[Ecurie Martini]

I think those are excellent examples. I usually take the easy way out. My current digital darkroom program is Paint Shop Pro 8 - most of the capability of Photoshop at about 20% of the cost.

One of its functions is an "autofix" option - one key stroke and it adjusts brightness, contrast, saturation, hue and does an edge-preserving smooth - works well on most things and you can still invoke individual functions for further correction.

I am so taken with the capabilities of these programs and so enjoy being "back in the darkroom" (in my student days, I always had a fully equipt laboratory darkroom available) that I am selling off my Leica equipment to finance a further investment in digital - I am currently using a Sony F707 but have decided to go the DSLR route - probably a 20D Canon (but I shall keep the 707 - the swiveling body is wonderful for close up work without the need the crawl about on the floor).

At the initial race on my new track two weeks ago, one of the participants, who is a professional videographer, borrowed my digital camcorder- a pretty fair Sony 3 CCD model- and shot about 30 minutes of tape. He has promised to edit and assemble a tape. If it seems to be worth sharing, I'll put up some clips when it is done.

EM

 

[Ecurie Martini]

QUOTE (Robert Davies @ 24 Nov 2004, 02:21)With out seeing the original model, I cannot comment on which photo is the best representation.

Personally I still prefer the original for detail recovery purposes. In the doctored pics there's too much information lost in the shadow areas for my liking. The third pic has alot of digital 'noise', under the sills, under the 16 on the side, and behind the rear arch.

Incidentally the first pic has a feel of a photo taken of the 1:1 car contemporary to when it was built.

A personal opinion only.

-Rob
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You make a valid point but, in all fairness, one must consider that the example, presumably downloaded from the board, was, most likely, already a fairly highly compress JPEG before it was downsampled to 640 X 480 or, at best , 800 X 600.

In my experience, if these techniques are used on a TIFF or low compression, high resolution JPEG which is then resized and compressed for internet publication, the artifacts that you note do not appear and the whole process can be compared to "dodging" and/or "burning in" in conventional darkroom technique.

EM