Digital Prints

Schools are also promoting digital printing. Andrew Behla, an educator and color management
consultant, offers a 10-week course (“Mastering Fine Art Digital Printing”) in
the spring and fall quarters at UCLA Extension in Los Angeles. This course is attended
by artists, photographers, and printmakers.
And more local and regional art festivals, shows, and contests are adding “digital “ categories
to their official entry rules, although their definitions and requirements are sometimes
confusing to artists.
To be sure, there were questions and problems with digital printing early on. The first IRIS
inks were notorious for their ability to fade right off the paper. But subsequent improvements
in ink formulations and in ink/paper matching have ended most of those arguments.
Probably the remaining obstacle to the full acceptance of digital print methods
today is the faulty perception that this type of art is “mechanical” and, therefore, inferior
in some way. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Let’s face it, people who are used to slower, more traditional practices sometimes have a
hard time adjusting to newer, automated ways of doing things. “The harder it is to make,
the better it is” seems to be a commonly held belief among the public and even some artists
when discussing art. But technical methods including automation do not necessarily
diminish the value of the creative works aided by them. Besides the obvious examples of
lithography and photography, look further back in art history. Michelangelo used teams
of assistants as did Leonardo DaVinci. Artist David Hockney claims that painters such as
Caravaggio, Ingres, Velasquez, and Vermeer all used either a camera obscura or a camera
lucida lens system to speed up and improve the initial drafting step in their paintings. In
his 2001 book, Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters,
Hockney, who himself is one of the world’s best-known living artists, makes the argument
that artists were enthusiastically using lenses and mirrors (the highest of high-tech at the
time) in creating their art 400–500 years ago. It’s a small step from optics to computers
and digital workflows, and Hockney’s book has helped open people’s eyes to the fact that
technology has always been an important part of art creation.
The computer and other digital tools are just that—tools. Used in the hands of a perceptive,
talented artist or photographer, a computer is not subordinate to brushes, palette knives, or
enlargers. The fact is, the artist’s own hand lies heavy on most of the steps in the making of
digital art. Using cameras, scanners, digital tablets, and a whole host of image-editing software,
photographers and artists have a personal and intense relationship with their images
as they guide them through the various stages of creation, manipulation, and finally, printing.
The aesthetic decisions are always the artist’s. In most cases, this is not mechanical art;
this is imagery that emanates directly from the mind and the soul of the artist.
Digital Decisions
Photographers and artists tend to fall into a couple of large groups when it comes to digital
printing. Knowing what these are up front and matching your interests to them can
help you better navigate through the digital landscape.
Chapter 1 ■ Navigating the Digital Landscape 27