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Comment by QuantumGood | Hacker News Reader

Adams adjusted heavily with dodging and burning, even working to invent a new chemical process to provide more control when developing. He was great at determining exposure for his process as well. A key skill was having a vision for what the image would be after adjusting. Adams talked a lot about this as a top priority of his process.

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> It's even more incredible that this was done on paper, which has even less dynamic range than computer screens!

I came here to point this out. You have a pretty high dynamic range in the captured medium, and then you can use the tools you have to darken or lighten portions of the photograph when transferring it to paper.

Indeed so. Printing on paper and other substrates is inherently subtractive in nature which limits the gamut of colors and values that can be reproduced. Digital methods make the job of translating additive to subtractive media easier vs. the analog techniques available to film photographers. In any case, the image quality classic photography was able to achieve is truly remarkable.

Notably, the dodging and burning used by photographers aren't obsolete. There's a reason these tools are included in virtually every image-editing program out there. Manipulating dynamic range, particularly in printed images, remains part of the craft of image-making.

Contact printing on azo certainly helped!

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