Digital BW, The Print

Has anyone else tried Power Retouche? So far, it strikes me as the best 
thing in making bw maybe ever in my limited experience.

I've tried most of them, and power retouche seems the best to me. It  
does not degrade the file like the fred miranda plug-in.

On Jan 23, 2006, at 8:57 AM, Stephen M Martin wrote:

> Has anyone else tried Power Retouche? So far, it strikes me as the  
> best
> thing in making bw maybe ever in my limited experience.
>
>
>

I like Convert to Black & White Pro the best. Have you tried that 
plugin?


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Douglas 
meeuwsen <lipshurt@m...> wrote:
>
> I've tried most of them, and power retouche seems the best to me. 
It  
> does not degrade the file like the fred miranda plug-in.
> On Jan 23, 2006, at 8:57 AM, Stephen M Martin wrote:
> 
> > Has anyone else tried Power Retouche? So far, it strikes me as 
the  

> > best
> > thing in making bw maybe ever in my limited experience.
> >
> >
> >
>

I tried a variety of methods within Photoshop and then downloaded the Power
Retouche demo. The first conversion I did with it looked better than
anything else I had done, and it was easy to use. It was nice to see both
"hardness" and "contrast", which took me back to my b/w darkroom days. The
film types, filters, etc. also work very well.

I recommend it. Great package at a very reasonable price!

Terry.

> -----Original Message-----
> Behalf Of Stephen M Martin wrote:
> 
> Has anyone else tried Power Retouche? So far, it strikes me 
> as the best thing in making bw maybe ever in my limited experience.

It is good - but it does not truly support  actions.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

You could try the 1click actions from 
http://mountphotography.com/actions.htm there are several conversion 
actions in Volume 1 and some toning actions in Volume 2 - there is an 
offer on buying both sets together at the moment (25th Jan).

One thing I don’t care for with these black-box tools is that you get
disconnected from the manipulations upon the image data.  After sliding
controls, etc. around to get a pleasing appearance, I often find the
processed image has noise and banding when viewed at 100%.  That is
something I would look for when evaluating them.

Best regards,
John Moody

-----Original Message-----
From: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of jdg511_uk
Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2006 10:12 AM
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Digital BW] Re: Power Retouche

You could try the 1click actions from
http://mountphotography.com/actions.htm there are several conversion
actions in Volume 1 and some toning actions in Volume 2 - there is an
offer on buying both sets together at the moment (25th Jan).






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

"John Moody" <moodymz3@y...> wrote:
>
> One thing I don't care for with these black-box tools...

Good point. And getting "disconnected" from imagemaking itself is a
risk with our technology. 

Some have allowed digital tools to devolve them, asserting that Zone
System is now irrelevant, forgetting that Zone System's most important
tool was the carefully trained eye that could with precision see and
quantify greys where others saw color. 

Similarly, thanks to marketeers like Macbeth, photographers who print
inkjet color have become nearly incapable of the visual skills that
fine wet darkroom printers relied upon for their final prints...they
ignore acquisition of basic skills, becoming dependent on ever-more
expensive measurement gizmos, which was exactly the practice of
misguided semi-professional darkroom printers twenty years ago, thanks
to gizmo marketing departments.

 

 "John Moody" <moodymz3@y...> wrote:

>
> One thing I don't care for with these black-box tools is that you get
> disconnected from the manipulations upon the image data.

Whilst agreeing in general terms with this "detachment" from the image 
making process I think by using the computer and Photoshop and its ilk 
automatically creates this devolution.
Whether we like it or not its the way it is now and a "black box" from 
www.powerretouche.com or www.mountphotography.com etc isn't necessary 
a problem, afterall why reinvent the wheel?

Yes, when a wheel is a wheel


Regarding the BW convert tools, I found them to be fast and easy, but the
final quality suffers.  For small enlargements however, it may not show in
the print so I can see where they may be just the thing for some users.

Best regards,
John Moody

-----Original Message-----
From: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of jdg511_uk
Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2006 12:58 PM
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Digital BW] Re: black-box tools.

Whilst agreeing in general terms with this "detachment" from the image
making process I think by using the computer and Photoshop and its ilk
automatically creates this devolution.
Whether we like it or not its the way it is now and a "black box" from
www.powerretouche.com or www.mountphotography.com etc isn't necessary
a problem, afterall why reinvent the wheel?




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]