Underwater photographers are learning how to make beautiful prints

If you've been frustrated by traditional prints of your originals, you'll love what digital imaging can do for your photography.

by Ryan Baldwin - Underwater Photographer

I've made hundreds of attempts to print my underwater slides. I experimented with many levels of contrast masking. I tried making 4x5 internegs, hoping to obtain more control during printing. After several years of frustrating work with all kinds of traditional processes, I concluded that I was not able to make acceptable prints from underwater slides. Basically, I gave up. Any underwater photographers will tell you how difficult it is to make an accurate print of what they saw while diving. There are several reasons:

1. Low light situations generally require an artificial light source. This makes the scene amazingly colorful, but it also produces a great amount of contrast and may introduce back-scatter (light reflecting off particles in the water that produce small white spots).
   
   
2. Low visibility and cloudiness of the water makes the image look soft and out of focus.
   
   
3. Ocean water absorbs red wavelengths of light, which lends a blue/green cast over the image, and makes other colors look very flat.

With these obstacles, it's no wonder making good prints from underwater slides has been so difficult. In 1998, I was introduced to digital Type-C printing, which uses lasers to expose Type-C paper. Many aspects of the prints were encouraging, but I couldn't get away from the fact that they looked "digital". Although these prints did not answer all my printing problems, I began to understand what digital imaging could represent in controlling the final print. Was there a way to maintain this high level of color control and avoid a "digital looking" print?

I began investigating digital imaging, and browsing computer catalogs, contemplating investing in my own "digital darkroom." But as I looked at images produced by labs with $1 million in digital equipment, it became clear to me that it's not just the equipment used that makes a print "sing", but also the skill of the printer.

That's when I met Rich Seiling, who later formed his own digital imaging company, West Coast Imaging. Rich, a fine art photographer himself, became the bridge between the artistic aesthetics of photography, and the digital process. Suddenly I was able to make fine art, high-quality prints that looked very close to what I actually viewed in the ocean. And I didn't have to touch the computer.

Now underwater photographers have the ability to reproduce what they actually saw far below the ocean surface. By utilizing the advancements of digital printing, you can match your prints to the original transparency, and in many cases go well beyond. I don't mean changing content or using these tools for illustration, but rather to eliminate problems introduced by artificial light and the effects of the underwater environment. And yes, there is a way to use this control and make beautiful continuous tone prints that don't look digital. Work with someone who has an eye for the art and aesthetic of photography--as well as a great grasp on digital imaging.