1999 Article in Photo Techniques Magazine


 
 

Barn, Washington, 1997
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"The results have 
been very exciting"

I come from a traditional background in black-and-white photography, using the methods of Ansel Adams (whose workshops I attended in '83 and '84).

My approach has been to use a Hasselblad 6x6 cm camera with either KodakT-Max 100 or Kodak Technical Pan films, and then scan the negatives into Photoshop.  After working with the image in Photoshop to get the desired tones and sharpness, I print the image on an inkjet printer.  My digital darkroom adjustments have been primarily limited to whatever is possible in the darkroom, such as unsharp masking, bleaching, dodging, burning, contrast and brightness adjustments; however, the methods and the tools used are necessarily different.

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Bristlecone Pine, California, 1997
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Photos and Text
by Ron Harris
Page layout
by kokleong
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                        e-mail Ron

The results have been very exciting.  Recently, I gave a day-long conventional photographic workshop for a local university.  Some of my mounted and matted prints were on display, in two rows.  Images in the top row were all done in the darkroom, and those is the lower row (different images) were printed using my digital process.  I asked the group, including their instructor, which of the two rows they preferred.  The response was that they liked both, but they gave the edge in quality of the digitally-produced prints!  All were astonished to learn how they were produced.  They hadn’t a clue that they weren't done in the darkroom.

For those photographers who might be interested in entering the digital arena, some specific recommendations follow.