The Net is Dead

Marco van Hylckama Vlieg on web technology, design, life and everything

Commentary

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• At 23 September '07 - 04:31 Stro wrote:

  

  Great music indeed!

  
  

• At 03 October '07 - 15:09 mark simms wrote:

  

  Check out a photoshop plugin called “Grain Surgery”. It has LOADS of popular film grains replicated, although this is great `cheap and easy` way of doing it..

  
  

• At 05 November '07 - 07:50 Jon wrote:

  

  Why not just shoot film instead?
  
  It’s comical that now digital imagers (it’s NOT photography) are trying to make their computer generated images (that’s what they are) look like real photographs.
  
  LOL.

  
  

• At 11 November '07 - 11:09 Marco wrote:

  

  @Jon I strongly disagree with you!
  
  First of all, analog photography is rapidly becoming horribly expensive, especially if you want black and white. In addition to that it’s quite unfriendly to the environment as well with all the chemicals involved.
  
  I also disagree with digital photographs being ‘computer generated images’. They’re definitely not. They’re shot with real cameras with real lenses on them. Instead of film capturing the light coming through the lens it uses a digital sensor to do the exact same thing. It’s just as much real photography as analog is. The ‘old school’ argument reminds me of people that used to insist that vinyl records sound better than CD’s which is of course equally untrue.
  
  I (and many others with me) love the gritty feel of analog black and white. Being able to recreate that feel in Photoshop is essentially the same thing as deliberately choosing certain film, pushing/pulling and other analog techniques.

  
  

• At 13 November '07 - 05:23 Jon wrote:

  

  Marco,
  
  I disagree with you.
  
  Digital “photography” is far more expensive than analog photography for many reasons. Among them: the cameras themselves cost much more and rapidly become obsolete and worthless; to “save” lab printing costs one needs a computer, quality printing paper, quality software such as Photoshop, and other supplies not needed with analog; and, the post-shooting “production” sitting in front of a computer screen “correcting” the digital images takes a lot of time and time is money, especially for professional photographers. Many professional photographers who dumped their film equipment and “went digital” and are now dumping their digital equipment and going back to film.
  
  As for the environment, you’re wrong. Digital cameras use semiconductors that are very environmentally unfriendly in their manufacturing and, worse, rapidly become obsolete and end up in garbage dumps. Film cameras never get dumped; they hold their value and get sold and resold; check out ebay.
  
  Further, digital photography is in fact nothing more than “computer generated images”. How do you think a digital camera works? The image enters the lens and is converted by a computer inside the camera into a file that consists entirely of digits, specifically 1s and 0s (that’s why it’s called “digital”). That’s all there is inside your camera: a computer file that consists entirely of a series of 1s and 0s; there is NO PHYSICAL IMAGE IN OR ON THE FILE. Rather, the computer file must be ELECTRONICALLY CONVERTED into an image BY SOFTWARE, but THE FILE ITSELF DOES NOT CONTAIN A PHYSICAL IMAGE.
  
  Conversely, with a film camera the image enters the lens and is physically planted onto and recorded on the film, either as a positive or negative image. There is a REAL PHYSICAL IMAGE ON THE FILM, perceptible to the human eye. With digital NO PHYSICAL IMAGE EXISTS, only a DIGITAL NUMERIC FILE.
  
  I came to appreciate this recently when I was going through old negatives of my children looking for one in particular to reprint and, holding the negatives up to the light, there they were, physical images of my children on the beach captured on the film. It was a strange feeling; looking at the physical image took me back in time and I felt like I was back there again on the beach shooting. My wife’s digital camera just doesn’t do that, for the simple reason that there is NO CAPTURE OF A PHYSICAL IMAGE.
  
  Finally, the computer images generated by digital cameras are notoriously inferior in many respects: skin tone; shadow; depth; etc. That’s why almost no digital “photo” is printed without first undergoing “correction” in Photoshop or other imaging software; as you did right here with your unnaturally smooth, milky white skin tones.

  
  

• At 14 November '07 - 18:18 Jon wrote:

  

  Marco,
  
  Following up, you might try a little experiment:
  
  1. Copy a digital image (e.g., jpeg) to your desktop (it will be lost so make sure you only “copy” it and not “move” it).
  
  2. Open, view, and close the digital image on your desktop to make sure it is viewable.
  
  3. Right click on the digital image on your desktop and open it with Notepad.
  
  4. Once the file is open in Notepad, you will see the sequence of numbers, letters, and characters that make up the file.
  
  5. Select a line or so of the numbers, letters, and characters displayed in Notepad, delete them, and save the changes to the file.
  
  6. Now try opening the file again to view the image.
  
  7. It won’t open, and you won’t see any image, for there never was an image in the file, only a sequence of numbers, letters, and characters that a computer could translate into an image, but which you changed and thereby rendered the file useless.
  
  This shows the purely “digital” – and not photographic – nature of digital “photography”. It’s not photography, but computer generated imaging.

  
  

• At 15 November '07 - 17:35 Marco wrote:

  

  @jon, as much as I appreciate your comments, I disagree with you and your reasoning. The jpeg example is completely irrelevant. I could just as easily say something like: take an undeveloped film, pull it out of it’s container and bang, gone are all your photos. It’s the same thing. It has nothing to do with digital photography being ‘real’ or not. It’s just the nature of the medium really.
  
  As I said before, the fundamentals of a camera are all the same, whether it’s a digital camera, a film camera or even an ancient ‘camera obscura’ with which the operator basically draws the photo on paper. They’re all devices with lenses designed to capture imagery from the real world. It’s the same thing. They are ALL captures of the real world. Note that there’s no such thing as a ‘physical image’ as you call it. An image simply isn’t anything physical. It’s a mental translation of what our eyes capture. Images are nothing more but what our brains make out of what our eyes capture. Again: same thing for digital and analog.
  
  Your counter-arguments about the environment are flawed. Sure, a digital camera is not completely ‘clean’ but even without empirical proof I’m pretty sure it’s a lot better for the environment than the chemicals involved in developing and printing hundreds of rolls of film.
  
  Finally, digital photography has been lacking compared to film for a long time but this difference is diminishing. In some aspects film may still be a bit better but in other aspects digital has already beaten film.
  
  Once again, I appreciate your lenghty comments a lot. I hope you don’t mind me disagreeing with them though!

  
  

• At 15 November '07 - 18:29 Jon wrote:

  

  “Note that there’s no such thing as a ‘physical image’ as you call it.”
  
  Yes there is.
  
  I see it.
  
  It’s on my negative.
  
  The scene I photographed, it’s right there on my negative in color or black and white.
  
  I can see it.
  
  Conversely, a digital file itself is not, and does not contain, an image that the eye – even with a microscope – can see.
  
  All that is in the digital file is a sequence of digits, letters, and characters, such as this from one of my jpegs: “. . . 7R¾Õ|ŸÀõI¾>‰Åµ|X‘FpŽ}ù/¥Y0ª6Œª¤«Â°»-Ù€;€ U)J•0 Œ´å.qºÇ ºW¾-

  
  

• At 10 December '07 - 23:46 Philippa wrote:

  

  Oh, do grow up.
  
  Seriously, please do. You’re not even actually considering his points in any way whatsoever; you’re just of the opinion that “I’m right, he’s wrong”.
  
  And before you try to counter that, just look at your last response. It’s both juvenile and doesn’t listen to what he’s said before you.
  
  “Note that there’s no such thing as a ‘physical image’ as you call it. An image simply isn’t anything physical. It’s a mental translation of what our eyes capture. Images are nothing more but what our brains make out of what our eyes capture. Again: same thing for digital and analog.”
  
  He’s right, you know. Just because you can see it, doesn’t make it real. Conversely, just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not real. It works either way, take your pick of which one you choose to read.
  
  Also, it’s people like you who want to make photography elitist. You don’t want technological advances, and you most certainly do not want more people getting into photography as a result of that.
  
  If that’s not how you feel, then I apologise, but that’s certainly the way you come across.
  
  I’m only a teenager, I got into photography when I was 11, when the whole “digital revolution” was fully in swing. I’ve never really had the chance to try and use film, but I know full well that my photography is better than some people who try to use film. You know why? Because I know my medium and I use the camera to the best of my ability, not shooting off lots of pictures and then editing them to look better afterwards.
  
  I can’t stress that enough.
  
  If you know your medium, then, and only then, are you going to succeed at all. It sounds to me as if you haven’t given digital enough of a try or chance to know it.

  
  

• At 17 December '07 - 03:40 Jon wrote:

  

  Philippa,
  
  Your ad hominem attacks do nothing to advance your position.
  
  Also, you write: “Just because you can see it, doesn’t make it real.”
  
  Oh, yes it does.
  
  An “image” is defined as “A reproduction of the form of a person or object; An optically formed duplicate”.
  
  What is optically discernible on my film meets this definition; this in a .jpg file – 7R¾Õ|ŸÀõI¾>‰Åµ – does not meet this definition. That’s why the former is photography and the latter is not.
  
  Say, did you try my little test, changing a digit in your digital file, and see your “photograph” disappear?

  
  

• At 27 December '07 - 13:43 Sean wrote:

  

  How funny… And uncomfortable.
  
  Jon, you’re certainly entitled to your opinion. As for the rest of us, we can take it or leave it as we see fit. No need to get worked up over it.
  
  Thanks for the tip Marco.

  
  

• At 28 December '07 - 00:32 Philippa wrote:

  

  Jon:
  
  Exactly where did you get that definition from? I have never heard of it being defined as that. In fact, the dictionary I have in front of me defines it as:
  NOUN 1 a mental picture of someone of something
  2 the appearance which a person, group or organization presents to the public
  
  Another definition I have found on the internet describe it as:
  noun
  
  1. an iconic mental representation; “her imagination forced images upon her too awful to contemplate”
  Synonyms: mental image
  2. a visual representation (of an object or scene or person or abstraction) produced on a surface; “they showed us the pictures of their wedding”; “a movie is a series of images projected so rapidly that the eye integrates them”
  Synonyms: icon, ikon, picture
  3. (Jungian psychology) a personal facade that one presents to the world; “a public image is as fragile as Humpty Dumpty”
  
  I think the general consensus that could be derived from such findings is that images are not “duplicates”. If that was the case fantasy art pictures would not be images and I personally find that notion to be mistaken at the very least. In fact, very little artwork would be considered an image. Besides, as we all know: the camera lies, and it is actually very difficult to capture the scene exactly as the eye sees it.
  
  “Also, you write: “Just because you can see it, doesn’t make it real.”
  
  Oh, yes it does.”
  
  Alright then, I can see the image on my screen. By your logic, it’s definately real! I agree with that.
  
  Why yes, I did see you test, but – and shockingly enough! – there was still an image on my screen. It was a changed image, certainly – definately not a duplicate, or at least, it was a duplicate of a different kind -, but the numbers were still an image.
  
  Y’see, everything on your compute screen is technically an image. Everything around you right now is an image. The room you’re sitting it, for example.
  
  It’s transmitted to your brain in exactly the same way. The eyes receive it, and it travels to your brain through sensory receptors, the brain interprets what is sees and provides you with the ability of sight.
  
  So really, it’s exactly the same, whether it’s on the computer or not.
  
  And, I fear, I’m just about to go into an ad hominem counter-argument again (although one of a decidedly less vile kind) – to be honest, does it really matter how it’s made, if it’s a good picture? In my mind, no. Why not just appreciate art for what it is?

  
  

• At 02 January '08 - 18:21 Jon wrote:

  

  Philippa,
  
  I have tried posting, but apparently Marco’s idea of a good discussion is to exclude one side.

  
  

• At 03 January '08 - 00:24 Marco wrote:

  

  @Jon I have no clue why you’re trying to suggest that I’m censoring out your comments, because I’m not. So whatever you ‘tried posting’ I didn’t touch it.

  
  

• At 06 January '08 - 05:25 Lauren wrote:

  

  Thank you for that extremely amusing debate about digital vs film. You had me in stitches!
  I am actually just about to go digital and I can’t wait.
  Thanks for the very useful grain tutorial

  
  

• At 23 January '08 - 17:55 Travis wrote:

  

  Jon,
  
  It’s NOT photography?
  Merriam-Webster: the art or process of producing images by the action of radiant energy and especially light on a sensitive surface (as film or a CCD chip)
  
  You use the term “digital imagers” but then say we do not produce images. Contradiction?
  
  Digital photographs are not computer generated images. They are electronically captured images. This is very different and you apparently don’t understand electronics if you do not know this difference.
  
  You claim that film cameras hold their value, and suggested that I search eBay. What I find is a plethora of SLR cameras that people are selling for cheap because they almost can’t give them away. DSLR cameras on the other hand are very rare to find used, simply because people aren’t getting rid of them. Even if they do sell, it seems to be for the intent of upgrading, and the used prices are not competitive to new prices for this reason. (I ignored point-and-shoots because I believe we are all above this)
  
  You are apparently not a professional digital photographer, as you’d find most don’t post-process any more than film development would, if at all, so that argument of yours is moot.
  
  I have been in the professional photography business for years. Everyone I know that has started on film and went to digital has said the transition was difficult, but well worth it. I would like to hear your stories on most switching back, as I’ve heard none.
  
  If I were a film photographer, I would not preach to others about becoming obsolete. I would be very willing to bet that in ten years from now, a current DSLR would be just as useful or more useful than a 10 year old SLR today.
  
  Lab costs are incurred by both film and digital photographers, as most professional photographers don’t print their photos on small printers – it’s too expensive and time consuming. Digital photographers are able to save on lab costs because they can only reproduce the keepers as they can verify the image to any detail level (by zooming) before they print. Also, there are no chemicals or extra processes involved in dealing with negatives, so that cost is cut out as well. We could also consider the reduced cost of transport of photographic information to the lab, but that’s nit-picking.
  
  Very few parts of modern semiconductors are environmentally hazardous, and those few are under high scrutiny, so they are being reduced as well.
  
  You are very wrong about the use of the word digital. Digital is used to specify that the values are discrete and discernible, rather than analog, which is continuously variable through the entire range. Before you say that this is a pitfall of digital, I would like for you to look at an image in RAW format via printout OR screen with a one value difference and see if you can discern it with your eye. Then tell me if you can discern it with a magnifying glass. Then tell me if you can discern it with a microscope. The point is that these discrete steps are below the human perception threshold, much like the slight differences in white balance. I would guarantee that you’ve never taken a film picture with perfect white balance, but it probably doesn’t matter because you can’t tell the difference below a threshold.
  
  You say there is no physical image on the disk, but you are profoundly wrong. You are simply incapable of discerning this image. If it did not exist, then you would never be able to reproduce it into a perceptible image. For example, imagine the front door of your house. Is the image in your mind? If so, then you’ve just proven yourself wrong, because all I used was words, so you should not have any mental picture according to your theory. Negatives are the same idea. They are not the final representation, and your mind must manipulate this data, if it even can, before the image becomes visible.
  
  A digital camera takes an image through the lens, physically, and reflects the light onto a sensor, physically, and the incidence of these rays upon the sensor produces an electrical change, physically, which is processed, physically, and stored upon a memory card, physically. You can not say that any of this process is not physical, as it would be impossible to occur, yet it does! Then I can press the “Review” buttton, physically, which will display the latest image, physically, by obtaining the physical state of the flash memory…physically. And, lo and behold, there is my image, physically, for my eyes to see. You could even say this representation is more real than your negatives because I don’t need an external light source to perceive this image – it can be seen in pure darkness!
  
  I store all my family photos on 2 sets of DVD media – one in a fireproof lockbox in my home and one in my safe deposit box in the bank. I occasionally pull out an old DVD, throw it in the computer, and have a slideshow on the projector. Then me, my wife, my son, and whoever else is there laughs, and cries, and reminisces about those times. I think your negatives just got trumped.
  
  As for inferiority in digital vs. film, I would challenge ANYONE to discern the difference between a professional film and professional digital print. I am a digital photographer, and I never alter my photos unless someone specifically requests it. My digital prints are as good or better than my film prints were, simply because labs started going all digital, and if you still use film, then that’s just an extra, lossy and unnecessary, step in the process. It just doesn’t pay to use old technology.
  
  Your example of proving that digital photography isn’t real proved that it actually IS! How can you destroy something that isn’t real? Again, as in so many instances, your logic is horribly flawed.
  
  Your rebuttal to Philippa had part truth. Yes, if your eyes do perceive something, then it is real. What you cannot determine as real, however, is what your mind makes out of your eye’s perception. This goes into psychology, and if you want to wander there, then I’m on board. Let’s just say that what you’re seeing in notepad is a representation of the file, not the file itself. You can take, and write out a bunch of ones and zeros on a piece of paper that represent the image file, and if you can make an image out of that, then you’re good, probably autistic, but it’s not impossible. I can look at a negative, and depending on the negative, I might or might not be able to determine the image, but it’s not impossible. Both require mental processing of visual perception. Again, this is dealing with abilities, not possibility, therefore your argument is flawed.
  
  Jon, you have a fundamental misunderstanding and/or misinterpretation of the physical world. You do not understand nor have knowledge of the processes behind digital photography – probably not even film photography. You don’t even understand how electronics (not just computers) work. Therefore, your entire argument, and anything you say until you become more educated is irrelevant and useless. You argue because you do not know, but you don’t realize that to argue you must know. You sound like the type of person who is afraid of new technology because it means you have to learn something new. You have become a stagnant and borderline useless photographer. I urge you to read a book and at least try a new camera. It’s never too late to learn.
  
  Finally, why did you even comment here to begin with? Your initial argument was complaining about making photographs look more like film, but what you don’t understand is that film grain is an artifact of high ISO film, therefore a deficiency. Some deficiency is good in certain instances, and sometimes it is not. To achieve this same look with film, you’d have to completely reload the film in your camera for the one shot. What if you’re looking back on pictures and thought it would have looked better with some film grain? Sorry, too late. With digital, it’s as simple as a few clicks of the mouse.
  
  Thank you, Marco, for a wonderful tutorial. I have used a similar effect, but the gaussian blur after the noise helps naturalize the noise!

  
  

• At 08 February '08 - 07:37 dave wrote:

  

  Hi Marco,
  
  Great tutorial! I make flipbooks, starting with digital video, and this is a very cool way to add some grain and character to those super clean images.
  
  Thanks!
  -Dave
  
  @Jon, yours is the kind of pretentiousness that I really can’t stand. Instead of antagonizing friendly, helpful people, perhaps you could spend that time focusing on your art.

  
  

• At 25 February '08 - 16:34 Jon wrote:

  

  “A digital camera takes an image through the lens, physically, and reflects the light onto a sensor, physically, and the incidence of these rays upon the sensor produces an electrical change, physically, which is processed, physically, and stored upon a memory card, physically. You can not say that any of this process is not physical.”
  
  Sure I can.
  
  The last part of your claim, that the image is “stored upon a memory card, physically,” is patently false.
  
  In a digital camera, what is “stored upon a memory card” is not a physical image. Rather what is stored is a computer file – a .jpg – that consists entirely of letters, numbers, and characters; there is simply not an image to be seen on or in it.
  
  Right click on any .jpg and open it with Notepad. It will look like this: “... ž ÉÅP–“1é]5ÍŸ šÊžÐçÍoNI“¤ŒgCŒ*!ÛíWþÈHäU …”
  
  That, sir, is NOT a physical image. It is an alphanumeric code that can be PROCESSED BY A COMPUTER to CREATE a computer-generated image on a computer screen or on paper; but it is not ITSELF a physical image.
  
  Try this. After opening your .jpg in Notepad to look at the thousands (millions?) of alphanumeric characters, delete, say, two characters, save the file, then try to reopen it and view the image. No image. Why? Because there never was an image “in” the .jpg in the first place, only alphanumeric characters. When you removed a few of the characters, the computer could no longer “read” the file to create a computer-generated image.
  
  Nor can you “see” an image in a .jpg. Look with your eyes at a CD loaded with enormous digital “photographs”; look with a magnifying glass; better yet, look with the most powerful microscope known to man; you will not see an image there because there is none there. Only alphanumeric characters.
  
  Now you know why digital “photography” is not; it’s computer-generated imaging.
  
  For more, visit apug.org.
  
  Cheers,
  
  Jon

  
  

• At 26 February '08 - 06:11 Travis wrote:

  

  Jon,
  
  You are repeating the same nonsense, and not reading my post. You are proving that you do not understand the concept of media, and therefore you actually don’t even know what the difference in the film medium and the digital medium really are.
  
  You tell me that if you destroy a digital image, then it is no longer viewable. I can tell you the same thing about a film image. Destroy the film, and it is no longer viewable.
  
  Also, it is NOT alphanumeric! Not even close! It’s called BINARY. You claim you can see no physical image on a CD, but you just helped prove MY point, because you CAN see it! It’s actually very clear in bumps and spaces via your suggestion of a microscope (http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cd3.htm), it is simply in a format unrecognizable to most (if not all) people. It’s still there, we as humans are just incapable of processing the form of the image.
  
  Want something else that will completely blow your argument away? Lightscribe. It works the EXACT same way as burning the data side of the disc — by writing 1’s and 0’s on the disc. And when it is done, can you still tell me you can’t determine the image? It’s definitely easier to see than negatives! Same concept as cd burning, just more human friendly data.
  
  Here is an analogy of what you’re saying:
  think of Morse code. Morse code is people communicating through various clicks and pauses (much like binary, see?). You would say, ignorantly, that “there’s no physical communication because I cannot understand it.” And that would show your main fallacy. There IS physical communication, you just don’t have the ability to understand it, therefore it doesn’t seem like communication to you. If there wasn’t that physical communication, nobody would ever know what anyone else was saying!
  
  Also, you, as a human, CAN look at a binary file via the bumps and spaces of a CD that correspond to the bits of a .jpg image and, if you knew how the file was formatted (aka the language), then you could slowly but surely decipher the image on your own. It IS possible! It’s actually even easier with a BMP file. It’s just that nobody does it by hand, because it doesn’t really make sense to when a computer can do it for you in a fraction of a second instead of years.
  
  Lastly, Jon, I must inform you that a computer is not magical. It must obey the laws of physics. It is all predictable and planned. Computers work by electrically altering the physical states of components. Catch that? For a computer to do its job, ANY of it, it must PHYSICALLY alter the states of the components!
  
  If you find any electronic device that works, or does ANYTHING whatsoever without physically altering anything, you will win the Nobel prize.

  
  

• At 26 February '08 - 20:31 Jon wrote:

  

  I can now say I have heard it all.
  
  First, it is alphanumeric. “In general, in computing, an alphanumeric code is a series of letters and numbers (hence the name) which are written in a form that can be processed by a computer.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphanumeri..
  
  Second, whether you call a .jpg alphanumeric or binary is irrelevant; what is relevant is that a .jpg is a mere computer file made up of letters, numbers, and characters – not an image.
  
  Third, this – http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cd3.. – is not an image, no matter how many drugs you take. Bumps on a CD a sunset maketh not.
  
  Face it. There is no image in a .jpg; it is a mere jumble of letters, numbers, and characters.
  
  And, finally, please spare us the “bumps and spaces on a CD are images” foolery; my stomach hurts from laughing.

  
  

• At 03 March '08 - 05:29 Travis wrote:

  

  First off, I just saw this digital image and laughed really hard:
  http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.p..
  
  Jon, I know you won’t be able to see that link because it is a digital file therefore the image it supposedly has doesn’t exist. Don’t worry about it. Not important. Just a little joke for those of us that understand the concept of media.
  
  Next, I know I must be insane because I keep arguing with this brick wall expecting you to change your mind, but, like conspiracy theorists, there are some brick walls that are impenetrable. Therefore, this will be my last statement of the matter. I know that every other viewer to these comments is laughing ridiculously at your narrow-mindedness, and that is satisfaction enough for me, but I will continue once more for further entertainment. Marco, thanks for letting this little rampage continue. I feel it’s an excellent display of technological ignorance.
  
  Jon, I will concede that seeing the information in a binary jpeg file no matter what form it is in is not pleasant. It does not induce any emotion in me. However, it does exist if I simply use a viewer to display it on the screen or print it (just like processing film) to make it more pleasant, then it is a better feeling than film negatives and I can see that image in seconds, not hours. You have one single point, but it is misguided and malformed, therefore inapplicable.
  
  This is where we have a disconnect. You are arguing pseudoscience where I am arguing science. I’m helping you right now in all your future endeavors: if you want to argue science, then go obtain some knowledge then argue science. If you want to argue art, then you’re an idiot because it’s all based on opinion anyways, therefore you can only throw up your opinion and be done with it. If you want to argue pseudoscience, then you will always, always, always be wrong and demonstrably so no matter how many posts you send, and no matter how much you laugh. You will always be wrong. If you don’t like the bitter taste of that reality, then I suggest you start arguing facts or stick to your opinions.
  
  You also don’t understand at all what a jpeg is. It is not alphanumerical, and strictly so. It is a binary file, which is made up of 1s and 0s that are not bound to have a physical significance in a letter, number, or character representation. Rather it adheres to a strict form of compression and algorithmic meaning. If you open a jpeg file in notepad, the pieces of binary that happen to be convertible through the ascii character map are merely coincidental (and are not restricted to letters, numbers, or even common symbols referred to as alphanumeric). Nobody should ever open a jpeg in notepad. Notepad is not designed to view or alter binary files, only ascii-encoded files. To put this in a way that you can understand (and apparently ignore): looking at a jpeg with notepad is like viewing a photograph with x-ray. Not only does it not make any sense, but it is completely useless.
  
  Jon, at the beginning of this argument you said “Why not just shoot film instead?” I want to answer that. Suppose I’m at a photo shoot. We’re doing great, getting some nice shots. I wrap up and go to post processing and see the photo. I think “wow that would have made an excellent grainy b

  
  

• At 03 March '08 - 23:34 jimmysparta wrote:

  

  I am not going to claim i know a lot about photography or anything. but after reading through this it just seems like a lot of nonsense.
  
  photography is photography, it doesn’t matter if it was taken with a digital camera or a film camera (notice how they both have Camera in the name)
  
  the end results are the same its just a lot more easy and more cost effective for the average person to use a digital camera as apposed to film. I used my fair share of both camera’s and while each have their benefits and down sides they both do the same thing in different ways. And since the digital camera is become the norm for photography around the world people who don’t use it shouldn’t think of themselves are the true photographers because it doesn’t mean anything. Its like saying you are better because you have a Land line phone as apposed to a cell phone. Or you are more in touch with photography and thus a much better photographer because you only deal with film.
  
  Again thats like saying that you are a better film enthusiast because you only watch movies and films on VHS and that the new DVD’s aren’t really movies at all.
  
  To say that you are a die hard photographer because you refuse to believe that digital photography isn’t real is just horrible ignorance.

  
  

• At 04 March '08 - 11:38 Travis wrote:

  

  Sorry about the break. Marco, your comments box breaks on ampersands apparently. Here’s the rest (sans ampersand):
  
  w shot.” There are three solutions here depending on the condition. If I am a digital photographer, just pop it in to Photoshop, and in a couple of minutes, I’m done. If I am a film photographer, then I call the band back up, get them all back into position, get all my light settings and other preprocessing out of the way, purchase and use the specific film for the effect I’m looking to achieve, and then take the shot. Lastly, I could choose to do nothing and give the customer what I have.
  
  From the previous paragraph, what is the most optimal solution for a photographer? Unarguably, Photoshop. Simply put, digital makes you a more versatile and powerful photographer, no exceptions.
  
  Also, in today’s world, unless you are a simple portrait photographer for schools, and the like, then if you’re any good your photos will me used in other media such as business printouts, postcards, calendars, etc, NOT simply as printed photographs. When my photos end up in a brochure for a company, do you think the layout designer would prefer me to shoot film? Not a chance. And that’s why professional film photographers are heading out the door in the commercial industry. Nobody wants film photographers anymore. AT BEST the most useful a film photographer could be is to scan their photographs after all is said and done. What if a customer wants a shot of his store for a flier? Drive by, snap a shot, e-mail it to him, get paid. Said and done. No hassle, no worry, only productivity. That is where you are so very very wrong. You cannot argue “time is money” when you’re using film. It’s simply way too much time and too much money for this fast-paced ever changing world. That is why you are archaic for refusing to utilize the most useful media available.
  
  Now, if you’re talking about personal photography, then you need to leave time and money out of it, because it then becomes a hobby where productivity is nowhere near as important.
  
  By the way, there is no image in the following link, and in that image that doesn’t exist, there is no image that is not laser etched on a CD that doesn’t exist. But you can see it here:
  http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press_..
  Just bumps and spaces foolery. No image whatsoever.
  
  And by the way, you cannot honestly say you have heard it all. You are the most narrow-minded any person could ever be if you believe that. I can’t possibly believe that you are that narrow-minded, therefore I believe you are just wrong.
  
  And lastly, Jon, for your arguments on this comment section of this tutorial on Marco’s weblog, you are hereby barred from:
  -viewing any digital images on computer screens or print because they do not exist.
  -using any processing whatsoever with your film. You may only shoot images on the film and keep the film. After all, it is film photography and the physical image exists, so you shouldn’t need anything to help you see it, right? Right. Just crack open that film canister and enjoy your photos!
  -participating in commercial photography (oh wait, your refusal to use digital has already prevented you from having that type of job).
  -using a computer, because it’s impossible for a computer to work because you can’t see the information. “ZOMG, itz all de binary! RAN 4 de hilz!”
  -arguing. You are incapable of arguing because you have no facts. Opinions are opinions. Keep ‘em there.
  -watching TV. You are allowed to attend theatres that use film… actually, wait, those are all edited on computers nowadays. Scratch that. No movies either. It’s all magically made.
  
  So, Jon, according to your arguments, you should be living in a hole, because it is nearly impossible to set a foot outside your front door today without seeing these things you say do not exist.
  
  I am consistently astonished at your ignorance. I look forward to seeing you once again ignore all logic and reason that has been presented and complain of foolery. I will not reply to your next message, so I suggest you take the opportunity to make it a good one. I’m sure we have an audience.
  
  See ya! I’m off to use my digital camera to make some money!

  
  

• At 23 March '08 - 04:50 hewlettchew wrote:

  O.O Travis, Jon thanks for the entertaining arguments. take a look at what jimmysparta wrote.
  
  cool off a little and stop arguing.
  
  it doesn’t help that neither of you can see the others’ point of view.
  
  what amuses me most is that this argument has been going on for MONTHS.
  
  since both of you are professional photographers, please set aside this futile argument and do something more worthwhile. after all, none of you will get recognition for winning the argument.
  
  hehe i like this image, though:
  http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.p..
  
  to jon: did you draw it? it’s damn funny. =)

  
  

• At 26 March '08 - 21:19 Cedric wrote:

  First off, thanks a million for posting this tutorial.
  
  The above argument about analog vs digital in the year 2008 is a complete waste of time.
  
  Take pictures, take lots of pictures with whatever camera you like (film or digital). I use 1d series camera and a roleiflex camera on the same documentary assignments, sometimes I even use a holga. (but the use of analog on these shoots is usually at my own cost, because I want to shot some 6×6 pics and clients very rarely accept the extra cost – the last time a client specifically asked me to shoot film was in 2002!)
  
  As much as we love analaog B

  
  

• At 30 March '08 - 10:11 Stephen R wrote:

  

  Sorry, I can’t resist…
  
  “An “image” is defined as ‘A reproduction of the form of a person or object; An optically formed duplicate’.
  
  “What is optically discernible on my film meets this definition; this in a .jpg file – 7R¾Õ|ŸÀõI¾>‰Åµ – does not meet this definition. That’s why the former is photography and the latter is not.”
  
  And yet the image displayed on my computer screen does meet your definition. That image was created by the camera; therefore the camera created the image (a tautology).
  
  “The last part of your claim, that the image is ‘stored upon a memory card, physically,’ is patently false.
  
  “In a digital camera, what is ‘stored upon a memory card’ is not a physical image. Rather what is stored is a computer file – a .jpg…”
  
  Correct in narrow technical terms. It IS undeniably physical — the camera makes actual physical changes to the data card, or there would be no data. You are correct that there is no human-discernible image there. (There is also no image on analog film — until it is developed.) However….
  
  “... – that consists entirely of letters, numbers, and characters;”
  
  Patently false. As previously described, it is not alphanumeric — it is binary. The camera isn’t writing tiny little letters and numbers on the data card, it is writing billions of tiny little representations of “yes” and “no”.
  
  “...there is simply not an image to be seen on or in it.”
  
  Again, false. Getting to that in a moment….
  
  “Right click on any .jpg and open it with Notepad. It will look like this: ‘... ž ÉÅP–“1é]5ÍŸ šÊžÐçÍoNI“¤ŒgCŒ*!ÛíWþÈHäU …’”
  
  Put your film negative into a cocktail shaker and add vodka. You will not see an image. (Makes as much sense as telling someone to open a JPEG with Notepad.)
  
  Now, right-click on that same JPEG and open it with Photoshop. You will see an image.
  
  “That, sir, is NOT a physical image. It is an alphanumeric [no it isn’t] code that can be PROCESSED BY A COMPUTER to CREATE a computer-generated image on a computer screen or on paper; but it is not ITSELF a physical image.”
  
  By that standard the film negative is not an image either, as it must be processed by the lenses in your eyes and again processed by the biological computer that is your brain. I’m going by your definition that anything that requires any processing whatsoever is not a “real” image. That’s beside the point, though, as any meaningful information must be processed by the brain.
  
  Here’s an experiment for you. Actually, this is the true clincher.
  
  Take a photograph with a film camera. Immediately open the camera and hold the film up to the light. You will not see an image. The film must be… what’s that word?... processed.
  
  So… do you consider an old-school Polaroid to be the only “true” camera?
  
  “it is alphanumeric. ‘In general, in computing, an alphanumeric code is a series of letters and numbers (hence the name) which are written in a form that can be processed by a computer.’”
  
  You have defined “alphanumeric”. You have not defined “digital image”. Notepad in your example is making a game attempt to display data that it does not understand. It is in no way an accurate representation. See the cocktail shaker example above.
  
  “Second, whether you call a .jpg alphanumeric or binary is irrelevant; what is relevant is that a .jpg is a mere computer file made up of letters, numbers, and characters – not an image.”
  
  The JPEG is a computer file made up of ones and zeroes, which when properly processed by a computer results in a human-discernable image.
  
  The analog film is a small patch of chemicals, which when properly processed with chemicals results in a human-discernible inverse image (the negative), which when processed further, becomes a “positive” human-discernible image.

  
  

• At 12 April '08 - 05:51 hewlettchew wrote:

  having fun, stephen? lol. i realised something… a .jpg file is considered a JPEG image file. XDD
  
  i should be studying. =.=

  
  

• At 19 April '08 - 09:36 Tim wrote:

  

  Wow, there sure are a lot of idiots commenting here.
  
  Digital is just a different way of doing things. It’s not better or worse than film. Each has their own advantages and disadvantages.
  
  For film (analog) users, you generally select your film type and use development to create your effect.
  
  For digital users, you generally use photoshop (or some other software) and a computer to create your effect.
  
  Photography is about creativity. In the end if you have a good shot and achieve the effect your going for then who cares how it was done.

  
  

• At 01 May '08 - 03:07 Mark wrote:

  

  Thanks for the tutorial but….
  I don’t think it looks anything like film grain, sure it looks OK for those who want faux film effect just nothing like grain.
  The reason for this is film has more grain in the mid tones, zones IV and V very little in higher tones say zone VI and VIII.
  Your photos show the grain evenly spread across tones. With film a blend of 3 monodisperse emulsions serve as fast, medium and slow components of a single film. These all have different size grain and different sensitivities (obviously) this is what gives a film such as Tri-x its unique look and is almost impossible to fake.
  There are some grain generators that mimic this effect, but even they can’t do it accurately perhaps because the programmers have very little idea of emulsion characteristics.
  
  I think this is OK for those who have little experience with film, or if you have a limited contrast range in your original subject, so you can see the give away harsh upper tonal transitions of the digital image.
  
  Secondly I’d like to pick you up on another misconception:
  
  First of all, analog photography is rapidly becoming horribly expensive, especially if you want black and white. In addition to that it’s quite unfriendly to the environment as well with all the chemicals involved.
  
  Film used occasionally can be cheap, as can the cameras.
  I use a 6×7 Fuji RF I bought for about half the cost of a Canon G9.
  The film I use is Ilford HP5 and costs about £1.50 a roll, and about 25p to process. I shoot about 50-75 rolls a year, so it will take 5 years or so to reach the same cost as a entry level DSLR with a quality level that is much higher.
  Chemicals used in B

  
  

• At 02 May '08 - 07:33 Mark wrote:

  

  cont.
  Chemicals used are also quite low in toxic agents, certainly lower than the average kitchen cleaner.
  Kodak X-Tol for instance uses Vitamin C as a replacement for Hydroquinone and Borax which is commonly used in developers is also used in many household products Laundry powder, soaps etc.
  Agfa Rodinal is basically acetaminophen which is a painkiller available from chemists.
  
  You can if you wish be totally hazard free why not develop your film in coffee? yep ordinary instant will do.
  http://photo-utopia.blogspot.com/2007_09..
  
  Commercial processors have been forbidden from putting chemicals down the drain for years, labs must have ALL waste collected.
  
  Contrast that with the amount of batteries in landfill sites (not Holland) round the world, and the large amounts of heavy polluting metals in battery production, mercury, nickel, cadmium etc
  
  So its doubtful that digital is ‘cleaner’ than film, and if you want to make a difference you’ll have more effect by not pouring bleach and detergent down your drains than stopping using B

  
  

• At 02 May '08 - 12:06 Jon wrote:

  

  Oh, Stephen, you make this too easy . . .
  
  1. Stevie writes: “the image displayed on my computer screen does meet your definition [of an image]. That image was created by the camera; therefore the camera created the image”.
  
  Patently false. That image displayed on your computer screen was created by computer software, not by your digital camera. What your digital camera created (with its onboard computer) was only a computer file; specifically a computer file made up entirely of letters, numbers, characters, and/or (in your words) “yeses” and “nos”. As you have begrudgingly conceded, “there is no human discernible image there”.
  
  2. Stevie writes: “Put your film negative into a cocktail shaker and add vodka. You will not see an image. Makes as much sense as telling someone to open a JPEG with Notepad”.
  
  Flawed analogy. The film negative (or slide) has a physical image on it; the JPEG does not. Hence destruction of a film negative or slide involves the destruction of a physical image; the destruction of a JPEG does not involve the destruction of a physical image, rather it involves the destruction of a computer file that, as you concede, has “no image”.
  
  3. Stevie writes: “Right-click on that same JPEG and open it with Photoshop. You will see an image”.
  
  Exactly my point. It is computer software, in your example Photoshop, that “reads” the letters, numbers, characters, and/or “yeses” and “nos” in the JPEG to itself create an image that it can display on a computer screen. Yours is a dandy example of why digital “photography” is nothing more or less than computer imaging.
  
  4. Stevie writes: “By that standard the film negative is not an image either, as it must be processed by the lenses in your eyes and again processed by the biological computer that is your brain. I’m going by your definition that anything that requires any processing whatsoever is not a ‘real’ image”.
  
  I never said that. Of course film must be processed. But once it is, the photographer is left with an image; a real image; a physical image; a physical image extant on the negative or slide. Conversely, once the computer inside the digital camera processes the scene, the photographer is left with nothing but a computer file that is not an image but rather a mere jumble of letters, numbers, characters, and/or “yeses” and “nos”.
  
  5. Stevie writes: “Notepad in your example is making a game attempt to display data that it does not understand”.
  
  You misunderstood my simple example. The role of Notepad in my example is not to create an image from the JPEG, but rather to (1) open the original JPEG to display the myriad of alphanumeric characters that make up the JPEG, (2) delete a single alphanumeric character of the original JPEG, and (3) save the JPEG. Once the change to the JPEG is saved, the new JPEG will not open in any software. Why? Because, it’s nothing more than a jumble of alphanumeric characters, and removing a single character rendered it unreadable to computer software.
  
  Conversely, cut off a corner of a negative or slide, and you still have an image on the remaining negative or slide.
  
  6. Stevie writes: “The JPEG is a computer file made up of ones and zeroes, which when properly processed by a computer results in a human-discernable image”.
  
  What happened to the “yeses” and “nos”? LOL.
  
  In any event, yes! We agree! The digital camera, in your words, creates only “a computer file made up of ones and zeroes”, which then must be “processed by a computer” in order for the computer to produce “a human-discernable image” on the computer screen. This has been my point all along! So why are you arguing with me?
  
  In short, in digital “photography” there is an “image” only if and when a computer creates one; in film photography there always exists an extant physical image on the negative or slide.
  
  In closing:
  
  Film = physical image
  Digital = computer file
  
  http://www.apug.org

  
  

• At 09 May '08 - 06:16 olivier lalin wrote:

  

  Got you ! That might just work fine … Just shot this wedding- the brides insisted on having grainy images and Sepia – I have mastered the sepia Look but have not been fully satisfied with the grain aspect so far. Softening noise on a gray layer seems to make sense.
  Batching right now …
  OL

  
  

• At 10 May '08 - 13:00 Stephen R wrote:

  

  Boy, Jon, you really don’t have enough to do, do you? I’ll make this quick”
  
  “That image displayed on your computer screen was created by computer software, not by your digital camera.”
  
  No, it was captured (not “created”) and then stored by the camera; it was displayed by the computer.
  
  “Of course film must be processed. But once it is, the photographer is left with an image…. Conversely, once the computer inside the digital camera processes the scene, the photographer is left with nothing but a computer file that is not an image.”
  
  Unless he hits “print”. Basically you’re saying “A camera does something that produces a thing that is not an image, but after you do some stuff to that thing, it becomes an image; but I’m arbitrarily defining one such process as ‘photography’ and a different such process as ‘not photography’”
  
  So… digital camera do produce a physical image in the end, if you choose to follow through. (i can also destroy that image without ever having printed it, which is analogous to exposing chemical film before it is developed.) I can take that photo, throw it in a drawer, and 100 years later take it out and look at it. This is photography.
  
  “What happened to the ‘yeses’ and ‘nos’? LOL”
  
  You do like to shout your ignorance from the rooftops, don’t you?
  
  yes/no = true/false = on/off = 1/0 = two options = binary
  
  As in “binary computer”. As in every computer you’ve ever seen or used in you lifetime. Technically those ones and zeros are positive and negative changes of electrons. We technical types use the various other forms instead of repeatedly saying “positive charge/ negative charge”. Saves typing. Feel free to use “positive charge/negative charge” in future, though.

  
  

• At 11 May '08 - 16:42 Kenny wrote:

  

  LOL Jon, you are one helluva entertainer I must say. You clearly has no clue about digital imaging. But let’s see..
  
  Corrupt a jpeg file. Sure, start scratching your precious negatives. You’ll pretty soon start loosing parts of your “physical” image as well. You loose a tiny little bit more data with the digtal but without bothering you with the details of jpeg images let’s just say you will not loose your image, only a small protion of it. Just because you, personally can’t get anything after that it doesn’t mean it’s not there. Hell, digital can have infinite number of identical copies, also redundancy in the file to protect from “scratching it”.
  
  But to blow your arguments off: what does an analog image made of (negative-wise)? AgX in gel on polyester. Wow, so can I, personally, just take the AgX, look at each and every particle there with the aid of an analog microscope, note if it’s crystallized or not, going by a fine grid? Sure, it would be time consuming I guess, but doable. I’ll end up with a shitloads of data, like… OMG! Yes, yes, no, no, no, no, yes, no, etc. Lo and behold, I can enter that data to a computer, write a program that interprets it as light data. Did I just made your “physical” image disappear? Don’t think so. Is the computer based image any less real than your “physical” negative? Not really, it has the very same information in it. Can you interpret the data? Yes, but takes shitloads of time, the computer just makes these kind of calculations easier; it is simply in the language your notebook understands better than you do.
  
  It is possible to revrerse this of course, and make a negative based on the digital data. Unfortunately it would take quite a few lifetimes to arrange all the silver crystals on the polyester by hand though. :( Will it be more real then? No… Would you be able to interpret the exact same data with your brain? Yes, because it is in a format more easily understood by us while at the same time the computer would have problems with it.
  
  But then again, what’s the difference between analog and digital? Lens focus the light, then the medium (film or digital) captures the photons. Both work by photons kicking electrons off of their orbit, only difference is in analog the chemicals react to this, digital remembers the changes. Does it make any of the two more or less real than the other? No. Is there a difference between chemical reactions and electromagnetic reactions in a sense that one is real and the other is not? No.
  
  You might feel the need to argue that in analog there is an actual chemical reaction that lasts. I might ask: so what? Theoretically, given equally capable equipment you can convert between the two formats and you will end up with the same things. Except if you corrupt the digital data. But then again, you can always x-ray your negative before developing it, but that would be retarded, wouldn’t it? ;) Only difference for you is that you think digital data is not physical. I fail to see how electromagnetic fields are not physical (hell, I can just pick it up and carry it, trash it, whatever) but maybe the problem is with me. And your TV set. And DVD. And computer. And…
  
  You are basically saying that a map is the one and only way to go to, say, from your house to my house. No, directions work just as well.
  
  ————————————
  
  Regards to the original post: I’d like something that “pulverizes” my image to individual grains. Not add grain but do something much more like halftone/duotone, with much smaller particles and random distribution. I haven’t found anything so far. :(

  
  

• At 12 May '08 - 09:30 Mark wrote:

  

  >But to blow your arguments off: what does an analog image made of (negative-wise)? AgX in gel on polyester. Wow, so can I, personally, just take the AgX, look at each and every particle there with the aid of an analog microscope, note if it’s crystallized or not, going by a fine grid? Sure, it would be time consuming I guess, but doable. I’ll end up with a shitloads of data, like… OMG! Yes, yes, no, no, no, no, yes, no, etc. Lo and behold, I can enter that data to a computer, write a program that interprets it as light data.
  
  Very wrong!!
  I’m afraid you don’t understand how analogue works. Film grain isn’t either black or clear, I know some stupid web experts who should know better think it is;- but I’m afraid it isn’t.
  Film emulsions are generally Ag/Br/I atoms combined into crystals from about 1 – 10 microns in size. They contain millions of atoms and many sensitivity specks which consist of sulfur and gold.
  When film develops, it can form anywhere from 3 silver metal atoms minimum up to the entire grain, and grains can be stacked, and therefore the dynamic range of density is analogue in nature and virtually infinite. For practical purposes, it ranges from 0.1 – 3.0 density units in a normal negative B

  
  

• At 12 May '08 - 10:04 Mark wrote:

  

  A lot of what has been talked about vis a vis digital versus film has been pretty much personal feelings the truth about digital is that there is no such thing as a digital camera.
  They have analogue sensors that normally have a RGGB (Bayer) filter.
  Each pixel is capable of 256 levels of brightness depending on how many photons strike that point. The analogue information is encoded into digital through algorithms that attempt to portray the sampled analogue info as an accurate picture by interpolating and estimating low data amounts into larger photo realistic files to be stored onto media cards.
  In the average photo as much as 2/3 of the data is interpolated (guessed) so you jpeg/Raw isn’t the ACTUAL photons but a very good mathematical guess.
  Its up to the individual to decide whether that matters one little jot, and if the final image is the thing that counts or if the fidelity of the light from the scene (whatever those implications are) is more important.
  Me I just hope when someone looks at my images they say nice photo

  
  

• At 12 May '08 - 10:59 Kenny wrote:

  

  My intention was not to give a scientific representation of how things actualy work but to show how similar they are in what they are. Information. Also armchair professors like me are excused to know in detail every stuff they write about. :] Thank you for the info though. Originally I wanted to go with:
  
  “I could just make note of the light sensitive layer’s exact chemical composition down to atomic level, enter this data into a computer and interpret it.”
  
  But I tought it would be over the top for this convo to say atomic levels and stuff. Anyho’ I hope I still sound nerdy enough and be accurate by your standards at the same time. ;)

  
  

• At 12 May '08 - 14:25 Mark wrote:

  

  Kenny
  First of all the ‘web expert’ thing wasn’t aimed at you or anyone here.
  Secondly sure they are ‘similar’ in a way, just like butter and margarine and some can’t tell those things apart either
  On the entering grain details at atomic level and feeding the info into a computer, sure that would work but not in a camera and you’‘l need a pretty powerful cluster network to do that and some time.
  Real ‘digital’ cameras have quite a bit of processing power, but as I stated they are analogue devices that interpolate data rather than sampling both chroma and luminosity at each point in a truly digital fashion.
  No computer exists that can handle that data:
  http://www.azuzarte.com/editorial10.htm
  
  But hey all this is pretty much academic if you just go by results, and can’t tell butter from marg, or care.
  Mark

  
  

• At 27 May '08 - 16:30 roddy wrote:

  

  JON, YOU’RE AN ARGUMENTATIVE NARROW MINDED DICK.
  00100111000011110010101001110001101010000111001
  
  BINARY.

  
  

• At 31 May '08 - 07:05 Jon wrote:

  

  Roddy,
  
  You’re an imbecile who relies on the ad hominem attack to mask his intellectual deficiencies.
  
  Cheers,
  
  Jon

  
  

• At 03 June '08 - 12:07 Stephen R wrote:

  

  Jon —
  
  01011001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101010 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01100100 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100101 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110011 01110100 01101111 01110000 00101100 00100000 01100100 01101111 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00111111 00100000 00100000 01010100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00101110 00100000 00100000 01001001 01110100 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01100001 01101100 01110000 01101000 01100001 01101110 01110101 01101101 01100101 01110010 01101001 01100011 00100000 00101000 01110100 01101000 01101111 01110101 01100111 01101000 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100010 01100101 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110000 01110010 01100101 01110011 01100101 01101110 01110100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01100010 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101110 01110101 01101101 01100101 01110010 01100001 01101100 01110011 00100000 00100010 00110001 00100010 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 00100010 00110000 00100010 00101001 00101110 00100000 00100000 01010100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101000 01101111 01110111 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01110101 01110100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110011 01110100 01101111 01110010 01100101 01110011 00101110 00101110 00101110 00100000 01000101 01010110 01000101 01010010 01011001 01010100 01001000 01001001 01001110 01000111 00101110 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010 01000001 01101100 01110011 01101111 00101100 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01100011 01100001 01110010 01100101 01100110 01110101 01101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01110010 01101111 01110111 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110011 01110100 01101111 01101110 01100101 01110011 00100000 01100001 01100010 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01101111 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110000 01100101 01101111 01110000 01101100 01100101 01110011 00100111 00100000 00100010 01101001 01100100 01101001 01101111 01110100 00100010 00100000 01110011 01110100 01100001 01110100 01110101 01110011 00101110
  
  Have a nice day.

  
  

• At 05 June '08 - 05:06 Jon wrote:

  

  Stephen,
  
  Your grammar is exemplary.
  
  Jon

  
  

• At 12 June '08 - 20:30 Alex wrote:

  

  I came for the tutorial, I stayed for the ignorant elitist making stupid arguments.
  
  Jon — note that I didn’t read all the way through the comments because I was just laughing too hard…
  
  Your “physical” negatives that you love so much? Congrats! They’re just a series of physical pixels the same as the physical pixels on a computer screen. There is no real difference between what makes up the two types of images, whether they are made out of physical dots on film or binary 1s and 0s that tell which dots on the monitor to light up. They are both representations that our minds process and perceive. The only true difference is the storage medium—one on film and the other on a hard drive, but that is besides the point people are so desperately trying to make to you.

  
  

• At 13 June '08 - 08:56 Sean McNamara wrote:

  

  This has got to be one of the most actively commented tutorials of all time. That this topic has received comments from Sept 07-July 08 is pretty amazing. It’s a simple take-it-or-leave it idea. Take it or leave it, folks.
  
  Marco, congrats for the continued visits to this tutorial page! For better or worse, you’ve had a lot of visits to your posting.
  
  Sm

  
  

• At 13 June '08 - 14:27 Kenny wrote:

  Jon, you never fail to entertain… :]
  
  Anyway to stay on topic: I was experimenting a bit in the past few weeks and I think I managed to improve a bit on the original method. I found that using at least 5 layers of grain is messy but yields quite a bit better results. To my eyes at least.
  
  Basically I have a layer with very subbtle noise, reduced from about 1.5x size to have a fine noise; one layer of noise, a bit stronger; one layer of “dark dots”, a noise layer pumped into the [0, 128] range with gamma near extremes (and have this layer well below 6% opacity, also give it some extra-bluring); and two layers of various “light dots”, noise layers in range of [128, 255], gamma adjusted again. Also each layer has a mask based on the original image (or even better, the original image PLUS all the noise layers below), so noise is tweaked into different parts based on brightness.
  
  Gives pretty convincing results. Again, to me.

  
  

• At 13 June '08 - 14:40 Marco wrote:

  

  @Kenny I’d love to see some sample images with your technique applied. Can you show me some?

  
  

• At 13 June '08 - 14:42 Kenny wrote:

  ATM I can’t but will make one just for you this weekend (with psd uploaded somewhere). :]

  
  

• At 13 June '08 - 15:50 Kenny wrote:

  Actually, in all fairness, please upload your gruppie shot somehwere (2000px horizontal should be enuff) so you’ll have easy comparison. Also, it seems to work best with pictures having smooth contrast changes like skin and blured background (nothing like a building at noon under the sun). Please. :]

  
  

• At 17 June '08 - 13:04 Jon wrote:

  

  Alex,
  
  You truly are an amazing lady. You concede that you “didn’t read all the way through the comments”, and yet you know they are all “stupid”. Well, if your picture isn’t in my dictionary next to “stupid”, I’m buying another dictionary.
  
  More, there IS a physical image on my negatives; there is NO physical image in or on your computer files – they’re nothing but numbers and letters. Until you understand this, you will remain lost.
  
  Finally, the analogue physical image on a slide or negative is NOT comprised of “pixels”, as you claim. That’s why an optical enlargement of an analogue slide or negative may show film grain, but it will NEVER show the “square pixels” that are very evident in an enlargement of a digital image [see http://www.photoelf.com/support/faq/pixe...

  
  

• At 19 June '08 - 08:36 Sean McNamara wrote:

  

  Wow… Jon, you’re right. I see it now. You win!
  
  Now go away and stop commenting on this topic that has nothing to do with the science that you’re discussing.
  
  The “Realistic” in the title of this tutorial may key you in to the idea that EVERYONE understands that their CCD isn’t generating film grain. It’s a digital interpretation of the analog world. That’s all.
  
  So, again – you’re right. There’s no film in a digital camera – just a sensor translating light into numbers. Big whoop. Move along.
  
  SM

  
  

• At 19 June '08 - 15:26 Jeffrey wrote:

  

  You all are pathetic at debating compared to Jon!
  
  Listen, digital crowd, as I want your side to win, ignore the cons Jon says about your method! Every comment he makes, basically turn it around and say he’s ignorant (in a nice, non-ad hominem way) , then make bad comments about HIS method! Look at all Jon’s comments – he ignores completely all the fallacies you point out in his argument which is why you’re making them over and over again.
  
  Here, I’ll give you an example:
  
  You says: Jon, there is a physical image, I can take my camera and hook it straight up to my printer and print an image with PictBridge, having a “physical image” on paper faster than your film camera could ever dream of! How can you say your film has images, when you can’t see it?!
  
  Jon says: You, There is no physical image! Look you have to print it to get your image! That requires processing! Then, it’s a printer generated image, not a physical image!
  
  NOW LOOK!
  
  You COULD argue and protect your digital medium, but ignore his argument! Look, he didn’t even touch on the idea that his method requires processing! Attack that instead! Don’t spend all your wasted time on defense, cause he sure isn’t! You’re digging yourself into a hole, were he’s walking on water and not sinking, cause he ignores gravity!
  
  Instead:
  
  You says: Jon, So because you didn’t defend that, you are conceding that film requires processing just as digital media do. That means that your film camera has no superiority in this area compared to digital cameras, and the only way to achieve the superiority you’re claiming is to use old polaroid style instant cameras, and even then, the image isn’t immediately visible, as it has to be processed by a chemical reaction.
  
  So do you see that guys? Ignore his comments, and keep bashing his method, even if you like it.

  
  

• At 21 June '08 - 08:22 Jon wrote:

  

  Oh Jeffrey.
  
  Not you, too?!
  
  Estupido!
  
  You say, “How can you say your film has images, when you can’t see it?!”
  
  Uh, I see quite clear images on my film negatives and slides, thank you very much. Your contrary claim betrays your complete and utter ignorance of photography.
  
  And, I see quite clear images on my film negatives and slides without use of a computer, computer software, and computer screen – all of which you must use to convert your non-image computer file into an image.
  
  Now, I understand your (and others’) frustration. I mean, all this time thinking you were capturing and archiving images with you digital “cameras”, to now suddenly be taught by Jon that in fact you have been only creating and saving corruptible computer files.
  
  I’d be upset, too.

  
  

• At 25 June '08 - 05:06 Jeffrey wrote:

  

  AHA! See that people? Jon is scared now! He’s resorted to calling me stupid —- AND IN SPANISH!
  
  Now watch, people, and learn.
  
  So, Jon, you are saying that you can take a photo on a film camera and immediately see a negative. If you think that, then you not only have a misconception of how digital photography is accomplished, but lack complete and utter understanding of how film photography works as well.
  
  PLEASE JON, prove your point for real! Go out, right now, and take a video for us to see. Use your camera to take a photo, and immediately show the negatives with your image on it. If you cannot do this, then you have completely failed, no matter what you try to say, and the digital crowd has finally won.
  
  PS – Look people… in my message, there is no defense! Only offense! How can you be offensive if you’re only defending yourself constantly? :)

  
  

• At 25 June '08 - 10:56 Mark Smith wrote:

  

  Jeffrey
  Just what is the problem?
  
  “So, Jon, you are saying that you can take a photo on a film camera and immediately see a negative”.
  
  Where did he say that?
  
  what he said is this:
  “I see quite clear images on my film negatives and slides without use of a computer, computer software, and computer screen”
  
  Which is correct!, Of course you need to develop the latent image, but after that it is low tech access- just hold it to the sky.
  honestly get a slide and try it.
  Now digital images can be written to analogue media (including film) but you can’t see a digital image without converting it to analogue.
  
  Quote:
  If you cannot do this, then you have completely failed, no matter what you try to say, and the digital crowd has finally won”
  
  The digital crowd has won? are you 12?
  just use the media you like and STFU this whole stupid flame fest was opened by someone trying (pretty poorly) to mimic the film look.
  My Margarine looks just like butter…..
  
  Quote:
  PS – Look people… in my message, there is no defense! Only offense! How can you be offensive if you’re only defending yourself constantly? :)
  
  Jeff when you reach puberty you’ll realise there’s nothing to defend
  Just enjoy life, use what you feel comfortable with and stop behaving like a loon.
  Mark

  
  

• At 26 June '08 - 11:39 Jon wrote:

  

  Mark wrote: “My margarine looks just like butter”
  
  LOL!
  
  Margarine is butter . . . vegetable burgers are meat burgers . . . nonalcoholic beer is beer . . . and alphanumeric computer files are images.

  
  

• At 30 June '08 - 07:20 Jeffrey wrote:

  

  Jon,
  
  You are a genius[/end sarcasm]. You’re evening arguing with the person on your side. You amaze me.
  
  Tell me, Jon, have you ever put one of your film photos onto a computer? By scanning, or buying a disc at the development phase, etc? Have you ever used your photos in a layout? Have you ever made a slideshow out of your photos? Have you ever e-mailed your photos to your family? Or to a customer (if you have any)? Have you ever made a collage on computer software? Have you ever watermarked your logo on a print?
  
  If you can answer yes to any of these:
  -You have tried to emulate a digital camera, and you are no better (actually worse) than the whole purpose of this tutorial.
  
  If you must answer no to all of these:
  -You are archaic, and have no right arguing against something for which you don’t understand.
  
  Either way, your time has come. You can fuss and muss, and whine, and moan, and keep inappropriately stating that jpeg images are alphanumeric, but the simple fact is that no matter how much you argue, you’re just proving that you’re cantankerous and set in your ways. All of us that use digital have tried film, and preferred digital. It’s not a debate for us whether or not digital is better – we’ve tried it, and decided.
  
  Your whole argument about the fact that we’re trying to achieve an effect that is inherent on film photography is moot. All we’re doing is trying to find an alternate way to achieve the same effect. You are so set in your ways you believe there is only one way to achieve something and everything else sucks. You and people like you hinder technological advances. If you had your way, we would all be cave people and there would be no such argument.

  
  

• At 02 July '08 - 11:46 Jon wrote:

  

  Jeffrey,
  
  I was not “arguing with the person on [my] side”, as you assert. Presumably you are referring to Mark Smith. I was actually AGREEING with Mark and taking his very good point a few steps further. Obviously you’re too obtuse to have noticed.
  
  Further, of course I scan my film. It’s a lot easier than emailing prints – I haven’t yet figured out how to do that!
  
  Indeed I have never, ever said that digital cameras or digital imaging have no worth. They have plenty of worth: scanning to digital saves me the time and expense of mailing photographs to relatives; scanning to digital allows me to run slide shows on the computer screen for my children; digital cameras allow me to take snaps and quickly email them to family and friends around the globe; etc.
  
  But none of these legitimate uses of digital cameras and digital imaging change the fact that what one is dealing with is not an image but a computer file made up entirely of letters, numbers, and characters. There simply is no image in a computer file – just letters, numbers, and characters.
  
  Sure, a computer with the right software can read the letters, numbers, and characters in a computer file and, BASED ON ITS READING OF THE LETTERS, NUMBERS, AND CHARACTERS, create an image and project it onto a screen, BUT THE COMPUTER FILE ITSELF IS NOT AN IMAGE.
  
  In short, it doesn’t matter what you or I do or don’t do: A COMPUTER FILE IS SIMPLY NOT AN IMAGE. Now, what profound problem prevents you from admitting to that undeniable fact?

  
  

• At 02 July '08 - 14:46 Mark Smith wrote:

  

  Firstly I’m not on anyones ‘side’.
  Quote:
  If you can answer yes to any of these:
  -You have tried to emulate a digital camera, and you are no better (actually worse) than the whole purpose of this tutorial
  
  No- if you scan film you’re not trying to emulate a digital camera, you ARE digitising your film for whatever purpose. That doesn’t mean the film will magically have the same properties as a file that originated from a DSLR.
  
  This tutorial sets out to mimic film, it doesn’t show you how to output digital onto film. When you scan film you’re not trying to mimic the smooth tones of digital, but normally you’re digitising to adjust in Photoshop or upload to web, e-mail etc
  
  Quote
  If you must answer no to all of these:
  -You are archaic, and have no right arguing against something for which you don’t understand.
  
  That’s a false dichotomy. If you want to be 100% analogue it could be personal preference and have very little with being ‘archaic’
  You can understand something without having to participate. I know many christians, I understand their religion but I’m not a Christian.
  if I argue with their ideas it’s not because of ignorance but rather understanding of their position.
  So…
  I like digital, but I prefer film. I use both but if I chose one over the other it wouldn’t be wrong, archaic or whatever just personal preference.
  So if I want film grain I’ll use film, because that is what my conceptual vision (before taking) called for. As a point I don’t convert on a whim after the fact.
  YMMV
  If you can’t tell the difference just enjoy your photography.
  Mark

  
  

• At 04 August '08 - 05:00 Pete wrote:

  

  Thanks for the tutorial.
  Shame we have to plow through the offtopic rants to follow
  the film grain thing.
  Kenny ! any luck uploading a pic of your slightly altered method ?
  cheers
  Pete

  
  

• At 21 August '08 - 15:25 Nick wrote:

  

  Thanks for the tip Marco.
  
  Thanks to Kenny for making the only practical/relevant contribution to the thread.
  
  And thanks to Phillipa for providing the only insightful comment in this thread…
  
  “If you know your medium, then, and only then, are you going to succeed at all.”
  
  Remember:
  It doesn’t matter what you call it – it’s what you do with it.
  Do what makes you happy.
  Win one for the Gipper!
  And my personal favorite…Opinions are like a**holes…

  
  

• At 22 September '08 - 15:43 don wrote:

  

  The images that I’m not taking with my digital camera, when translated by ACR and other RAW processors, do an amazing job of recording things that look like what was in front of the lens of my digital phototakermathingamaggiger. They even resemble some of the images I used to recover from the film I processed in my darkroom several years ago, after first using the enlarger, making sure my chemicals were mixed up correctly, and everything was at the correct temperature, and such.
  
  But now, I can take those non-images and recover information in the dynamic ranges of my RAW file that were lost when my film was processed. Now that annoying little pokey thing stuck to my film winder didn’t inadvertently scratch my 24, 28, 36 or whatever custom length roll of film I wanted.
  
  Now I can take hundreds of pictures, with far more selections from which to choose, than I used to when I shot film.
  
  Now I don’t pour fixer down the drain, and the silver and other stuff with it.
  
  Now I can send my digital negative file across the country, or just burn it to a disc and put it in my safe, and not have to worry about the safety and maintenance of my film.
  
  Now I have tools at my disposal to turn my photography into other forms of art.
  
  And the whole time, I don’t have to call people “stupid,” I don’t have to immaturely put “ie” at the end of someone’s name to ridicule them, and I don’t lose the knowledge of all of the “old” things about photography that have not been negated by the digital revolution. Lighting, apertures, exposures, ISO settings, angles, and the art itself, is still just as applicable today as it was 35 years ago when I started learning photography from my father.
  
  The entire argument is a red herring. It’s like PC or Mac. What are you trying to accomplish? Use the appropriate tool. You want the old, take it. You want the new? Use it. But this argument, especially on Jon’s part, is really quite silly and irrelevant in today’s world. Most of my professional photographer friends were digital innovators, and still love film. But they don’t shoot film.
  
  Why? Because the film then has to be scanned. The film and all of the colors and tones represented must be digitally translated for reproduction on the screen or in print. The quality of the scan is limited by the quality of the equipment and the operator, but even more so by the physics of the film and how it was exposed and developed. If the film is PERFECTLY exposed, then PERFECTLY scanned, it still does not have the dynamic range of the digital sensor in a high end digital SLR.
  
  In other words, there’s more true data to be had by a well exposed digital image than there is to be had by equally well exposed traditional methods when it comes to reproducing that image through print or screen media, and not by moderate amounts. The information in a RAW file is NOT merely what a preview .jpg file reveals, and can be specifically distributed to extract image data that is either degraded or eliminated altogether using film.
  
  But you know what? Big deal. If you like digital, use it. Enjoy it. Call it photography or call it picking pimples… it doesn’t change what it really is or all of the options it presents. If you don’t, don’t use it; use film. But to say digital photography isn’t photography is like saying Ritz doesn’t make crackers because they don’t look or taste like Saltines.
  
  Just, whatever either the traditionalist or the digitalist produces, don’t call it pictures, and don’t call it art, because everyone knows a true artist puts real pictures on canvas, using paint and brushes…

  
  

• At 22 September '08 - 16:31 Jon wrote:

  

  “The images that I’m not taking with my digital camera”
  
  That’s right.
  
  You don’t “take” a physical image with your digital camera – you’re only creating a computer file, which, if read by appropriate computer software, can be converted by that software into an image on a computer screen.

  
  

• At 23 September '08 - 01:29 Toni wrote:

  

  quote:
  
  Why? Because the film then has to be scanned. The film and all of the colors and tones represented must be digitally translated for reproduction on the screen or in print. The quality of the scan is limited by the quality of the equipment and the operator, but even more so by the physics of the film and how it was exposed and developed. If the film is PERFECTLY exposed, then PERFECTLY scanned, it still does not have the dynamic range of the digital sensor in a high end digital SLR.
  
  Fact 1:
  Film doesn’t have to be scanned.- You can print it conventionally.
  Fact 2:
  Any equipment film or digital is limited by the skill of the operator. Digital cameras need good exposure and processing too.
  Fact 3:
  Negative film has more dynamic range than most (even high end) DSLRs B

  
  

• At 23 September '08 - 01:31 Toni wrote:

  

  Page2
  B

  
  

• At 23 September '08 - 12:15 Nick wrote:

  

  Fact: Arguing semantics with a broken record makes about as much sense as trying to milk a fruit bat.
  
  Fact: Time wasted talking about irrelevant facts could be better spent taking taking pictures. (or whatever you want to “call” it (using “quotes” is so much fun))
  
  One day, film will be 100% unavailable. And then some time after that, the digital camera as we know it will be on the verge of extinction and someone with a strong opinion (see previous comment about opinions and a**holes (using parentheses is so much fun!)) will be arguing how digital is so much better that the latest novelty for (”“taking “Pictures”“”). And no one will be lamenting the demise of film, or even remembering it for that matter.
  
  My A**Hole Opinion: Preach less and practice more, and people will be less likely to call you an a**hole. (yes Jon, I’m talking to you.) (Ooh! More parens…maybe I should have put “a**hole” in quotes….and while we’re at it, I guess we’re not really talking, just “typing” digital representations of characters, even though we’re not “using” a “Typewriter”, these characters are representations of phonectic (or sometimes silent!) elements of spelling, which is used to represent words, which can be spoken to represent the opinions in our heads. So while I’m not actually “talking”, I am still managing to present the idea that Jon and his argument are about as useful as tits on a chicken.
  
  I enjoy digital photography. I enjoy film photography. I don’t care if you don’t. I just hope we get to “listen” to Jon repeat his position – again, and again, and again, and…

  
  

• At 23 September '08 - 15:03 Pam wrote:

  

  Wow Jon what have you done? RSS’d to comments on this post? How many hours of your life have you wasted here on this comment bored making an ass of yourself?

  
  

• At 23 September '08 - 17:26 Jon wrote:

  

  Pam,
  
  Looking at your website, I have no doubt you know all there is to know about being an ass.

  
  

• At 23 September '08 - 17:38 Jon wrote:

  

  Nick,
  
  Sorry, film will always be with us. Kodak is, as I write, rolling out both new films and updated versions of older films (See http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professio..); Hollywood has discovered the archival inferiority of “digital” compared to film; photographers are going back to film by the droves (See http://www.apug.org); etc.
  
  One day, the computer files being created by this generation’s digital cameras (that’s all they create – computer files) will be inaccessible due to corruption, degradation, deletion, and/or outdated media. There will be a huge gap between the physical negative and positive images of past generations recorded on film, and the physical negative and positive images of future generations when they return to film. Already, there are articles being written now on how this generation will be the first in years to not have a photographic record of its childhood. Enjoy.

  
  

• At 23 September '08 - 20:53 Stephen R wrote:

  

  Hahahaha —
  
  Nick, you realize you weren’t really “typing” when you wrote that comment, right? See, it’s only typing if you use a typewriter, because using a computer only makes a digital record of your words, it’s not directly striking the inked letters out on paper.
  
  sigh ...and I am outta here.

  
  

• At 24 September '08 - 00:45 Marco wrote:

  

  @Jon, you are acting like an ass. It may be a somewhat harsh way of saying things but for months now you’ve been repeating yourself over and over again while all kinds of others have chipped in to explain to you how you are wrong in various different ways. When called upon it you felt the need to insult my fiancee, and indirectly me personally (because it was me who built her website) which has absolutely nothing to do with this thread.
  
  ‘making an ass of yourself’ as a comment on your remarks is a statement targeted at your COMMENTS, not at you as a person. Calling someone an ass pointing at something irrelevant to the discussion is a PERSONAL insult. I’d very much appreciate it if you would refrain from this behavior from now on. I’m sure someone who deems himself intelligent and knowledgeable such as yourself knows the difference.
  
  The whole analog photography advocacy movement is just as silly as the people who insisted on sticking with vinyl back in the 80’s when the first compact discs came out. Sure, while the technology was in it’s infancy one could argue that analogue techology was ‘better’, if only in certain aspects but as it evolved it made analog techology completely and utterly obsolete of course. Same thing for photography.
  
  While digital photography may possibly not be on par with films such as Fuji Velvia or this new Kodak Ektar yet (in fact I think it pretty much is but I don’t have scientific proof handy) it certainly has already beaten film hands down in ISO 400 and up. When shooting at ISO 3200 on my Nikon D300 I get significantly less grain than I used to get on high quality ISO 400 film.
  
  You better believe it my friend, film is rapidly becoming a thing of the past, whether you like it or not. In 10 more years people will laugh at you just like most of us do now about the vinyl fanatics of the 80’s.
  
  Finally: film degrades as well. If not stored under perfect climate conditions it doesn’t last very long. The only way to really preserve it is to…. yes! digitize it by scanning the negatives and storing it in a digital format. But I suppose you’re now going to say that a scan of a slide isn’t a slide anymore eh? ;)

  
  

• At 24 September '08 - 04:44 Toni wrote:

  

  Quote:
  You better believe it my friend, film is rapidly becoming a thing of the past, whether you like it or not. In 10 more years people will laugh at you just like most of us do now about the vinyl fanatics of the 80’s.
  
  For you information vinyl is still very much alive, the pressing plants were kept open by those “vinyl fanatics’ called DJs.
  
  Now there has been a surge in the buying of both vinyl and turntables, ironically caused by the youth who want something they can hold in their hands rather than the ‘virtual’ ownership of the download.
  http://www.prefixmag.com/news/vinyl-sale..
  
  So those analogue zealots may have the last laugh.
  
  Finally I must pick up your point on film degradation. Most people have film and prints from their grandparents that have survived in albums for decades, Kodachrome is said to be archival for up to 300 years.
  Digitising analogue sources is a VERY unwise way to archive images, and in fact Hollywood is doing the reverse, they archive digitally shot movies on a highly stable emulsion know as FICA. Where it can be put in vaults with minimal maintenance.
  And yes a scan of a slide is not a slide it is a digital file-that is obvious.
  Toni

  
  

• At 24 September '08 - 05:52 Pam wrote:

  

  @Jon, yes because I am an ass myself I can easily recognize my kind. Was just wondering if you realize you were being one :)
  
  @Nick, there is this great thing you can do with your digital images. You can get them printed le gasp, so even if the format changes as you say and you lose all your digital format (which I don’t believe would happen for a second), you still have your prints and negatives, which you have from your film cam too.

  
  

• At 24 September '08 - 06:14 Jon wrote:

  

  Marco,
  
  First, Let me help. “Pam” wrote:
  
  “Wow Jon what have you done? RSS’d to comments on this post? How many hours of your life have you wasted here on this comment bored making an ASS OF YOURSELF?”
  
  That’s the first use of “ass” in this entire thread. If “Pam” can’t take the heat, she shouldn’t jump into the kitchen calling others “ass”.
  
  Second, it is you and the other digital cultists on this thread who have done nothing but repeat themselves. You all are so stubborn most of you still refuse to accept the irrefutable fact that what a digital camera creates is only a computer file and not a physical image. Teaching grade school children requires repetition; it’s no different with digital cultists.
  
  Third, your comparison of analogue vs. digital records only proves my point. While I use CDs all the time for audio enjoyment, and enjoy their convenience and absence of crackles and pops, there is no question that in terns of QUALITY OF SOUND analogue music sounds far better and richer than digital music. Play a song on CD and then play the same song from an analogue record – the difference is truly stunning. Bob Dylan recently gave an interview recognizing this, saying he’s not happy with the sound that results from his digital recordings, as it doesn’t capture the live studio sound, as analogue recordings did. As a musician myself (classical guitar), I know exactly what he is talking about.
  
  So, don’t ever, ever forget – Each time you click that digital camera the commi$$ioned salesman talked you into buying, all you’re getting is this: 6†0]¨S’7F߀ùÁüÖž¢¹—¬÷º å´ÑË Úü–xØ_zâªjQØ]=£6—ÛÞ[4’mÁa± >™aùâ¥î3¯ £ ÖRÛ_ÀAµÔ¤ÆâJ(q@AFüÙª®ÀŸXƒÌÓ5 Ð Ïi2Ž;•5 êÚœ2)½ñ@’›š,1Àö|ã

  
  

• At 24 September '08 - 14:43 Marco wrote:

  

  Congrats Jon, you’ve won. Not in the sense that I now agree with you but in the sense that I don’t really feel like responding to your repetitive statements anymore. All I have left to say is: Have fun in the 20th century while the rest of us move on.

  
  

• At 24 September '08 - 14:48 Pam wrote:

  

  “what a digital camera creates is only a computer file and not a physical
  image”
  
  But I can get prints and negatives just like you get from your film
  camera. What does this have to do with his original post by the way? Which
  was a technique for digital photography? Just because Marco likes digicams
  and you like ancient film cams does not mean that either of you right. It
  just means person a likes one thing and person b another. It’s kind of
  stupid to keep coming here and arguing a moot point that no one but you
  seems to care about.
  
  You can never force someone to think the exact way you do no matter the
  times you spend repeating yourself. Opinions are like assholes Jon
  everyone including you have one. What makes you an ass is shoving your
  opinion down the throats of others in a manner and context that have no
  bearing on the original conversation.
  
  As for now the world is free for you to choose what camera you sport, if
  the antichrist comes and says we can only use film then I suppose you can
  argue the point all you want. For now please get over yourself. It is good
  for a laugh but you are changing no opinions here. I am a southern girl
  and even I know the old saying is true that you catch more flies with
  honey than vinegar.

  
  

• At 24 September '08 - 16:39 Stephen R wrote:

  

  The only reason they still make vinyl is because hip hop DJs can’t drag the needle across a CD when making dance mixes
  
  “[T]here is no question that in terns of QUALITY OF SOUND analogue music sounds far better and richer than digital music. Play a song on CD and then play the same song from an analogue record – the difference is truly stunning.”
  
  Wow, after all this time an entirely new opinion-as-fact!
  
  FYI — Digital recordings have proven to be the truest reproduction of the sound that was actually produced in the studio. Ironically, the particular distortion that vinyl produces is generally considered pleasing to the human ear. Thus, while you may have some agreement that it sounds “better”, it is NOT as faithful a recording of the actual sound vibrations going into the mic at the studio.
  
  Interestingly, I’ve digitised old 45s, and in some cases compared them to a pristine digital copy. The digitised 45 sounds exactly like the original 45, and yes, both are distinctly different than the CD copy — demonstrating that digital sound will preserve what you put into it, regardless of which you believe sounds “better”.

  
  

• At 24 September '08 - 22:33 Nick wrote:

  

  Just to set the record straight –
  
  @Pam – I think you confused me with someone else. I made no argument regarding digital format changes. I’m fairly certain my argument had something to do with comparing Jon to tits on a chicken.
  
  @Jon – If you can prove to me that film really will be around forever, I will gladly crown you King Tits on a Chicken.
  
  @Stephen R – Thank you for reiterating the subtleties of my last post for those to slow to catch it.
  
  Digital Photography, whatever you want to call it or not call it, is here to stay for a while whether you like it or not. Film will get relinquished to it’s niches (most of us on this post would likely agree that it already has been by and large), which does not diminish it legitimacy. But it will eventually disappear just like 8-track, cassette, beta, vhs, disc film (what a joy that was!), vinyl, cds, dvds, blu ray, digital cameras, PC, Mac, music stores, fossil fuels, and the panda bears.
  
  So f**king what.
  
  What we will always have is self-righteous bastards huffing and puffing about how their way is better.
  
  So F**king What. That’s their perogative.
  
  Jon, I would much rather browse through a gallery of your photographs captured on your superior film than listen to you tell me that it is superior. (Of course that means you will have to scan them.) Film ain’t worth shit if there ain’t shit on it.
  
  !! Marco, thank you for providing this forum. I have enjoyed your entire website and plan to come back for more. I have tried your film grain simulation technique, and I found it useful…but I did have to fight this uncontrollable urge to burn all of my negatives afterwards…strange.
  
  BTW – I’d like to point out that I made the first use of the word “ass” (technically it was “a**hole”, but I’m still taking credit. !

  
  

• At 25 September '08 - 06:19 Pam wrote:

  

  @Nick thanks for the clarification ;)

  
  

• At 25 September '08 - 08:13 Nick wrote:

  

  @Pam – you’re welcome ;) !
  
  @Stephen R – Spot on! Having spent significant time during the last 15 years in recording studios, I can’t imagine ever going back to analog. (I have to admit, I used to be a devotee to the vinyl over digital. I guess that makes me a reformed huffy puffy bastard! All my music now resides on my computer, and I’ve never been happier. Every once in a while, I dig out the old record player and a few records that I kept and have a night of it. It’s nostalgic, it makes me feel good, and then I pack it all up and put it back in the garage, where it will sit for a year or two until the urge strikes again.)
  
  But I digress…
  
  I have to admit, I used to be a devotee to my film camera over digital. I guess that makes me a reformed huffy puffy bastard! All my images now reside on my computer (yes Jon, we know), and I’ve nerver been happier. Every once in a while, I dig out my old Spotmatic or Yashicamat or Brownie and load it up with film and have a go of it. It’s nostalgic, it makes me feel good, and then I pack it all up and put it back in the garage, where it will sit for a year or two until the urge strikes again.
  
  But that’s just me.

  
  

• At 29 September '08 - 13:08 Vince wrote:

  

  Jon,
  
  I’m curious as to why it matters that film photography produces a physical image, and that digital photography does not? What difference does it make?
  
  I think you’ll find that the majority of people would agree that photography is NOT defined by whether or not it results in a physical manifestation of a captured image; rather, it is defined by the expression of emotion achieved by capturing light. Film and CCDs fit this definition equally well.
  
  In fact, I have worked with film and digital, and must admit that I find artistic expression greatly facilitated by working with digital photos.
  
  Wanna buy my film camera?

  
  

• At 30 September '08 - 07:57 Jon wrote:

  

  Vince,
  
  It’s important for several reasons. Among them:
  
  First, most people think their digital cameras are storing physical images on their memory card. They think there are veritable “negatives” on the card. As you appear to know, that’s not the case. There are no physical images on a digital camera memory card, only computer files generated by a computer inside the camera. It’s important that people know exactly what they are getting when they buy and use digital cameras.
  
  Second, photography is about “producing images on a sensitized surface” (Webster’s Dictionary). Digital cameras don’t produce any image on any surface; they produce computer files comprised entirely of letters, numbers, and characters. As such, digital cameras are not photography. Properly, digital cameras are a mere tool in the process of computerized imaging: nothing more, nothing less.
  
  Stated differently: What’s the big deal about the Mona Lisa, when you can duplicate it on a computer with software?

  
  

• At 30 September '08 - 14:43 Stephen R wrote:

  

  “It’s important for several reasons… [M]ost people think their digital cameras are storing physical images on their memory card…”
  
  Most people don’t give a crap, so long as they can get a picture out the other end. He didn’t ask you to repeat your already ad nauseum repeated assertion, he asked you why it matters.
  
  “It’s important that people know exactly what they are getting when they buy and use digital cameras.”
  
  Yeah, they get a thing that they can point at something and push a button, and when they go to a shop they can then have the contents of the thing turned into a picture. Or do you think it vitally important that they be capable of framing the film negative and hanging that?
  
  Finally, I’m confused by your last statement. SURELY you’re not claiming that the Mona Lisa is photography?????? With photography of any stripe, a print is more an equivalent to your hypothetical scan, again unless you frame you negatives and hang them on the wall…?
  
  To repeat Jon’s unanswered question: “What difference does it make?” What difference to the END PRODUCT does it make? You’re getting your panties in a bunch over semantics that have absolutely no bearing on anything that matters to 99.999999% of photographers.

  
  

• At 30 September '08 - 17:28 Nick wrote:

  

  Jon,
  
  Still waiting to see anything relevant from you.
  
  @Point 1: Who cares. Different format, different method of processing. You’re arguing semantics – and give up on the “quotes” already.
  
  @Point 2: Again, who cares. Dictionaries are not written in stone. Back in the 1800’s when photography was defined, no one could imagine a digital age. Meanings of words change as the world we live in changes. And guess what – film is a just mere tool used in film imaging. (BTW, you are starting to contradict yourself here – read your argument closely) And one more time your argument boils down to semantics.
  
  OOH! And let’s not forget about your last pointless argument: By your logic, what’s the big deal about the Mona Lisa if you can make a copy of it on film? I say, what’s the big deal about the Mona Lisa if you have to go to France to get a view of it from fifteen feet away behind bullet-proof glass? – I know, I’ve been there! WTF does this have to do with anything in this thread?
  
  Grow up, swallow your pride, and take your rediculous arguments elsewhere. You can repeat yourself as many times as you like. We understand your point. We just don’t care what you think – it is neither constructive nor important. When you have something constructive to add to this forum, we will listen. I would still rather look at your photographs than read your drivel – c’mon, how about a link? And if they’re good, I won’t even hesitate to compliment you on them – Pinky Swear!
  
  So far, you’ve been nothing but a useless A**Hole and it seems as though you’re enjoying it. That will never earn anyone’s respect.

  
  

• At 01 October '08 - 05:56 Vince wrote:

  

  Yes, Jon, let’s see some of your work!
  
  I’m not the best photographer, but I’ll show you mine:
  
  http://www.shadowsquared.com
  
  You may not like it; it’s all digital. :o

  
  

• At 01 October '08 - 05:58 Vince wrote:

  

  Actually, I lied; a few are film. Can you spot them?

  
  

• At 12 October '08 - 17:25 Jon wrote:

  

  Earlier I wrote that “there is no question that in terms of QUALITY OF SOUND analogue music sounds far better and richer than digital music.”
  
  Lo and behold, vinyl is making a huge comeback, with recording artists recognising that “the vinyl is so much better and warmer”: http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music..
  
  So too shall the superiority and depth of film images be appreciated over computerised images.

  
  

• At 13 October '08 - 04:32 Pam wrote:

  

  Jon, take it from someone who works in the music industry. That is an opinion piece and it only refers to a small amount of music like true indie and DJ’s who spin. So it does not validate your point what so ever. Take the time to read something before you post it here for others to read.

  
  

• At 13 October '08 - 05:32 Jon wrote:

  

  Pam,
  
  Had you bothered to read my two posts above on analogue music, you would know that my point was that analogue music sounds better than digital music.
  
  That point is validated by my own trained ears, by Bob Dylan and other professional musicians, and – contrary to your claim – by the Wired article I linked to.
  
  But since you obviously didn’t read the Wired article, allow me:
  
  “Records can sound better than CDs … Golden-eared audiophiles have long testified to vinyl’s warmer, richer sound … Another reason for vinyl’s sonic superiority is that no matter how high a sampling rate is, it can never contain all of the data present in an analog groove … The digital world will never get there.” http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music..
  
  The Wired article clearly validates my point that analogue music sounds better than digital music … and once again you are wrong.

  
  

• At 13 October '08 - 05:55 Vince wrote:

  

  Jon,
  
  As somebody who owns a recording studio (www.primecutlabs.com), I can tell you that the analog-vs.-digital debate became moot long ago in the recording industry. The HUGE majority of modern recording studios are completely digital. Comparing the digital and analog workflows of audio recording is like comparing a lighter to rubbing sticks together; there is simply nothing easier to work with than linear digital audio. And lets not forget the non-sustainability of tape; every new track requires new tape. How wasteful!
  
  In terms of “sound,” you’re treading on thin ice here. This is almost 100% based on personal preference. Some people like their music to sound cold and sterile, while some like it muddy and warm. Granted, analog recording does inherently offer a warmth that is not standard with digital audio. But for me, that just offers me more flexibility. It is EXTREMELY easy to add that warmth in to my digital recordings (that “warmth” is just the accentuation of a few frequencies, and the attentuation of others) by simply chaining in a plug-in in the mix-down stage. What’s more, I can dial in just how much warmth I want. Can analog recording make that same claim?
  
  You know what I think? I think you’re a stubborn old man who refuses to believe that as society moves forward, there might actually be better alternatives to what you’re using. You don’t understand this confounded technology, so you feel the need to invalidate it. You’re the last of a dying breed of close-minded, uninspired detail-freaks who are so caught up in debating the equipment that you lose sight of its purpose: to make art and facilitate self-expression. So please, for all of our sakes, get off of your high horse, and learn to accept the fact that change will happen, and that digital photography (and audio) is simply another means to meet the same end.

  
  

• At 13 October '08 - 06:11 Vince wrote:

  

  Jon,
  
  Pull up your pants! Your ignorance is showing!
  
  Sampling rate only matters to a certain extent; once you hit a certain point, going higher will make absolutely no difference.
  
  It is clear to me that you don’t know the true function of a sampling rate in digital audio. The sampling rate refers to the number of points created, per second, that define a continuous signal in terms of a discrete signal (turning a smooth curve into a number of points). According to the Nyquist Theorem, in order to create a PERFECT representation of a continuous signal, the sampling rate must be two times the highest frequency in the signal.
  
  The highest frequency that the human ear can detect is 20kHz, and this number drops significantly with age. So, if the highest frequency is 20kHz, then according to the Nyquist Theorem, we need a sampling rate of 40kHz to reproduce audible signals perfectly.
  
  Well, digital audio CDs use a sampling rate of 44.1kHz. Many audio recording systems are now capable of recording at 192 kHz. That means that they can reproduce sounds up to 96 kHz- nearly five times higher than the highest frequency we can hear!
  
  So, my friend, your comments regarding analog vs. digital audio resolution are useless, and, to quote YOU, “once again you are wrong.”

  
  

• At 13 October '08 - 06:16 Pam wrote:

  

  “Records can sound better than CDs … Golden-eared audiophiles have long testified to vinyl’s warmer, richer sound … Another reason for vinyl’s sonic superiority is that no matter how high a sampling rate is, it can never contain all of the data present in an analog groove … The digital world will never get there.”
  
  I did read, because I can and I have enough sense to know when I look like an idiot, some of us just aren’t born with that. You stated that CD’s are going away because of vinyl. That is just a ridiculous statement. I understand you were probably born before the fall of the Roman Empire, but some of us weren’t and we like the way we do things and we don’t need you to tell us how to do it.

  
  

• At 13 October '08 - 13:16 Nick wrote:

  

  Jon,
  
  Show us your photos or go the f*ck away. (Vince was kind enough to share – Thanks Vince!) Your words are wasted time at this point. We understand that you love your film, and that each time a digital camera is sold you die a little on the inside. You are the rotten apple that is spoiling the whole bunch. I’m guessing that you were a middle child, that you are divorced, your ex took you for everything you had, and you’ve probably been fired or laid off from multiple jobs. You probably had bad acne as a teenager and had to wear ugly glasses with extra-thick lenses. Girls wouldn’t talk to you because of your bad B.O. because your parents didn’t love you and didn’t tell you about deodorant.
  
  But that is just my opinion – I may be wrong, I may be right – does it really matter what I think? (Yes, I have resorted to the Ad Hominem, at least until you say something worth responding to.)
  
  Have a nice day!
  
  http://www.flickr.com/photos/31376961@N0..

  
  

• At 13 October '08 - 18:00 Jon wrote:

  

  Nick,
  
  You’re a prick.
  
  Jon

  
  

• At 15 October '08 - 07:42 Marco wrote:

  

  Let me chip in:
  
  @Jon, can you show us some of your amazing work on film? You’re so passionate about this that I expect to see some epic works of art.
  
  You know how they say a picture is worth more than a thousand words. Show the infidels your work to silence them forever.
  
  I can’t wait to see it!

  
  

• At 15 October '08 - 08:57 Nick wrote:

  

  Thank you Jon,
  
  That means a lot coming from you. I’m honored.
  
  But in all seriousness, I would enjoy an honest discourse about methods minus the “Mine is better than yours” mantra (from either side). While my last post may not have been entirely sarcastic in spirit, I am grown up enough to be fair with you if you would truly like to participate in the original spirit of this thread. If you don’t want to participate, that is fine too.
  
  I’m willing to bury the hatchet if you are. I am by no means a professional photographer – I don’t even think I would call myself an amateur. It is something that I enjoy in my free time, which I have entirely too little of. I don’t have the time to maintain a fancy website to showcase my photos, so I picked 15 I liked and posted them on Flickr at the link in my last post. Go ahead and tell me what you don’t like about them, I can take it. And if you happen to like anything about one of them, that would be nice too.
  
  - Nick

  
  

• At 15 October '08 - 10:14 Mark wrote:

  

  Nick I looked at your Flickr photos and wasn’t impressed, colours burn out and mono shots that were dull (both in content and tonal range) and uninspiring.
  Here is a couple of my shots:
  http://www.pbase.com/mark_antony/image/6..
  or
  http://www.pbase.com/mark_antony/image/5..
  
  now I don’t want to be abusive but I like film too, but its not just about the medium (which I like more than digital) but about the message and how you put those into images.
  
  If you like the film aesthetic then film is the best way to achieve that, digital manipulation come close especially some of the NIK plug-ins
  
  if you like digital better move on, accept the difference and the brave new world, better than mimicking film which is only fauxtography
  just my 2¢

  
  

• At 15 October '08 - 12:31 Nick wrote:

  

  Mark
  
  Thanks for the comments – I have to admit I agree with you on many points regarding my shots. The black and whites unfortunately were scanned from negatives on a very cheap scanner, amplifying my inexperience as a photographer.
  
  Thanks also for sharing your photos. I like the comosition of the B.B. picture, and you really captured the feeling of the moment. It also has a pleasing tonal range and contrast. The picture of the girl seems a bit forced and unnatural to me. This picture is about controlled lighting on the subject, and I feel that the ear area is too burned out and not in balance with the overall darker tone of the face.
  
  I also have to admit that I feel like I’ve seen these many times before and am not particulary impressed with their content as original works of art. Merely my opinion. My tastes run closer to Vince’s work, particularly look at #3,5,11,14 and 15 in his Photography Gallery. But that’s the beauty of content – different strokes for different folks, eh?
  
  I assure you that my comments are honest and in good spirit, and I truly appreciate your sharing. I would also welcome any specific criticisms on my photos that may help me improve – That’s the great thing about Flickr, you can comment right there. I will continue to post more images in the future and would like to see more from others as well. This is the kind of productive exchange that has been lacking so far in this thread.
  
  I agree with you 100% on the idea that the message is more important than the medium. But I also believe in learning everything you can about your medium, and not attacking someone for wanting to try something new, different, or experimental. The original content of this page is about exploration of techniques and made no judgements. My last attack on Jon may have been unfair, but at least it shut him up on the film superiority kick. His last post proclaiming my Prick-dom is his most useful to date, and I welcome it. I was a Prick, with a capital “P”. But this forum was not the appropriate place for his judgemental assault, beginning with the third comment to this thread. He lit the fire, so he better be able to handle the hostility. I hold no grudges, and my offer to bury the hatchet still stands.
  
  As for attempting to achieve a gritty, film-like look in digital images, I’m not willing to take any possibility off the table. But I’m also not offended if it’s not your cup of tea.

  
  

• At 15 October '08 - 12:54 Pam wrote:

  

  You know I think you are all idiots. Read the original posting. If i were Marco, I would no longer approve comments unless they are directly related to the tutorial he has given here. This is not a platform for you to whine and cry and be babies about what you like, this is a tutorial for people who want to do this certain thing to their digital photos. So really if you are too IQ deficient to stick to the subject matter GTFO.

  
  

• At 15 October '08 - 13:23 Mark wrote:

  

  Yes it is different strokes, you say you like Vinces’ shots and yes they are Ok but not my cup of tea; 5 is posterized 11 is good, 14 is just a burnt out lampshade and 14 is OK but slightly tonally compressed for a digital image.
  But hey some people like Holga images, or HDR or tone mapping- just personal preference.
  BTW the image of the girl was not about ‘controlled lighting’ but of a girl at college who reminded me of a Romanesque bust, her hair and profile was of classical beauty.
  The image is a triumph over adversity as it was taken in her flat late at night with a brown sheet for B/G and a table lamp 60w light bulb for the light source which I held in my left hand shooting right hand only 1/15 at F1,4.
  The film was Kodak Tech pan rated at 20EI and processed in Technidol LC If you ever used Tech pan in dimly lit conditions you’d understand.

  
  

• At 15 October '08 - 14:06 Nick wrote:

  

  Hi Mark,
  
  Just realized you have a bunch of Galleries available…
  
  Haven’t had much chance to dig deep, but here are a few pics I really liked:
  
  Octavia and Thea
  hipshot.jpg
  The Old Red Lion
  
  Cheers!
  Nick

  
  

• At 04 January '09 - 03:00 Mark H. wrote:

  

  Funny debate.
  
  Although I couldn’t care less about alphanumeric this and binary that, there IS still a difference between film and digital, and countless respected photographers know that (Nachtwey, Goldin, Eggleston, Hornstra to name a few).
  
  When a photo is called “film-like”, it’s always considered a compliment, whereas “digital-like” is always an insult. That’s why you have so many PP treatments designed to give digital files a “film-like look”, yet there are no efforts to give film a “digital look.”
  
  But I don’t care what other people choose. Plenty of good work has been done with digital, and film will still be available for many years to come. People are free to pick their poison.

  
  

• At 08 February '09 - 14:39 Andy Baker wrote:

  My word, Jon why make etchings?

  
  

• At 16 February '09 - 10:02 Dmitri Markine wrote:

  

  QUOTE:
  “Why not just shoot film instead?
  
  It’s comical that now digital imagers (it’s NOT photography) are trying to make their computer generated images (that’s what they are) look like real photographs.”
  
  Post processing was done in the film age as well. If someone didn’t know how to do it then, they they also try to convince other people that it shouldn’t be done now. The truth is, all great photographers rely/ed on editing for a desired look. Some who switched to digital found themselves completely stuck and not knowing what to do.
  Film IS dead and 90% of all pros shoot digital now. Those what don’t follow with the technology will more likely to go out of business(happened in wedding business). You have to adapt or choose another profession
  
  Cheers,
  Dmitri

  
  

• At 06 March '09 - 18:25 Robert Sachs wrote:

  

  After 35 years I left the wet darkroom 2 years ago and thought you might appreciate some comments from a senior photographer.
  
  I won’t get into to “what is real” film or file. I think the final image that you finally print for show is what is real. The negative, be it digital or film, is only part of the process.
  
  If you are trying to reproduce what you saw then the way the image is produced is not as important as the final print.
  
  I do agree that the start up costs in digital for the serious photographer are high. However, the cameras will not be obsolete so quickly in the future and I wasted a lot of paper and chemicals in the darkroom. I have never learned so much about film until I started with digital.
  
  The hardest thing for me to learn was in film I had a good idea what I would end up with. In digital it has taken me a couple of years to get back to that.

  
  

• At 17 April '09 - 00:42 Japhy Riddle wrote:

  Just wanted to thank everybody for providing much argumentative entertainment. I can’t contribute to the arguments because I’d just be repeating somebody most likely. I’ve never read such a huge ongoing debate of film vs digital that focused so much on the physical or not physical larval stages of a photo. Good show. Good show.
  
  I’m usually trying to get rid of grain so this tutorial was not particularly useful to me. I ended up here trying to find examples of your run of the mill 100, 200, and 400 speed films to see how much they differed in amount of grain. I can see how this technique (the one that started all this) is not identical to film grain, but I think it looks pretty nice as grain goes.
  
  I’ve been shooting film lately, mainly because I can look at the negatives for a few hours… just kidding. Because, A: Dynamic range and color reasons. How blown out rounds off instead of cliffs, B: I can’t help but enjoy the retro-ness of it. I wear bell-bottoms too, and C: I like the feel and sound of the camera pulling the film. But mostly reason A. I’d totally take a digital camera over a film camera if the images could look like the film ones. I think digital is a better idea for sure. We’re just not there yet. I know, I know, it’s about the feelings/beauty/etc… but all of us here are too nerdy for that type of language.
  
  I’m a beginner when it comes to photography. But, have a look anyway: http://www.sandoth.com/japhyriddle/art/p..
  
  I like how the arguments turned to audio formats as well. Very funny. It’s a shame that no one seemed to bring up adding believable virtual tape hiss (noise). I watched a program online once where two experts were given a recording that jumped back and forth from analog to digital and neither of them could tell which was which. Like film, I enjoy the analog method for the experience of doing it, not just for the end result. I use Pro Tools, but when a band of mine went into an analog studio, we had so much fun because of the experience. It made everyone happy and we performed better because of that happiness.
  
  Take care everyone.

  
  

• At 01 June '09 - 01:17 Lyle wrote:

  

  HAHAHAHAHA! now, this is funny. Cheers guys.
  Film: light changes the chemical make-up properties
  Digital: light changes the electronic properties
  So, both are changing physical properties, we can just interpret and film directly.
  Let’s think of it in terms of languages. English = film, Japanese = digital I speak English. I don’t understand Japanese, but it still exists. Though I can get a translator, then I can understand it.
  Both have advantages and disadvantages.
  I am personally biased and I’m not going to say to which one. But, I do have the ability to stand back and take both sides as they are. Unlike some of the people earlier in this flamewar.

  
  

• At 01 June '09 - 01:35 Lyle wrote:

  

  See? They both change physical properties. Now that we know they are both physical We can all get over it…No, wait. Don’t! Keep it up I like reading funny and pointless things.

  
  

• At 02 September '09 - 21:04 Matt wrote:

  

  Awesome, very clear and in-depth!

  
  

• At 18 September '09 - 00:32 Sdido wrote:

  Than you for the very useful add.
  
  And Jon…fuck you so much!

  
  

• At 18 December '09 - 07:42 Rorschach wrote:

  guys, just shut up and shoot willya.

  
  

• At 20 December '09 - 20:44 Anton S. wrote:

  

  Yea, i disagree with all of you. Film and digital photography are both wonderful things to use. Film is an amazing experience and has true beautiful grain, and colors that digi cannot produce. That being said, Digital images can also capture images that are breathtakingly clear and fast. And both can be used hand in hand to produce a combination of amazing work. Film can be scanned and enhanced , and digital photography can be altered and made into a different, more interesting image. Some people may argue that that is not true photography, and while we can all agree to disagree the fact remains that Digital, or Film, or anything else that could come in the future are just tools. Thats what humans do. They take what they have and make the best of them. It is not very intelligent to argue that one thing is better than another because your going to both come out wrong. Just be happy that they exist and that a person with enough potential and an artistic view can create an image that the rest of us could enjoy.
  
  But one thing that this kid Jon has a point on, is that; yes, there have been alot of digital photographers ditching their digital backs for their medium format cameras, and just going back to full 35mm film cameras because of the very expensive full aspect ratio digis, and just the fact that ever so often (every half year almost as it seems…) a new camera comes out, and you just have to buy an upgrade. Smells like another corporate scam to me…

  
  

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