[pure-silver] Re: Presenting silver images on the web

Robert Marvin wrote:
Scanning a print would probably be a better representation of the "real" print.
I guess it depends on what you mean. And what you want. Was the original artist's objective to make the print look like his artistic conception, or was the print just the way he happened to execute his artistic concept, of for which there might be a better execution some other way?
For me, a print is a representation of the negative that, in turn, is a representation (perhaps realistic) of what was in front of the camera at the time the negative was exposed. In the sense of preservation of accuracy of representation (if that is what you want), the closer you get to the original, the better. Each generation after that loses information.
Now for some photographers, the negative is not terribly important, and the art they achieve is done in the printing. For them, I imagine, the print is the "original" and that is what should be scanned.
For me, the print is just one representation of what was on the negative. If I were a purist, if I wanted to display something on the Internet, I would use a digital camera in the first place. Lacking that, I would scan the negative with a drum scanner (I shoot mostly 4x5 film) and then do any changing in something like Photoshop or the Gimp. Why should I add the limitations of the printing process into this image-making enterprise? Unless that is what you want to express.
I once received a post-card of a photorealist painting. The idea was very funny. The artist took a photograph and painted it extremely realistically, including burned out highlights (not extreme) and blocked shadows, both of which he could have done better had he wanted to. Then someone photographed that and reproduced it in three- or four-color half-tone to make the post card. It was quite a study of processes, and perhaps that was the artistic intent. I do not want to study the limitations of the artistic process I use, and prefer something more direct, so I would skip the printing process in this chain.
Of course, if you have a bad negative scanner and a good print scanner, that would be different; I assume one is thinking about comparable quality scanners in both cases.
I find the same thing in making half-tones with a sealed glass screen. I can do this either from a print or a negative. I feel I get much better images from the negative than I get from a print. For one thing, I can get better highlight and shadow detail that way, because the dynamic range of a print is so small. I never measured the dynamic range of a CRT or LCD monitor with enough accuracy to mean much, so I do not know if either exceeds that of a print (though I suspect they do).
However, since I usually print 11 X 14 and can't afford a large tabloid size scanner I scan negatives and adjust the file in Photoshop to closely match the actual silver print that I prop up near my computer. Someone more concerned with digital output would no doubt work very differently. I sometimes put a disclaimer on the web to the effect that the digital image is merely an approximation of the actual print which is much better.
I do not know what you are trying to achieve. Sometimes I find the half-tone (when that is what I am making) better than any paper print I can make. The control of contrast in that process is very different from printing onto photo paper. 

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