On 2/6/2016 6:27 PM, philo wrote:

Interestingly, thanks to digital enhancement I've been able to save
some images that what have been unprintable in a dark room.

I am hoping that to be true. I recently found some prints of our
puppymonsters that were of poor quality (I'm not a photographer and,
with a film camera, can't tell what the photos WILL look like until
they are developed!). The negatives are intact and I'm hoping I
can goose the contrast a bit in photoshop to pull more detail
from them.

I'm using an Epson Perfection V600 and the built-in software has very good
color correction for faded film. Keeps the use of Photoshop to a minimum. If
you don't have Photoshop, the bundled software is reasonably good...but
amazingly, at the age of 66 I have finally reached the professional level.

Now, you just need to live ANOTHER 66 years! :

What that means is if I have some really detailed Photoshop work to do, I let
my wife handle it. She's an expert.

I use photoshop primarily to "fix" photos of items that I'm documenting.
Often, to remove backgrounds. Other times, to correct perspective
(e.g., I may have shot something at a slight angle instead of "square on"
so PS lets me "fix" the apparent "taper" in the image. Still other
times to isolate some specific portion of the image and remove unnecessary
detail (e.g., if I'm describing the front panel of an instrument, there's
no need/value to showing a perspective view complete with top and sides;
just crop out those other portions to highlight the front panel itself!).

Occasionally, I get creative and use it to create an "alternate reality".
E.g., taking photos of a SINGLE item in three different configurations
and then merging the three images to make it look like three different
items in those three different configurations arranged *together*.

In no case am I trying to be "artistic". I use photos as "abbreviations
for 1000 words" :