Determining Values

[Chris Saper]

Excellent thread!

I wanted to mention, though, one caveat in considering values in evaluating photographs.

Regular film, by its nature, produces prints whose values - on both the light and dark ends of the scale - can be badly compressed. The compression is worse at the dark end of the scale.

For example, if we look at a scene, a subject, and think of what we see in, say a 9-step scale (with equal steps), the (roughly) three darkest values become compressed into one inky clump by the time the print is generated. Film is designed to get most of its color and value information in the middle range. So if your photo is scanned into Photoshop, it can't locate value differentiation that is not on the print.

In Michele's example, I think that using the Photoshop tool is quite effective, as both the light and shadow sides of the subject face are still toward the midle of the range. However, if you were to try to do the same for the darkest areas of an image and (lightest areas to a lesser extent), you risk getting false dark value readings. It is always up to the painter to decide on and control the values in the overall painting.