What makes a good print?

[Manfred M]

I thought I would share some material that we covered in last week's advanced printing class that I am currently taking. Based on the "Classical" view of prints (Group f-64 and those that followed it). This goes for B&W and colour images.

- Dmax
- "rich blacks"
- "filled with light"

- Smooth tonal transitions with contrast that maximizes tones

- Shadow and highlight detail

- Neutrality

- Believable

- No process artifacts

- Appropriate scale, materials and presentation
(i.e. choice of paper and print size should be appropriate for the image)

- If in colour:
- idealized hue
- believable saturation

And most important - these points should not be viewed as dogma, as there will always be exceptions.

[Shadowman]

The believable criteria is vague, does that refer to the subject matter or the editing technique? If you are referring to technique, I can see where a photographer/editor could go over board (garish HDR, special effects (transposed or superimposed objects) but one definition of fine art includes terms such as creative and imaginative, you can create a composition with unbelievable content yet it should be left to individual viewers on believability of the presentation.

[DanK]

Manfred wrote that this was the view of the f/64 group (Ansel Adams et al) and those who followed that path. Hence the nature of the advice. This has always been my taste, but when I look at galleries, it’s clear that this is far out of vogue in some quarters.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Manfred M]

The believable criteria is vague, does that refer to the subject matter or the editing technique? If you are referring to technique, I can see where a photographer/editor could go over board (garish HDR, special effects (transposed or superimposed objects) but one definition of fine art includes terms such as creative and imaginative, you can create a composition with unbelievable content yet it should be left to individual viewers on believability of the presentation.

These criteria have absolutely nothing to do with either the genre, the composition, subject matter, etc. They are only about how to get a strong "classical" print that was very much developed by work of the f-64 Group (Weston, Adams, etc.) and those that followed that school of photography.

In general, many, but by no means all, modern photographic print makers follow this direction.

In galleries we have seen a resurgence in interest in historical print making, especially in B&W with people working with these old techniques and materials. I know one local photographer whose historical process prints are fetching around $5000 apiece.

https://www.whitneylewissmith.com/