What are some characteristics that an image is analogue?

[thedancefloor]

I suppose there are digital enlargers now which will project a digital image for development on photo paper

Yes, that's how it's done. Minilabs have been producing digital RA-4 prints for years.

[Galah]

...what are some of the traits that help you recognize the difference?

Sprocket holes along both long edges of the prints.

[tkamiya]

It all depends. Well done prints are hard to tell most of the time which is which. Badly done film prints are often easy to tell unless someone simulated that effect using digital. Well done digital prints can do things only feasible in digital media.

If I am looking at an image that tells a story or moves me emotionally, how it was made isn't something I think about though.

[2F/2F]

The difference is usually plain, and if not, it is visible on close inspection. Even if digital artifacts do not easily give it away, tonality does (as do obvious things like manipulation of certain levels or types). I would say this about anything but the very highest quality prints from digital films made by people who really know what they are doing. With pictures shot in ambient light, the difference is plain as day to me. It is harder for me to tell when the shooter has used controlled lighting, as good lighters simply tailor their light to match the medium being used. I have never once seen a digitally-captured print that just looks like a plain photo, as opposed to like a digital photo, by a photographer who did not really learn their craft with film.

[Maris]

Back in the days when I used to sell Zeiss microscopes I used to look at exposed/processed photographic materials at a variety of magnifications up to 1000X.

Traditional black and white materials always showed an emulsion consisting of a clear medium, gelatine, containing silver grains generated in situ. Apart from autoradiography plates or nuclear track emulsions this gelatine+silver structure was unique to photography.

Colour materials, except Kodachrome, showed gelatin with dye clouds generated in situ. Also present were millions of minute highly refractile resin beads which served as the anchor points for colour couplers.

Give me one of those nice microscopes now and I reckon I will pick real photographs from look-a-likes 100% of the time.

[stradibarrius]

So I guess what I am hearing is that at the current state of technology a straight print show no real difference with normal viewing.
I know if I want a "lith" look the real deal looks better than a fake "lith" from photoshop.

[michaelbsc]

So I guess what I am hearing is that at the current state of technology a straight print show no real difference with normal viewing.

That has been my view for a long time now. For a \"straight print\" like school pictures, studio sittings, and the like, the reason it all went to digital is because digital was cheaper and Grandparents need a magnify glass to tell. Nobody looks at pictures of little Susie in her ballerina suit with a magnifying glass.



What does this mean for me? It means I can buy pro gear that was astronomically expensive before.

[ic-racer]

So I guess what I am hearing is that at the current state of technology a straight print show no real difference with normal viewing.
I know if I want a "lith" look the real deal looks better than a fake "lith" from photoshop.

Again, one can't see a digital image. It has to be converted to some analog form to witness the image. Digital is a capture and storage medium, not any way to view an image. High and low voltages are not visible.

[stradibarrius]

Obviously we are discussing the what can be seen and not what can't be seen!!! I am not sure what your point is or how it adds to the discussion. All "captures must be processed somehow to make them "visible" whether analogue processing or digital processing. You eventually arrive at something that can be viewed!

[ic-racer]

Obviously we are discussing the what can be seen and not what can't be seen!!! I am not sure what your point is or how it adds to the discussion. All "captures must be processed somehow to make them "visible" whether analogue processing or digital processing. You eventually arrive at something that can be viewed!

I'm not sure how the word "capture" relates to film. Film and paper are "exposed." Additional 'processing' is not always needed to form the analog image (POP etc.)

In the OP you asked "how analogue and digital images look different." Well, if you can see it then it is an analog image, so they are the same thing. If you are asking about comparing film to a computer file, then there are many differences and not many similarities.

There are no "intrinsic" properties of any image produced from a digital file. There is no standardization of A/D processing that produces the image. Therefore generalizations about 'digital images' may be faulty.