grammaticality - "Well" and "good" as applied to the quality of photographs



These photos came out well.



or



These photos came out good.



According to the proper usage of well and good, the former would be describing the quality of the taking and developing of the photo; the latter would be describing the state of the photo as a finished product.


Are both of these acceptable?



Answer



Both are valid, though "These photos came out well" would be more common. Without going into adverbial usage of "good", one could usefully distinguish the adverbial and adjectival meanings. Whether any of the listeners/readers will catch this distinction or gain anything from it is doubtful, though.


For instance, I'd prefer



  • "These photos came out quickly" over
    "These photos came out quick" (the process happened quickly)


but would prefer



  • "These photos came out blurry" over
    "These photos came out blurrily" (the end result was blurry, not the process)


So in that sense (I think) both "These photos came out good" and "These photos came out well" can be right and mean different things, but in practice, because "adverbial good" is so widespread (see nohat's answer), listeners would probably be more likely to think you meant the process and were using the "wrong" or informal adverb than to think you were using the right adjective.


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