[Troll]
[I simply asked for an objective demonstration...] Of differential perception. Nice straw-man. If you want this, you a/b test. no unicorns will be forthcoming.
[made the color space of nature] Note: color space is a sub-set of EMR by definition.
[The limitation was precisely the latitude of the plates] The plates have two limitations you fail to appreciate: they are positive images and they are monochrome.
[Here's some samples of fluorescent paint] - WTF, no need thanks.
[What you're basically arguing is that the film couldn't have possibly captured the colors we see here] - film wasn't used, this is a straw-man, and irrelevant.
[So, I'll ask again for quantification. ] As a general concept, you quantify data with numbers. If I tell you [x,y] pixel N of 12.1 million went from [221,112,216] to [221,112,217] what then?. The impact on perception is non-linear and context deponent, to adjacent values (color in particular). This has as much relevance as reading Binary computer code.
[It would be interesting to see ... the pixels that are impossible] -- non-sensical formulation. That said, in a literal sense, each pixel that is tonal mapped was not visible in the original. because of the scanning process, there are no original tones. but even assuming that away, the www jpegs are tonally altered independent of color. You can difference these in photoshop. Heres how: take the scan 3-layer monochrome>flatten, align, crop and resize to match the online web jpeg. put both layers in a new file. confirm alignment. add BW layer the color Jpeg image. and difference. the "scan" from the "www". and there you go. a BW difference layer. all color is PS of course. But this yields no information, because of the non-linear impact of tonal variation deltas on image perception.
[I hope you notice that the photographs of the paint on the website are not themselves fluorescent.] I think this shows output gamut is a sub-set of visible light. see above.
[So, I'll ask again for quantification. This is the digital realm we're discussing. What I'm not asking for is the quantification of taste or feeling, or even of perception, in spite of this discussion. ] Again, this dishonest. You areasking for a quantification on the impact of perception. Or you're just fishing for something, so then you can say "this data you gave me is worthless"! All other meanings of the data are worthless. We've established this above, [x,y,z] deltas are like [0.1] binary information. But, that's so obvious I only mention it here for humor. =D
[I think you've successfully moved the goalposts past what we are capable of knowing directly. By alleging that these 16-bit TIFF grayscale images created in the scanning process are themselves heavily manipulated] Nobody moved the goal-post. You just don't know what game you are playing. All digital scans alter the image, nothing you can do. the scanner has a gamut. and the digital data and the perceptual data are non-linear. so there needs to be math added. That math has control parameters, set by the artist using PS.
[There's no way I can get my hands on the originals in order to ascertain whether you are correct.] You can get your hands on the plates. But, then you cannot make even the most basic adjustments, because the tones are fixed on glass. So the output image quality is limited like slide film. The blown out sky highlights are a classic example of non-recoverable detail for the viewer using a one-step process.
[Aside from your clever dismissal of the "original" as far as we are able to obtain it, the 16-bit color-separated TIFFs] No. you can obtain the plates. But you can never make any adjustments to this data, because there is no secondary image development. So, the limits of the emulsion are the limits of perception. The sky detail is nearly invisible on the glass (all 3 layers) plate and prominent in the www image. This single counter-example is definitive.
[Is it possible at all to bring these images into a computer and respect their original "limited" nature and bring that presentation to a computer screen?] The world press photo winner is editorial, so it meets your test of respecting its subject. But again -- it is very, powerfully modified -- another counter example to your basic premise. Dichotomy between trivial originality or unfaithful distortion is false.
[Your assertion that we are in love with Photoshop, not the work itself is basically moot.] Nice straw-man. you are looking at photoshops, not glass plates. The other straw man is the notion of [work itself]. There is as much art in the secondary process as the capture, in particular with these images.
[You are offering up ... an explanation ...to encompass all of digital media.] All the omitted words were yours. Its nothing special, digital media. It is powerful in the right hands. But then again, so was oil based paint for Da Vinci. It is a medium. And you need to appreciate and understand it. Dichotomy between trivial originality or unfaithful distortion is false in painting too.
[The powers granted Photoshop ... are in fact so pervasive that to draw them out in this discussion is merely an excuse to talk about your pet theories about digital media] You continue to think there is a level playing field. You may like It or not, my expertise in these matters need not be questioned. See opp cit Michael Fried for Academic background, if you must rely on the others too.
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/pnp/prok/01600/01676v.jpg
do you know why it appears at the bottom and not the other two frames?
here is what I would call an uneditorialized composition of the image you linked
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/prokc.21676/?co=prok
..........
Now, take a look at this image from Prokudin-Gorsky [as per the linked HN article]
http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bi...
...........
And Here: you can talk to yourself (again) as a control
I took the time to download and produce my own take on this image. Linked here:
Though I do find the "uneditorialized" version to have a greenish cast that if I were working in an old-school darkroom, I would have attempted to fix. Also I would have dodged the sky in order to bring out the cloud details. Though I admittedly don't have much experience doing such things in a darkroom for color photography, and I suspect that it's harder than for black & white.
Since you don't seem to actually wish to state any thesis on your own, perhaps you'll answer a question:
Which of these of these images, the "uneditorialized" or the Photoshopped version is a more accurate representation of reality, as seen by Prokudin-Gorsky's eyes on that day?
re: A more accurate representation of reality
Images have information and utility. Keeping this in mind, you can avoid the notion of accurate/inaacurate and real/unreal and make deeper progress in terms of understanding how images are made and how they are used.
....... [this is from review of Hyman, 2006 opp cit]
“The longer you work, the more the mystery deepens of what appearance is, or how what is called appearance can be made in another medium."—Francis Bacon, painter
This, in a nutshell, is the central problem in the theory of art. It has fascinated philosophers from Plato to Wittgenstein. And it fascinates artists and art historians, who have always drawn extensively on philosophical ideas about language and representation, and on ideas about vision and the visible world that have deep philosophical roots.
John Hyman’s The Objective Eye is a radical treatment of this problem, deeply informed by the history of philosophy and science, but entirely fresh. The questions tackled here are fundamental ones: Is our experience of color an illusion? How does the metaphysical status of colors differ from that of shapes? What is the difference between a picture and a written text? Why are some pictures said to be more realistic than others? Is it because they are especially truthful or, on the contrary, because they deceive the eye?
The Objective Eye explores the fundamental concepts we use constantly in our most innocent thoughts and conversations about art, as well as in the most sophisticated art theory. The book progresses from pure philosophy to applied philosophy and ranges from the metaphysics of color to Renaissance perspective, from anatomy in ancient Greece to impressionism in nineteenth-century France. Philosophers, art historians, and students of the arts will find The Objective Eye challenging and absorbing.
.......
I hope this helps.
If you fall into the Continental camp of thought, then that explains why you are so hard to pin down. Continental thought is rife with meaningless hot air. Here's piece of evidence for that assertion, just in case you doubt it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
If you do fall into the Continental camp, you surely are not to blame. I blame society. On the other hand, it's never too late to replan your route to a saner road.
Also, Like Nietzche, I don't always write to be understood, at least noy just by just anyone. You may need to do some work or have some training. But to those that know, it will make sense.
As a sidebar example: accurate/innacurate.
Think about this at the pixel level. It already is innacurate (its a square). Or with Jpeg compression, its also deleting information and replacing it (less accurate--like areas of information are simplified). And then, at another leve of abstraction consider something like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsharp_masking. You should read this, but the tl;dr is I can make an image "sharp" by ~blurring it. So, is that "more accurate" (can see it clear) or less accrurate (its more blurry?). I've just lost data. But I gained contrast. Wait, what?
So, there is a problem in continuing the discussion at this level without alot more work. Its a practical problem as well. One just need different mental frameworks to progress. Its just that simple. At the end, only then, can you come back and have a better understanding of "accurate" etc. But don't take my word for it -- that book is really good--and touches on all of this. And it is Rigorous. He's an Oxford man. Etc.
Of course, there is a reason it is a book and not a Hacker News Thread. =D
These images are no less impressive without a color balance provided by the editor. They are a journey through the former Russian empire and down the old Silk Road into a past made more accessible by color. Beyond any concerns of the trueness of their rendition, they are a readily comprehended document of a world long gone. These are relics in living color, their faces and fascades as ruddy as the day they were photographed. This is a far-flung agrarian empire and the ancestors of an antique world on the cusp of an upheaval.
Whatever the realities of the world represented and the facts that fill in my poor command of history, this is a world that integrates itself squarely with our everyday world precisely because it is depicted in a familiar fashion. The commonplace monochrome images of the past are colder, more analytical, and more removed than these.
So, aside from the interests of archivalists and historians who need to preserve artifacts as completely as they are found, who gives a damn if the use of Photoshop munged the color space a little and these images are dressed up a bit for eyes who've seen every color? The dressing doesn't alter the substance beneath, and if we are able to see past the process with a little help from the editor and into our imagination of this other world, all the better.
In a more sober assessment, all of these colors in these scenes can be constructed from the world in which we live currently, the grass, the sky, the skin tones, the wood, the stone, the dye in the clothing. The lighting conditions can be replicated for the same time of year, day and weather conditions. All of these sites exist in the world, however excavated or built up. Clothing can be sewn and dyed, models found and dressed. Only then may we know if what we've seen here isn't a very slight fabrication by the editor.
Or we may be assured that what we've seen is good enough and close enough that we had wrung out from it the last drop of evidence of the human condition, and let it rest.
So, its safe to say you are a Troll.
But, for the faithful HN reader:
To sum: [a] digital data is recorded in a non-linear function vs perception by the mind. [1] digital scan translation thus make it 'visible', based on a variety of adjustment parameters. [2] each input and output device has its own gamut, or sub-space of EMR. [3] translation through each device results in multiple renderings. [0] The capture medium was positive monochrome stills, in three parts. It follows that there is no color information in the tonal maps. [4] Tonal density variances provide the only color information that survives. But, absent the original filters, all presented information is inferred. [b] all output devices have gamuts, and are subsets of the visible spectrum. We lose information at capture and at output. [c] the purpose of image processing is to ensure as much information survives, in its most usable form. [d] a/b output testing ensures presented information is accretive to its base image, otherwise such an output would be rejected.