How iconic images of the past were edited in the developing room
Pablo Inirio is a master of photo printing from the New York headquarters of Magnum Photos. He personally worked on some of the agency's most famous pictures. Not so long ago, prints made by him with numerous notes appeared on the web, according to which one can understand the scope of Inirio's work and his degree of attention to detail.
This picture of Dennis Stock captures James Dean in Times Square.
And from this test print, you can understand what a tremendous amount of work has been done to make the finished photo look exactly like this.
Lines and circles indicate Inirio's plans to enhance and reduce the contrast of the image under the photo magnifier; the numbers scattered across the photo show different exposure times of the photo paper.
Here are some more similar prints:
Portrait of Muhammad Ali, taken in 1966 by Thomas Hepker.
Portrait of Henri Cartier-Bresson, taken during the march of Martin Luther King in Washington.
Portrait of Audrey Hepburn, shot by Dennis Stock.
And Magnum Photos published these photos on Twitter in 2009, with the caption: "Pablo Inirio, our printer, at work."
But will the magic of this process continue in our new digital age, she asks.