Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/06/09
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Robert Stack wrote: ><Snip> I agree with Robert Stack's description which i did not find overly long but snipped here as you've read it already. What's the difference between a fine measuring instrument and a test strip? Rather obvious of course! The test strip gives you hard copy. (wet copy?) And a range of results so the potential of the neg is directly seen by the photographer printer as RESULTS. (THIS is what would happen if I did THIS) When we then make our first full size print it is a test print. But we can then glance back to our incremental test strip to see what the tones would have looked as other densities. We are dealing with results, not numbers. A meter gets you results soon enough but when we look at our first print do we think of it as a test print? We are encouraged to think of it as a result. A result which is adequate. But the problem is not that because we can think of that first full sized print any way we choose to. The problem is that if we choose the think of the first full sized print as a starting point instead of an ending point without incremental test strip information it's much more difficult to determine where we go from there. We dont' know what taking off ten seconds is going to do. A test strip makes this directly evident of course. So this is why fine art printers tend to do things the old fashioned way. It's not because they can't afford high tech meters and densitometers and closed loop systems. It's because although numbers are wonderful they dont' compete with hard copy in hand results. Short haired not so fat Mark Rabiner got rid of the big black glasses for little yuppie bifocals!. people could not figure out if i was Drew Carey or Garth!