tyler
Reged: 11/08/2000
Posts: 38335
Loc: Everywhere and nowhere, baby
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Yup. If they want to produces images like that, then who's to say they're wrong?
I print my pics in a number of different ways, some realistic, some most definitely not - that doesn't make me colourblind or incompetent necessarily, merely trying to achieve a certain look. I'm a little concerned about the mindset of those who refuse to accept that somebody might be trying to achieve something a little different - on the other hand, it probably does look terrible! 
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Nick
www.nbrphoto.com
Light and Shade II - the new blog
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John_K
addict
Reged: 03/09/2006
Posts: 584
Loc: North Yorks
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They are not 'wrong' per se, but the standards are being hammered even lower than they were a few years ago. They were not trying to produce anything out of the ordinary just a print(s)that are simply not of very good quality. Some were not even sharp where they should have been. texture pictures require acute sharpness,(not digitally sharpened)to be truely effective.
I was not alone in thinking this about the selection for that competition round, but just WHY DO THEY DO IT????
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Fen
BAD WOLF
Reged: 12/03/2002
Posts: 21375
Loc: London'ish
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Quote:
I was not alone in thinking this about the selection for that competition round, but just WHY DO THEY DO IT????
Stupidity?
The thrill of new toys?
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Fen .......... My Galleries - My Blog - My Flickr
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Lounge Lizard
Old Wrinkly
Reged: 17/01/2004
Posts: 17885
Loc: Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
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Quote:
I'm a little concerned about the mindset of those who refuse to accept that somebody might be trying to achieve something a little different
But they're not and that is the point. Things like find edges and posterisation in Photoshop have been done to death by those wanting to produce something 'different' (like the old Cokin tobacco grad being used for nearly every shot). It was great when it was new but photography has now moved back to good composition and use of light instead of special effects to grab the judges attention.
The only problem is, every new convert to digital discovers these things for him/herself and suddenly thinks he/she has got something new to offer. These people may not have been on the club scene when this was first done or maybe they were but deliberately didn't take an interest then because it was digital and digital was widely viewed to be 'cheating' by the ardent darkroom worker of the time.
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Lounge Lizard
Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.
Winston Churchill
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Benchista
Wich Tyler
Reged: 11/08/2000
Posts: 38335
Loc: Everywhere and nowhere, baby
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Maybe, maybe not - I absolutely accept that that is the case part of the time, and I've no more time for tobacco grads and their digital equivalents than most other people, probably rather less. However, what worries me about the whole ethos of the club scene is that there's an implicit pressure for conformity, which ultimately can lead to stagnation in artistic development. This particular thread was about use of colour, rather than the more OTT aspects of digital manipulation, and I maintain that this should be a matter for personal artistic expression, and is not a matter of absolute right or wrong, as the OP implied. Equally, it is most certainly a matter of personal taste on the part of the judge or other viewer with regard to their view on it - all I'm saying is that it colour isn't a black and white issue. [huge groan]
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Nick
www.nbrphoto.com
Light and Shade II - the new blog
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Fen
BAD WOLF
Reged: 12/03/2002
Posts: 21375
Loc: London'ish
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Quote:
However, what worries me about the whole ethos of the club scene is that there's an implicit pressure for conformity
Definitely not so at our club.
I was in shorts and t-shirt last night, definitely non-conformist
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Fen .......... My Galleries - My Blog - My Flickr
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Lounge Lizard
Old Wrinkly
Reged: 17/01/2004
Posts: 17885
Loc: Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
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Quote:
However, what worries me about the whole ethos of the club scene is that there's an implicit pressure for conformity, which ultimately can lead to stagnation in artistic development.
I disagree. If there is any conformity it is that we all want to see fresh and exciting good photography. Most clubs are not the photographic equivalent of the Tate Modern and accept anything so long as it is different. It can be good or it can be good and different but simply being different for the sake of being different is never going to work.
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Lounge Lizard
Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.
Winston Churchill
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Benchista
Wich Tyler
Reged: 11/08/2000
Posts: 38335
Loc: Everywhere and nowhere, baby
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Quote:
I disagree. If there is any conformity it is that we all want to see fresh and exciting good photography. Most clubs are not the photographic equivalent of the Tate Modern and accept anything so long as it is different. It can be good or it can be good and different but simply being different for the sake of being different is never going to work.
It's interesting that you say that in the light of your fairly recent (well a year old!) complaints about the failings of club judges and their following of fashion - indeed you said that as a result, "photography doesn't move on", and "Originality is not rewarded. Conforming to a previously successful formula is. To me, that isn't good for amateur photography either". Has the scene changed that much in a year? Great if it has.
However, I wasn't really referring to content, but the style, in the sense of the colour balance and intensity. When I hear anybody say "it should be done in such-and-such a way" I hear the doors slamming on artistic licence. Yes, of course we all have an opinion, and I may actually share the same as you or the OP, but to simply say "that's wrong" isn't the right way forward for me.
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Nick
www.nbrphoto.com
Light and Shade II - the new blog
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PaulatUKcamera
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 24/05/2005
Posts: 1925
Loc: West Wales
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There is another issue here - different people do see colour well ...... differently!
Before you say "unrealistic" I think only some people have an acute sense of colour differentiation. i.e the ability to see slight gradations. I don't mean colour blindness - I just mean the appreciation of small colour variations.
I often wonder at what I see in countless homes with the colour television set to extremes. As they age many sets take on a "greenish" tinge. People don't seem to notice. If you say "can you see its green" they generally say "no"
I my youth I used to try and adjust friend's TVs from the garish to what I call more "true to life" rendition. In all cases I had assumed it was because they were unable to use the controls. In time, I came to appreciate that this was regarded as unwarranted interference into their lives. They would thank you if you stopped it rolling or tuned it in properly, but alter the colour? Never!
Look around you - judge the way men, in particular, are unable to match colours or carry a colour around in their head for say curtain or wallpaper matching purposes. No woman would have a problem!
Perhaps the women should judge their men folk's colour printing!
Paul
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Paul Winter (CRIPN)
Web Site: UKCamera.com
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mike_j
nobbut a beginner
Reged: 23/08/2005
Posts: 1392
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I see colours differently in my right and left eye. Not a dramatic difference but the right eye picture has more intense, saturated, colour than the left.
I don't know whether it is usual or just yet another personal oddity.
Probably between individuals the difference is even more marked.
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Eru
member
Reged: 05/08/2006
Posts: 150
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Typically men can see far fewer colours than women, I'll try and dig out the research.
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Fen
BAD WOLF
Reged: 12/03/2002
Posts: 21375
Loc: London'ish
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Blue eyed people have a higher chance of being colour blind than people with brown eyes.
(also blond haired people have more hair follicles)
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Fen .......... My Galleries - My Blog - My Flickr
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vicb981
journeyman
Reged: 01/10/2006
Posts: 86
Loc: UK
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If the frequency in the population of colour-blind men is F, then that for women is square root (F). It's because the genes are on the X-chromosome; men have one of these and women have two. The chance of having the missing gene on either chromosome for women is therefore the square of the chance for a single X-chromosome.
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Fen
BAD WOLF
Reged: 12/03/2002
Posts: 21375
Loc: London'ish
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Er no. Not if I read you right. But I've spent the last five hours in the pub!
There is more chance or being colour blind if you are MALE and have BLUE EYES.
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Fen .......... My Galleries - My Blog - My Flickr
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