I guess the problem I have with everything you are saying is that you still seem to be implying that somehow the wool is being pulled over our eyes. That the restored Proudin-Gorsky images are more fabrication than an honest attempt to faithfully render the data contained in the original images in a way that is psycho-visually accurate.
But one can make the very same case that Technicolor and Kodachrome and every other photography technology that has ever existed, is as much fabrication as reality. What I'm not seeing here is any evidence to backup the assertion that these particular images are less psycho-visually accurate than if they had been rendered in a different common style. Sure, with Photoshop and/or other software, you have a much bigger toolbox for messing with reality than you used to have in a darkroom, and you can consequently do all sorts of things that I would consider to be more fabrication than representation, but I've seen no evidence yet presented that this is what has occurred here.
One thing that we seem to agree on is that the style that has been used for many of the renderings is an HD video style. One of the things that I was taught by film professors is that the reason that video looks "cheaper" than film is that video is actually more accurate in a lot of ways than film, and we've just been trained by our culture to view the less accurate rendering in film as more classy. I don't know if this claim about film being less accurate than video is true, but if it is, then this might explain why an attempt to render the Proudin-Gorsky images as accurately as possible would end up with them looking like HD video.
I wouldn't, however, be surprised to learn that the images were not rendered as accurately as possible, and the HD video style was specifically chosen, but that choice would also make sense, psycho-visually. If we're not used to seeing photographs rendered in a form as psycho-visually accurate as is possible, we might not experience them as accurate due to our cultural bias.
If, on the other hand, you are not implying that the wool is being pulled over our eyes and are only stating that the Proudin-Gorsky images have been rendered in a a modern style rather than in a Technicolor or Kodachrome style or in the style that you would have seen if you were to have seen Proudkin-Gorsky project them with his lanterns, then point taken. (It would certainly be interesting to see them rendered in a form a close as possible to how they would have been seen in the day.)
I guess the problem I have with everything you are saying is that you still seem to be implying that somehow the wool is being pulled over our eyes.
On the contrary, PS is an improvement in your eyes. A better anology would be night-vision goggles. You can "see" a lot better with PS. In the same way you can "see" better with amplified starlight.
The last paragraph sort of says: "You are either wrong or trivially true. If you are trivially true, I agree with you."
If, on the other hand, you are not implying that the wool is being pulled over our eyes and are only stating that the Proudin-Gorsky images have been rendered in a a modern style rather than in a Technicolor or Kodachrome style or in the style that you would have seen if you were to have seen Proudkin-Gorsky project them with his lanterns, then point taken.
Again, your premise is wrong. The information content is higher. As established above. So, this breaks down the next part of your argument, too: that PS is like film. Again, film is what I put into the starlight scope. What comes out has amplified latent information.
This leaves what I'm saying as something else altogether and hopefully at once clearer and more agreeable. Lets call this the "enhanced information hypothesis". This is how you get your HD.
So where does that leave us? I think two things follow. One, it explains why people react to these images and remark about their information content and their contemporary feel. Contemporary images have more (color) information in them, and the structure of this information is often unique. But, because its unique (to the present) it is incongrous with the past. The way I would put this is it may help us visualize the past. But I'm not sure it brings us any closer to the past. That is, in sense of shared experience with the people of the past. They would have had a cool thing with their "lanterns". But we are sort of looking at another ball game.
Again, There are gradations, etc to this way of putting it. Nothing is absolute. But I think its directionally correct. Its important enough to take note of, and not to dismiss. It also steers well clear of making any leaps onto further implications about XYZ (veracity, accuracy, etc) which are at once imprecise and unncessary; not relevant to my points but areas of concern you have expressed.
So, if I understand you correctly now, based on this response and your recent response to michrassena, is that your argument does not claim that these new renderings of Proudin-Gorsky's work are less of a window into a past reality than any other photography. Instead your claim is that in no sense have we preserved Proudin-Gorsky's art with these reconstructions?
I might certainly buy that claim. I don't think that most people here were concerned with the artistic intent so much as the documentation of a past reality.
As to information content, your claim is that there is more information content in these reconstructed images than would have been received at Proudin-Gorsky's eyes while he was taking the photographs? I find that a bit hard to believe. Though I suppose sharpening via some sort of deconvolution might amount to that. Also, we don't need anything so "esoteric" as either night vision goggles or Photoshop to get more information onto a piece of photographic paper than would have been seen with the naked eye. A long exposure or a polarizing filter on the camera can do that.
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[So, if I understand you correctly now], [your argument does not claim that...] [Instead your claim is that ...]
[I might certainly buy that claim.]
[As to ... your claim is ...?] [I find that a bit hard to believe.] [A long exposure or a polarizing filter on the camera can do that.]
The combination of self-referential straw-man-building and false-false hypthesis rejection is priceless.
Polarizing filters and long lenses? Really now.
I'm very intrigued by your description of Gursky's photo being full of mind-bending and subtle tricks. What is unnatural about the space? I see what looks like compression, possibly by the use of a long lens.
Now you're like a drunk at the bar talking-shit. In over his head. Talking to someone with real experience. Not imaginary, illusory braggadocio.
Last call for you.
For other HN readers of this thread, there is real information presented here. Ideas that might benefit them. Provding an increased understanding of the world.
Fore nessus42, your false dichotomies and outdated academic modalities, are just the opposite. They are not enlightening or powerful. Nor even intimidating. Just sad and dull.
We leave them behind.
here is what I would call an uneditorialized composition of the image you linked
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/prokc.21676/?co=prok http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/prokc.21676/?co=prok
As anyone can tell, this one has undergone a transformation, colors are corrected, blemishes have been cloned out, and there's some gradient masking at the top to knock down the difference in brightness at the top of the scene.
http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/prokudin_08_20/p05_00004434.jpg http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bi...
If anything, the version on loc.gov has more vibrant color, tending a little toward the blue. The shadows are open, and as you'd expect from three color plates on monochrome stock, the dynamic range is enormous, sunlight sky and clouds at the top and deep shadows rendered in detail.
Have a look at the original scans here:
There's plenty of shadow detail present in the original.
Really, you should download the 16-bit 69.1MB TIFF image, and
not rely on the JPG for details, I'm just linking it for convenience.
Here's where you can download hi-res version.
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/prok/item/prk2000001146 http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/prok/item/prk20000011...
I took the time to download and produce my own take on this image. Linked here: http://imgur.com/wHWmu http://imgur.com/wHWmu
Here's the thing, had I remembered how to paste into a color channel this whole process would have taken 15 minutes. Instead it took me 30 after I had downloaded the image. With no scripts or otherwise head start, I pasted each image into its own layer, auto-aligned the layers, and pasted them into a new image on the respective color layers. I then used an adjustment layer with a gradient mask to add some contrast to the sky. Saved as a second 16-bit TIFF and pulled that into Camera Raw. Here I added a little sharpness (accutance), pulled the noise reduction slider over a bit. I brought up the brightness about 1 stop and used highlight recovery to bring in the highlights. I did not pull up the shadows. I did not enhance the clarity, or add additional contrast. I did not pull up the blacks. I did not color balance at all. I did not touch the color sliders. So no, I'm not a Photoshop genius, I don't do this work professionally. This is amateur stuff, which accords with my statement of the level of manipulation done on these photos under discussion. This isn't gross, wholesale changes to the image in the way we're all familiar happens in fashion photography. I wouldn't even go the other way, to say this is subtle image manipulation. It's as intellectually honest as cropping without altering content, printing on contrasty paper, dodging and burning. So, please tell me how my image differs significantly from the one linked on the Big Picture, and which you'll find linked
also from the loc.gov page.
Finally, a response to your "points" 1 through 9.
1) "overall tone, color, and contrast nearly the same" Are we even looking at the same two images? One image taken on a
completely overcast day, there's fog on the far right too. The other, bright full sunlight, within 2 hours either side of local noon.
2) grass and rock have a distinct tendency to look the same
3) How can you possibly say the shadows aren't present the Prokudin-Gorsky image? It's a sunny day, the sun is high in the sky, the buildings are shrouded in shadow. It's only due to the extreme latitude of three monochrome images combined that we're able to see this in a color slide. An of course, how in the world can there be shadows on an overcast day, in the mountains? What can one expect with a huge horizon-to-horizon dome of diffuse light overhead? I'm not entirely certain the photographer didn't use a strobe in this photo, but the shadows are completely plugged up, and I'd expect to see some catchlights in the people's eyes and the dark cloth to have a bit of a sheen to it. No these two images aren't even remotely the same.
4) You say they look identical, but how? Yes, I suppose on an occluded dark hillside, they can walk out from under the cloud and down into the sunny valley below.
5) Like I may have mentioned, histograms prove nothing about the local contrast situation you're pointing out. But whatever the case, your response is filled with subjectives. I should have been more specific. I would have liked your ideas on objective ways of quantifying this modern photographic look you feel is the key to our visceral reaction
to Prokudin-Gorksy's work. Because if digital tools have put it there, there is a way to extract that information.
6) sounds like an interesting article
7) this is good info, it made finding the source image much easier
7 1/2) no, they aren't interchangeable at all. In fact, much of what they have in common is the fact they were photographed on earth, and that human beings with their particular sensitivity to light are viewing them.
8) I don't have any sense of nostalgia with either of these photos, so perhaps that's just you. If there's a color cast in the Prokudin-Gorsky photos, I wouldn't be surprised. Who knows how balanced his color filters were, how accurate his shutter timing was, or how must the exposure compensation differed between the color filters. Any of these factors can shift the color balance. In the more recent photo. I assume the murkiness comes from the scene, the deepness of the blacks, and the lack of the warmth of sunlight. But again, so what if the photographer had stuck a cooling filter in front of the lens, or done the digital equivalent. Is altering the
mood of the scene with light allowed?
9) That's a real party trick. two images in monochrome, more alike because their color differences have been discarded. But they are still different enough. I can't help but notice how soft the portrait is, but maybe it's just the JPG image and its size, the people seem flat against the background. There's not a lot of contrast in the scene, but like I pointed out before, it's a trend to enhance local contrast. You can see this distinctly in the faces where the cheeks and foreheads seem to pop out. What pops out in Prokudin-Gorksy which shouldn't?
re: footnote #1, when a restoration takes a long time, we cannot assume it because layers of dishonesty are being heaped on. I can easily see spending hours on each photo. There are plenty of blemishes, and some of the emulsion has come off the plates, which would require reconstruction from scratch. It is painstaking work for the sake of accuracy. As far as I know the Library of Congress mission is the archival of historic artifacts and not the production of emotionally manipulative imagery. They may even err on the side of cold hard facts. You can see the bottom left corner in my image. Notice how one of the color channels is missing. My guess is that was reconstructed from the imagination. That's why you see it in the other images. How long does that take, to pull in the image from the other channel and colorize it appropriately?
Ultimately, the restoration of the Prokudin-Gorksy images is not a tour-de-force of Photoshop. It is not the implantation of faddish notions of color and contrast on a historic process. No subtle tricks to fool the unwary gazer were employed.
I think you may have overstated your case. Instead of letting it drop, you have dug in deeper and deeper, as if you could
convince without evidence.
*Edit: typos, addition of a sentence or two, and fixed the ugliness caused by pasting from notepad.