I'm not sure why the central thesis of my argument is proving so difficult for some people.
I am not saying that people shouldn't display their images on the web, on screens or in any other manner. I am simply pointing out that the full quality of a properly shot, edited and adjusted image from a high quality camera simply can not be properly seen electronically.
Point: The web is sRBG and images displayed are compressed JPGs, while a print can easily exceed Adobe RGB in gamut.
Point: A print from, say, an 18MP camera (certainly not the biggest) is some 5200 X 3500 pixels. A 30" display is just over 2 million pixels. Something has to give, no?
An 18MP camera file can produce a roughly 16X20 print at optimum printing resolution, allowing one to see everything that the camera and lens have to offer. To produce an image with comparable resolution on a screen would require a 240-300 PPI screen, which do not exist. Yes, a 50" LCD or Plasma can show the image at 100%, but to view it properly one has to sit across the room which means that the resolution isn't properly visible the way it is on a print.
So my thesis isn't that prints are a superior means of showing ones images (though for me they are). I realize that many people never print. But, simply that with today's technology they can't show you everything that's in the file the way a print can. Or, if they can, they suffer from very high cost, the extremes of technology, or other impediments.
Michael
Points made and points well taken.
Even amongst digital devices there is a tremendous difference in what one can see. For example, my finished images that I adjust on my color-calibrated NEC (in ProPhoto) don't appear anywhere near as colorful or vibrant when viewed online (converted to sRGB) via my web browser and cheap laptop. So I understand your point there, and I further understand that even the images which look so vibrant and rich in color on my calibrated NEC will look still more colorful and vibrant when actually printed well on archival paper from a quality printer. Again, points made and points well taken.
The trouble I have is, while your logic above is entirely sound, and the mood you convey above is entirely sober, such was not the frame of mind in which you began your original article. This is how you began your original article:
"I alternately chuckle and get steamed up when I read someone on a web forum either condemn or praise a camera or lens based on a web images. This is utter nonsense."You then pretty much, and with a great deal of contempt, dismissed "the Flickr crowd" as a single living entity, from which you then went on to your central theme of fine art prints being the ultimate arbiter of equipment quality. Backpedaling a bit now does not change the mood of what you originally wrote. The paradox is, while the theme of your article may be true ultimately, the real truth is the vast majority of photographs do not get seen, judged, bought, or sold in a "fine art print" form. Moreover, there is an overall condescending theme to the original article towards any person whose judgments are being rendered through digital evaluation, while at the same time an automatic self-contradiction is raised by virtue of the existence of the "Luminious Landscape" very own digital presence and reviews.
Therefore, since this here is a forum to discuss your site and the topics of discussion, I would like to convey here that (as a reader looking to learn from your online articles, supported by your online digital images) when I read something from a man who is 'alternately chuckling, and then getting steamed up' over something he himself does, this doesn't conjure a feel of a level-headed thinker. In fact, when one is being tossed back-and-forth with such emotions as a writer, one can miss a lot of key points.
For, while you entitled your article,
The Fallacy of Judging an Image Online, what seems to be two twin simultaneous fallacies of your own article is (1) to assume that the most important photography (to the most people) is fine art photography 'in print', and (2) that this position seems to make a mockery of all of your own online articles, all of which are supported with plethora of the very "digital web image evaluations" you dismiss as "utter nonsense."
Regarding (1), since many {if not the majority} of the viewing & buying decisions and judgments of photographs are in fact made
based on the submission of electronic images, to dismiss the importance of how such digital images look (either online or on a monitor) is itself a real fallacy. In "The Photographer's Market" book, which lists just about every purveyor of photography known, almost every one of these purveyors ASKS FOR the submission of
high res digital images on which to base their decisions on whether or not they will accept (buy) any photographer's work. Furthermore, regarding (2), I still don't understand how you can say this:
"But please, please, stop judging the technical quality of photographic equipment by looking at small web images. And, while 100% crops can be helpful in comparing certain technical aspects of image quality, this usually bears little real-world relationship to how a photograph will appear in a print. In my experience its rare that the pixel peeping that the online image analysis that many people love to do (doh! including myself) bears any real-world relationship to how an artist's image will appear in a final display print."(Parenthsis added)
... and yet post as many photographs as you do
digitally online as 'proof' of the positions you take regarding the quality of the lenses and software.
I don't think too many photographers judge photos based on "small" web images, but I do think 99% of judgments come from 100% crops. So it just seems pretty hard to reconcile the two positions, the fact you yourself have evaluated cameras and lenses (for years) on your website, always supported by large digital web images, and yet that you take the ultimate position you do above, that such judgments have little 'real-world' value. One is left scratching one's as to "why?" You even said,
"In fact I know quite a few widely exhibited fine art photographers who refuse to show their images online because they feel that this misrepresents how their work should be seen." I would say this latter quote shows more integrity to the above belief system than does holding this belief and yet at the same time still posting articles with web images "as proof" for one's position on the quality of cameras and lenses.
In the end, the ultimate truth of your article is easily understood. The fine art print, in fine form, does show the most of what a camera and lens can do. It was not the truth of this that was the problem, it was the self-contradiction of utterly condemning the importance of any judgments being made of digital images at all, as nonsense, and squaring this with the plethora of your own online articles and judgments, all supported with digital web images, that raised an eyebrow for me. For while the very largest of "fine art prints," printed on the very finest printers, may in fact show the ultimate strengths and liabilities of any equipment, the truth is such end results are NOT how the majority of photos are in fact bought, sold, or even seen.
The majority of photographic images bought, sold, and judged in this day and age are in fact based on DIGITAL evaluations, long before they ever get to be printed, and so to dismiss the importance of digital evaluation (or how images appear digitally) is to dismiss the vast majority of real world photography ... and thus the vast majority of people ... as well as your own online, digital presence. The A1 fine art print may tell the ultimate tale, but ultimately it is the least-used medium that buyers of photography use to judge photography.
The reality is, almost no one has the luxury to be able to get a free camera and a free set of lenses, and then be at liberty to take as many photos as contents their heart, print-out their images on the finest paper with the finest printers ... and then do this with all of the name brands, makes, and models ... from which they may then make a purchase decision. This is not a reality for people. The purchase decisions most people make are based on online viewings and/or high-res digital viewings, and so such judgments are ultimately the most important.
Thus, if the point of your article is that the ultimate reality is to judge cameras and lenses based on fine-art prints, then I think all of the judgments and proclamations of your own articles online ought to be based only on a comparison of A1 and A2
prints, not on digital crops, so that the conclusions on your website product reviews are to be in harmony with your core beliefs.
Jack
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