The legitimacy of flattened shadows

Okay, so this is a bit nebulous (good start to thread), but I have a somewhat philosophical question about the tones of a finished image, particularly an image to be printed, and I want to hear your take on this.

So most of us are familiar with the look of an image that has been 'vintage-ified' by raising the output of the blacks to something greater than zero and by, generally, flattening out the curve in the shadows. A lot of the time I see this being done, it is done seemingly arbitrarily. Just as people often add black borders to the top and bottom of an image to somehow associate their image with something cinematic (and thereby attempt to imbue it with more drama than the image actually has going for it), I think a lot of the time the standard vintage curve is applied, it's to associate the image with the tangible aesthetic of a magazine OR a work by one of the great photographers (works which might exhibit flatness in the shadows due to legitimate technical reasons).

I'm definitely "guilty" of applying a vintage curve for no reason other than that I think it looks cool. But I'm wondering--and here is the question--if there are slightly less arbitrary reasons why one might especially flatten out the shadows and raise the black output.

I'll provide examples if this isn't clear.

Thanks !

Maybe post links to some example if the photos are not yours, or process some of your photos to get the "arbitrary look" you are talking about and post them here...?

I just posted THISshot earlier today. Note that there is no true black in the image but rather very very deep slightly flattened greys.

But, yeah: is it arbitrarily applied ? I don't know. I'm starting to gather my stuff for printing in large formats and I'm running into this question.

Maybe I can partially answer my own question--I thought I'd probably have to resort to that anyway. Flattening blacks has a way of introducing a murkiness, a kind of deep grey shroud that tends to seem appropriate for certain photos. So I suppose simply pushing a kind of atmosphere is one reason to massage the tones in this fashion. But also, I've found that some images have details in the shadows that disturb the cleanness of the rest of the scene and so flattening out the curve on the bottom end helps smooth this over. One could, I suppose, simply drop those details to black--the problem is that very often the kind of contrast this introduces in the bottom end totally works against the atmosphere of the photo.

Well I think there is a philosophy of not clipping blacks or highlights. With B&W film you could almost always achieve this with enough dodging and burning if you wanted and get a lot of subtle detail. This effectively flattened out that curve.

With digital it is a little different, because the sensor cannot be clipped on the raw file.

My experience is only with B&W film though, not sure if you are also thinking color. If so I suspect it was a property of the films being used.

So I got my post in just after that example, but that is the sort of thing I am used to seeing. In that example though, since so much of the image is dark, it would seem silly to not show detail in the shadows,

I think I kind of tend to to that myself with digital files now, even though I find myself looking at some shots (landscapes) with clipped shadows and liking them,I can't seem to process them like that.

Christopher, I looked at your shot, and, well, it looked pretty good to me. There were very dark areas that didn't look "flattened" to me, but were, well, dark shadows!

I personally don't go for the "vintage" look, I prefer to capture and show a scene that "matches" what I see/saw as much as I can...

But the thing is, that when it comes to seeing dark areas, our eyes tend to dilate to take in the shadow detail, and for the shooting I do, I try to "match" that dilation by raising the shadows at least enough to show some detail. It seems to match our "vision" to not have many things in which those shadows are "clipped".

Now, it would be another thing to have something in your scene that is actually "pure black" but that you change to grey for one reason or another, but that ain't my style!

With respect to the portion of your comment below which I've made bold: that's a good point. It does seem odd to take a photo whose dynamic range is massively reduced, and to reduce the detail even more by flattening the shadows.

I think the counterpoint to that suggestion (what the devil on the other shoulder says) is that the purpose of the image could be less about retaining maximal detail in every zone and more about, e.g. shape, lines. Simplifying (by flattening) the shadows may help with better defining the lines of the beams, rendering the image more pictorial, more about its geometry (which is really what attracted me in the first place). Maybe this is about emphasis, which then makes this purely an artistic choice.

ejenner wrote in post #16510133
Well I think there is a philosophy of not clipping blacks or highlights. With B&W film you could almost always achieve this with enough dodging and burning if you wanted and get a lot of subtle detail. This effectively flattened out that curve.

With digital it is a little different, because the sensor cannot be clipped on the raw file.

My experience is only with B&W film though, not sure if you are also thinking color. If so I suspect it was a property of the films being used.

So I got my post in just after that example, but that is the sort of thing I am used to seeing. In that example though, since so much of the image is dark, it would seem silly to not show detail in the shadows,

I think I kind of tend to to that myself with digital files now, even though I find myself looking at some shots (landscapes) with clipped shadows and liking them,I can't seem to process them like that.

@Tony: I guess you'd need a dead black cat in a coal mine (the proper expression is escaping me !) juxtaposing to be able to tell that there isn't actually black in the image !

I think I also care about making a scene look like I saw it; but I guess I generally think about 'seeing' in more of a broad way. That is, sometimes I care more about making a scene look how it felt to me. The motivation for editing a piece can also be as crude as my wanting to create an image that has cool lines going on !

Christopher Steven b wrote in post #16510184
@Tony: I guess you'd need a dead black cat in a coal mine (the proper expression is escaping me !) juxtaposing to be able to tell that there isn't actually black in the image !

I think I also care about making a scene look like I saw it; but I guess I generally think about 'seeing' in more of a broad way. That is, sometimes I care more about making a scene look how it felt to me. The motivation for editing a piece can also be as crude as my wanting to create an image that has cool lines going on !

I understand, it's just that my "normal style" is, well, to keep some shadow detail. But then you do see some stuff, especially in the Black & White "genre" where, well, blacks/shadows are brought down to "black" and it can be effective, I'm just not a B&W guy!