RE: Quality of prints from digital files on photo paper

[Curt Miller <cmiller@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I think Zonghou is correct in many ways, particularly with regard to image
quality.  And here I'm talking objective quality (what the image
qualities - grain, gradation - are), not subjective(or, how
an image "feels").  I'm a longtime "fine art" photographer, having shot
film for 40 years now and making enlarged prints using traditional
opto-chemical technology.  I have a problem I need to solve digitally:
putting credible copies of my images on my web page.  I'm no luddite but I
am skeptical about substituting digital for anything more demanding than
this project at hand.  So, I went to a digital imaging meeting last night,
hosted by an Apple techno-geek/salesperson.  There were lots of what the
gurus of the medium were calling top quality digital photographs on
display for all to see...

the stuff was OBJECTIVELY mediocre at best.  To compare this output to
film prints is like comparing a Yugo with a Mercedes.  And, yes, this was
touted by all these folks with their (I won't mention the name of the
national photography organization here) medals dangling from their necks
as being the greatest of the state of the art.  As an economist by day, I
tried to put the digital revolution in its perspective as appropriate for
news and wedding work (with a Phase One equivalent back - very high
quality capture).  For purposes of the 100 roll per year amateur, it makes
no sense and can't be written off on taxes.  But, for me, the stunning
reality was how crude the digital image quality really was. It's really
still in its infancy and far too expensive for the average photographer,
particularly where OBJECTIVE image quality is concerned.  Now, where you
want to talk about Tango drum-scanned 4x5 negatives output to a $300,000
LightJet printer, I agree.  The results may even be said to be better
than can be produced through opto-chemical means. Still, remember, this is
hybrid technology.  While everyone is touting the
quality of output from a 18 MB file from a Nikon D1, I am reminded that my
8x10 negatives would require a 2 GIGABYTE file to give me the
equivalent to film quality.

The price/performance ratio of digital imaging compared to film is still
way too high.  It will probably take 5 to 10 years for the curves to
cross.  While the purchaser of $10,000 woth of digital imaging equipment
watches their investment decline to $zero over the next five years, the
Leica buyer can watch that investment remain stable - or even grow.
Doesn't make any sense to me.  But it does make sense for my phot-editor
buddy who shoots 15 rolls of film per day for the newpaper and can write
down the cost of the equipment while saving a ton on film and processing.
We just need to accept the appropriate uses for this stuff and discard the
rest until the technology goes from the equivalent of a Model T Ford to a
year 2000 Taurus.  And the dawn of that day is certainly not upon us.

Curt
Curt Miller, MPA

On Thu, 19 Oct 2000, Xiong, Zonghou wrote:

> I think it is important to say the advantages of digital photography are 
> digital manipulations on a computer.  You achieve this either by
> film+scanner
> or by a digital camera.  Having seen a few local people struggling selling
> fine
> art photos using digital cameras,  I wouldn't recommend this option.  The 
> advantage of digital cameras is speed, not image quality. One photo
> journalist
> I met thought everybody was using Nikon D1 at the Olympics.  However, for
> fine
> art prints, a cheap point & shoot plus a consumer scanner would beat D1.
> 
> Zonghou Xiong
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