[rollei_list] Re: Scanner advice needed, please

By the way, the softener of choice during the darkroom halcyon days was the cigarette pack/box plastic wrapper, crumpled up. Used by a deft practitioner, it's application could also reduce grain without loosing sharpness.
Being a non-smoker, I had to mooch mine from friends that did.

Slobodan Dimitrov
Studio G-8,
Angels Gate Cultural Center
http://sdimitrovphoto.com





On Jul 29, 2006, at 12:52 PM, Don Williams wrote:

At 11:46 PM 7/28/2006 -0700, Richard Knoppow wrote:
The softness and character of the defocused image from a lens is pretty complex. I suppose one could duplicate it with an image editor. The image from a lens of a three dimensional scene is also three diminsional so the nature of the defocused image is important. PhotoShop can produce some interesting blurs and one can mask the image to make whatever part of one wants blurry but I don't think it ever looks quite like the effect from a lens.
I spent quite a long time learning how to make really sharp images. Once I figured that out I began to experiment with soft focus.
Soft focus produced in an enlarger from a negative is fundamentally different than soft focus from the camera. The effect of spherical aberration or a soft filter is to spread out the highlights. When the same device is used in an enlarger the shadows are spread out unless one is printing from a transparency. Even then the three diminsional effects are missing. There is room for both effects. 

I was sure you and Slobodan would be one among the responders.

I wanted to say something very similar but just couldn't think of a way of expressing it.

With respect to PhotoShop, I am a complete failure at defining an area to mask, I suppose because I use a track ball. I would guess that a mouse with a large range of physical travel would help.

Thanks,

DAW


Don Williams
La Jolla, CA

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