On Tue, January 12, 2010 13:23, mark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: > Which Corel product are you using? I am old school too, but a good > capture even back in the day was just the start. From altering developing > times, print exposure times, filter packs, ect most of the same things we > do in digital post processing were done back in the day too. It just the > photographer didn't always do them their self. Back then, it was a major step for an amateur photographer to start doing their own darkroom work (at least in B&W). And a part of all professional training that I saw. Most labs did very little beyond straight prints, though I believe if you paid "exhibition printing" prices and were a frequent customer, you could end up with a personal relationship with the person who printed your work. Some top artistic professionals cut out the middleman by employing their own printers. I think they went from doing their own printing, to hiring an employee to do it to their specifications. I hardly ever did split-filter printing (on variable-contrast paper). Never made contrast masks (useful even in B&W, I hear tell). And then there were extremes like dye-transfer color printing, if you REALLY desperately wanted control (and amazing colors, and incredible shadow detail, and great permanence). Never did that either, though I own a number of dye-transfer prints of my friend Ctein's work. This modern idea that you shouldn't post-process is amusing. I suspect it of being an interesting combination of artistic rejection of some of the extremes of Photoshop abuse, and ignorance of just how much alteration was done in top-grade printing in a darkroom. Some people, I suppose, may also use it to excuse their laziness. > I have forgotten about Bibble, but the Thumbs plus looks promising too. Hope you find something you like. I'm not, it sounds like, as anti-Adobe as you, but I'm always willing to help somebody trying to avoid doing more business with them. -- David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b@xxxxxxxx; http://dd-b.net/ Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/ Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/ Dragaera: http://dragaera.info
