My love/hate relationship with digital

[boku]

In "the old days", as a pro, I probably shot 500+ weddings.

I haven't been in the trade for years, but I can't imagine trying to do that volume of work in digital. My studio represented perhaps 10% of the volume for Burrell Color in Hebron Indiana at the time.

Today, as an amateur, I can gingerly tweak my images in Photoshop and get a coffee as they slowly dribble out of the printer. I know there are faster ways to print digital, but I have no confidence that anyone on the outside can get the color as I intended it. (And - I am not proficient at using profiles for outside printers.) My TIF files are about 20 Mb when I'm done - that means I'd need to burn CDs and ship them to a lab - broadband just don't cut it.

I'm with you - digital is great for me, but I am not doing it commercially.

[Hank]

That's really insightful Dan, and an effective way to sum it up.  We used to run between 3,000 and 4,000 rolls a year of mostly 120 film through our studio, making us a small to medium studio, and by actual count will have used less than 50 this year.  Our workflow is different with digital than it was with film, and though I think it is pretty much a wash in terms of time and effort, we now have a whole lot more control of the results.

At the volume of business we are turning however, we don't feel we can afford the really high-end printers to produce the quality prints we demand, so it's off to the lab for our digital files.  Skin tone is a consideration all along the way, but not an insurmountable issue.  In fact, we get better results with digital than film because we have such a diverse client base.  Every film has a slight color bias, depending upon a person's ethnicity and exposure to the sun, to the point that we used different films for different skin tones.  It was a little too interesting with mixed groups, and for those I say "thank goodness for digital."

I don't think there is, or will ever be, a single perfect solution, digital or film, that will suffice for all applications.  As you say, digital requires changing a few diapers, but then film's shorts aren't clean either.

Hank

[Ray]

The profiles that are shipped with printers are at best a generic average of the performance of that model printer, and will not reliably deliver excellent results. Sure, you may get lucky and find a printer that exactly matches the profile average, but you are just as likely to get something that prints like 3 day old dog vomit. Or you could get anything in between these extremes. It's a crapshoot. Printer profiling equipment is expensive (the good stuff starts at about $1500), but you can have profiles made for your printer. Good ones run $30-$50 for one printer/paper/ink combination.

Jonathan,
I'm confused here. How does one have profiles made for one's printer? Does one have to ship one's printer to the profiler?

[boku]

a thousand at a wedding

Yikes!

How do you show proofs?

Having shot about 500 weddings myself - I can't imagine this pace. I would flat out kill me.

The most I ever shot (120/220 roll film) was maybe 250, usually more like 150. We presented them all as 4x5 proofs.

[Ray]

Well, thanks Jonothan for an insight into a working professional's work flow. The interesting point here, for me, is that you've got the customer to do the sorting. Whatever they choose, you're going to improve upon it. This is far better than wasting time processing an image that you think is 'good' only to find that the customer has different tastes.

There should be no doubts, in any one's mind, that 'digital' has enormous benefits.

[richardfreedman]

I'm a working pro, been shooting actors' headshots, fashion/model portfolio work, weddings/events, all things people for over a decade.  Felt the pressure to go digital, bought a Canon 10D last summer, upgraded my Mac with cinema display and all the toys, etc.  My current opinion:  digital (at least at this level) isn't ready for pro use, and these companies (camera manufacturers, inkjet printers, etc) are using us as paying guinea pigs to perfect their systems.  Months of searching websites such as Luminous convinced me to make the jump, but the important missing link is that all such websites are landscape-oriented; a landscape doesn't have to have perfect colour to be good, in fact one probably wouldn't even notice a slight shift on a landscape/architecture shot, but skintones are another story.  I know a few wedding photographers who shoot with digital slr's and only produce sepia b&w's with them, as the colour just isn't satisfactory.  Let's face it, we're dreaming when we believe that a two thousand dollar camera is going to replace our Hasselblad systems.  And don't even let me get started on inkjet printing!  Anyway, this is my frustration, and I look forward to hearing from other people-shooters who have had better luck than myself with this new technology.

[Tim Gray]

I'm not sure the camera is the issue but I think that there is a valid point to be made with respect to color management in the digital world.  In film, once you understood how your film behaved and found a lab you could trust your problems were solved.  Now, particularly if you do your own printing the issues of calibration, profiles etc. etc. certainly can become a challange.  

I met a "high end" wedding pro last winter who had switched to the Kodak digitals early on, but used a lab for printing, something like an Agfa D2 - he could detect color casts and degrees of warmth or coolness that I certainly couldn't but he was certainly "sold" on digital.

[flash]

Hmmm... interesting.

I shoot about 20-25 weddings a year (I used to shoot 80 but I want to see my family now and again) and there is absolutely no way I would ever consider going back to film.

Econonomics aside I find that I get far better results than I ever got with film, after I invested in the right workflow and tools.

I use a couple of those cheap and nasty "non professional" 10D's. A camera will never be professional only the photographer. Poor colour has NOTHING to do with the choice of DSLR. There are a lot of whingers out there with EOS 1Ds's and 14n's etc and neither expensive cameras, film or digital, or a fast computer will solve issues and neither will blaming it on the gear you use.

With film I had horrendous problems with skin colour. I was eternally sending film back to "professional" labs who were charging me an arm and a leg for inconsistant quality. These were "wedding print labs" not K-mart. Reprints always looked different from the first run prints. Too light, too dark, blah, blah blah. If it weren't for digital I would be out of people shooting all together. As long as some one else was determining how my clients should look there was always an opportunity for error. Digital changed all that. Now I take my CD's to the local lab and get exactly what I want, as they make no changes to my files.

But..... Here's the rub. You have to get the workflow and the tools right. If you bought "toys" then that is your fault. When I started I really struggled with colour in digital. But with (a lot of) help from site like this and others I have sorted out my colour management issues and now get great results, predictably, every time. When we all started as "photographers" we had to learn about lenses, DOF, films, lighting etc. Now we all have some more learning to do. Photoshop, profiling, colour management, softproofing. If you aren't ready to go down this road then film is the better choice for you. And if you are happy with what you have, why change it?

I bought C1 because it is the best. I practice good colour management, I developed a relationship with the lab I use so they understood what I needed and I new what their limitations are. I had to learn and learn and learn to get it right. And it took time. A lot of time.

I like film, I really do. If you prefer film great, but digital is not inferior, just different. A comparison between a 10D and a blad doesn't work for me. Different format, size, shape, lenses. A 10D is a perfect replacement for 35mm film for weddings. Personally i think it doesn't have the resolution for landscapes and is best suited to weddings and portraiture, but that's just me. But it's going to take a little more than just throwing money at it if you expect it to perform at its best.

I know quite a few other "people" photographers and at least 80% are totally digital. The one common thing between all of us is we work to a prefered workflow, whether that be digital or film. Image quality is not the issue.

Most importantly, my clients are very happy.

my 0.02.

Gordon

As far as being a guinea pig, I research very carefully before I buy and if I feel that technology isn't ready I wait.

[Dan Sroka]

...these companies (camera manufacturers, inkjet printers, etc) are using us as paying guinea pigs to perfect their systems...

It's all a matter of your perspective. I've worked with digital imaging (as a hobby and a profession) for a long time now -- since the 80s when you jerry-rigged the systems ourselves. I've been impatiently waiting all this time for these tools to come into being. They don't use me as a guinea pig, I use them as my own R&D department. :-)

One of the big fallacies out there, propogated by the companes, the press, and especially by us folks, is that digital is "easy". It ain't. It is tough as tough can be. It is a tough artistic technique requiring lots of work and practice. I do sculpting as well, and it is a piece of cake compared to digital photography. It's no wonder your first experience was bad.

Don't forget that digital photography -- that combination of tools and methods -- has only existed for a few years. It is a newborn! If you get into it, you have to embrace the idea that you will do your share of changing diapers and getting spit-up on.

But hey, contrary to what some message boards seem to imply, it's also not the only photographic technique out there. You have to use what works for you and your business. If film works, then you are golden. Don't give up on digital, but give it time to grow up, and give yourself time to learn.

[Dan Sroka]

Our workflow is different with digital than it was with film, and though I think it is pretty much a wash in terms of time and effort, we now have a whole lot more control of the results.

Good point. I was involved in the the early 90s in getting digital imagining into a couple different printing companies. At the time, we kept getting sold this "digital will save you time" line by the sales folks and pundits. But we quickly learned that you don't save any time, like you pointed out, in fact somethings can take longer. But you do gain and a new level of control.

Although that new control has its own price -- a steep learning curve. Back then, I always tried to team up the young computer-savvy guys (with no print experience) with the older prepress guys (with no computer experience). It was fun to watch them teach each other, and learn from each other.

[Jonathan Wienke]

Let's face it, we're dreaming when we believe that a two thousand dollar camera is going to replace our Hasselblad systems.  And don't even let me get started on inkjet printing!  Anyway, this is my frustration, and I look forward to hearing from other people-shooters who have had better luck than myself with this new technology.

I would say you have a color management issue of some kind. Digital has arrived, it can meet or exceed the performance level of film by any criteria you care to define, as long as it is set up and configured properly by someone who is knowledgeable about the unique characteristics of digital.

Rule #1: The cornerstone of good color management is a properly calibrated and profiled monitor. This requires a hardware device to measure the light emitted from the monitor, the two best options are the Colorvision Spyder (with OptiCal) and the Gretag-Macbeth Eye-One. Alleged software-only solutions (like Adobe Gamma) are inadequate half-measures at best. If your monitor is not accurately displaying the colors in your digital files, then your image editing is taking place in the shifting sands of undefined standards and subjective personal perceptions, and you will never achieve a satisfactory correlation between what you see on-screen and your prints, especially if they are made by someone else.

Rule #2: Canned profiles are not suitable for professional printing purposes. The profiles that are shipped with printers are at best a generic average of the performance of that model printer, and will not reliably deliver excellent results. Sure, you may get lucky and find a printer that exactly matches the profile average, but you are just as likely to get something that prints like 3 day old dog vomit. Or you could get anything in between these extremes. It's a crapshoot. Printer profiling equipment is expensive (the good stuff starts at about $1500), but you can have profiles made for your printer. Good ones run $30-$50 for one printer/paper/ink combination. They're worth it. If you send prints out to a lab, insist that they provide you with profiles for their printer(s). If the lab won't provide them, or give you the runaround and try to say they aren't necessary, take your business elsewhere. If your monitor is properly calibrated, and the lab has their act together, prints from properly prepared files will be consistently be right the first time. Period. I've had good results with Calypso Imaging; they have their profiles available on their web site.

Digital requires just as much skill and expertise to do properly as film; it is just in different areas, with different technologies. Properly done, it can beat the pants off film, but there a lot of things that can be screwed up to cause inferior results. I shoot approximately 5000 images a month with a 1Ds, and will never go back to film.

[Ray]

Must be a huge job sorting out the good from the bad, Jonathan!  

[Jonathan Wienke]

No, it's a lot simpler than that. You obtain a test image with a bunch of different colored patches from the profiling service, and print it according to the instructions that accompany the file. You send the print to the profiling service, they scan it and send you the profile. The profile is good only for the type of paper the test print was made with. If you use multiple paper types, you need a profile for each one.

The following sites offer profiling services:
Outback Photo (Uwe Steinmuller)
Dry Creek Photo (Ethan Hansen) This site also has profiles made for various Costco and other photo labs. You can download the profile for your local lab, convert an image to that profile, take it there and get an excellent print.

[how786]

"With film I had horrendous problems with skin colour. I was eternally sending film back to "professional" labs who were charging me an arm and a leg for inconsistant quality."

  I never had a problem with skin tones.
  Never.
  What can I say?
  For decades I used VPS 160 and then switched to NPS 160 after VPS was discontinued. Both films produce lovely, natural consistent skin tones. Quite flattering.

  Of course, I always develop my own film using fresh Kodak C-41 chemistry in a Jobo CPP2. I do my own scanning and printing. Before digital prints, I did my own darkroom prints on a Fujimoto CP-31 using the Minolta-Beseler 45A.

Happy Holidays!!
Howard

[Hank]

I have to agree with Jonathan's 1000 shots per wedding.  Under most of our contracts we start shooting as the bride and groom are dressing, then on through the late hours of the reception.  Most of our weddings are a minimum of 6 hours shooting, and 8-10 hours is a more reasonable average.  Some have gone as long as 14 hours.  It's pretty easy with that kind of coverage to rack up 1000 shots, or more than 2000 when we are both shooting. But you are right, it can be a killer.

As for proofs, you have to be pretty organized but sorting and assembling is a whole bunch easier with digital than film.  Our typical digital "proof book" (presented to the B&G in the studio as a slide show and sent home on a CD, printed proofs optional at an extra cost) runs somewhere between 150 and 200 images.  Since we charge an hourly fee and sell the prints "ala carte," it is manadatory to shoot as much as it takes to put together a really memorable and high quality selection.  We take a lot more creative risks and shoot a lot more digitally, simply because we can see the results on site and aren't having to charge for film and processing.

Hank

[Jonathan Wienke]

1. People who want color (the majority) aren't going to rip you off by Photoshopping out the watermark and printing a bunch of crappy 4x6's for themselves and all their friends/relatives if the photos are B&W. Colorizing is a lot more work than removing a watermark.

2. All my proofs are processed 100% by actions; no manual editing is involved. That is the only way I can shoot 1000 images at a wedding and stay sane without charging the B&G more than their car is worth. Auto color can't deal with mixed tungsten & flash lighting, or any of several other situations where Uncle Joe's face ends up looking terminally hypoxic. B&W is a LOT easier to explain than bridesmaids with green hair. The actions I run output good-to-excellent B&W output from any normal image that is reasonably well exposed. All I need to do is specify a folder with camera-generated JPEGs and an empty folder for the B&W proofs to go. It is more hassle to copy the images off the Microdrives than it is to make the proofs. And that's the way I like it.

[Jack Flesher]

I'm a working pro, been shooting actors' headshots, fashion/model portfolio work, weddings/events, all things people for over a decade.  Felt the pressure to go digital, bought a Canon 10D last summer, upgraded my Mac with cinema display and all the toys, etc.  My current opinion:  digital (at least at this level) isn't ready for pro use, and these companies (camera manufacturers, inkjet printers, etc) are using us as paying guinea pigs to perfect their systems.  Months of searching websites such as Luminous convinced me to make the jump, but the important missing link is that all such websites are landscape-oriented; a landscape doesn't have to have perfect colour to be good, in fact one probably wouldn't even notice a slight shift on a landscape/architecture shot, but skintones are another story.  I know a few wedding photographers who shoot with digital slr's and only produce sepia b&w's with them, as the colour just isn't satisfactory.  Let's face it, we're dreaming when we believe that a two thousand dollar camera is going to replace our Hasselblad systems.  And don't even let me get started on inkjet printing!  Anyway, this is my frustration, and I look forward to hearing from other people-shooters who have had better luck than myself with this new technology.

No offense, but you cannot trash digital based on your experience with one lone NON-pro DSLR camera -- and the 10D is no pro DSLR...  If you had tried the 1Ds instead of the 10D you would come away with a totally different view.

Cheers,

Jack

[Scott_H]

I don't much care for people in general, so they aren't a good subject for me.  It does sound like a colour management issue to me though.  

I tried a couple of different online labs before I got results I like.  I have my monitor calibrated, and both labs claimed they read the icc profile I embed in my image.  The prints from one were really oversaturated though, and the prints looked terrible to me.

Getting the colour you want isn't something that is going to happen out of the box.  It does take some work.

[ddolde]

I shoot approximately 5000 images a month with a 1Ds,

I can't understand why anyone would do that.

[Jonathan Wienke]

I shoot approximately 5000 images a month with a 1Ds,

I can't understand why anyone would do that.

A few hundred frames shooting food items for a restaurant, a hundred frames at the local wildlife hangout, a hundred frames of the band playing at the local coffee house, a thousand at a wedding, and suddenly you have 35,000 images on your file server...having cool camera toys is nice, but they need to pay for themselves.

As for sorting and selecting, Photoshop has some great tools. Check out my Image Gallery page to see how my clients can preview and select images. The images are all prepped with a Photoshop action that resizes and converts to B&W, then the pages are created with Photoshop's Web Photo Gallery tool and a heavily customized HTML template.