Lance Birch wrote:

...

Thanks for taking the time. A beautiful succinct discussion. I really 
appreciate it. I did understand some things about local vs global 
contrasts though not by those terms.  I would have termed the 
adjustments we make in "real world" perception, that you credit to the 
eyes, "haptic" perception, and viewed it as an extension of our 
"embodied" consciousness.*  So generally I think that the eyes adjust to 
optimise a view of what the mind-body already knows is there.  So when I 
painted I tended to incorporate those adjustments but never thought of 
it as "fill light" but rather as "haptic" knowledge. If fact for years I 
painted very, very dark, close-toned paintings, where I would use tricks 
of paint handling to make objects more or less distinct.** I'm a big 
admirer of Whistler and Rosseau, in addition to Morandi. So your 
discussion helps simplify things tremendously and helps me think in 
terms of digital methods and empirical light gathering. (And I didn't 
know at all about the PS Unsharp Mask.  Really anxious to explore that.)

Thanks again.  You really helped me simplify my thinking about this.  I 
almost mentioned in my previous post, that I think one of my big 
problems with lighting is that I don't have strong sense of what looks 
correct.  I tend to accept what the raytracer gives me like I accept 
what the camera gives me and am reconciled to the idea that neither is 
going to look like what an embodied experience of the same scene would 
be anyway.  There is so damned much to learn!

In general I might have subconsciously understood the issue but I was 
mired in the idea that there might be a somehow "honest" way of 
achieving the result, say, if I just understood Jaime's lighting system 
better.  I've to laugh at this because I have also felt that *I* was one 
of the foremost proponents of raytracing is an medium rooted in artifice.

-Jim


*Merleau-Ponty reigned when I was in college.

** You might appreciate that this took me to truly obsessive lenghts 
when it came to trying to document my paintings photographically for my 
portfolio.