A few people have been wondering about the tonal range in some of the photographs in Brian’s book of blues photographs (as you do!), and how there is so much detail in a lot of the photographs. So here is an example from the book to try and explain.  The first image below is the result of flat scanning Brian’s negative which was very dark (due to a weak flash unit), and showed the technical limitations of the original negative and processing at the time.  In the darkroom you could improve on this by dodging and burning as you exposed the negative to the photographic paper, giving more exposure to the bright areas and less to the shadows.  

With the digital scan a similar process is involved, except it can be done with several of the filters available in Photoshop.  Firstly the overall exposure was increased to give more detail in the shadow areas. Then once a reasonable overall balance was reached, it was a question of seeing what else could be improved. By carefully masking different areas of the negative, often a number of times across a single image, we could correct the tones, playing down the areas which had been hit with too much flash and opening up areas which are in shadow.  Of course you cannot restore detail where none exists, but you can achieve a nicer balance if it is done carefully as with the version below. The aim was always to retain Brian’s original vision at the moment he clicked the shutter, but bring out details which have not generally been seen before. So below we can see more of the fabric of the suit and in the hands for example, and more detail in JB’s face, while Roosevelt Sykes has been rescued from the shadows. Ideally looking at the book you won’t notice this work (which would often take a couple of hours or more!) but cumulatively it has hopefully elevated the collection.

This photo was taken in Manchester in the backstage area of The Free Trade Hall in 1965. You can also see how the image was cropped for page 52 of the book, as the images above are of the entire negative. I decided that it would be good to crop it closer to the top and bottom of the image to put more impact on the two people in the photo. (Courtesy Easy On The Eye Books).