Digi-vs-analog color prints: Can you quantify the difference?

[Al Seyle]

OK. I have been shooting color neg and making some pretty good display prints from 4x5 for 40 years +. IOW, I know how to make a very good C-print using the best pro equipment.

My question is, can someone tell me what difference(s) to expect when I switch to do-it-myself scanning (ie, 4990 or 750- not drum or Imacon) --still from color neg-- and Epson 7800 printing to 20x24. I know, most of you are way beyond this basic question and I'm late to the party, but really, when you literally put the prints side-by-side, what differences are there?

[Jack Flesher]

My .02 only...

The easy part: When you learn to properly run the 7800, you will get excellent print results -- assuming you have a good digital file to print from. The operative word here is "when," so plan on spending the time to learn how to print properly. The prints will look different than what you will be used to though -- not bad, just different.

The hard(er) part: Getting a good scan from color neg on any scanner is a challenge, so it also takes time to learn how to do it well and thus adds to the qualifying sentence above, "good digital file."

Cheers,

[Steven Barall]

Your question is basic in the sense that it is an important question. Have a neg scanned and have an Epson print made and compare it to one of your c-prints. There must be someone here on this forum that can recommend you to a place that can do that for you, considering that you don't want and Imacon or drum scan. It will cost you something but it will settle the matter in your mind which is worth a lot. Maybe the dealer that you will buy the scanner and printer from will do it for you gratis.

Well, good luck and please tell us what you think the answer to your question is when you see the results for yourself. Considering the experience you have as a printer I for one would love to hear your opinion.

[Gordon Moat]

Side by side, an inkjet print to a C print, you will notice differences. While the resolution might be similar, an inkjet only mimics continuous tone. Get close enough to any inkjet, and the dot patterning will be apparant. This is similar to commercial offset printing, though since all inkjet systems have a higher dot gain than offset, the dots do blend together slightly; this is what I mean by mimics continuous tone.

So basically, you might be happy with the printed resolution, and even the colour saturation of an inkjet print. Unfortunately, only a chemical print will be continuous tone, and show the colour tonality you are use to seeing in your C prints.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat

P.S. - This is not to state that inkjet prints are bad, just to point out that they are different.:cool:

[Michael Gordon]

Al: I'm not sure what your goals or desires are, but if you dislike the dot pattern of inkjet printing (really only visible at nose distance or with a loupe), you can always prepare your digital files, proof on an inkjet, and output your final prints via one of the many, many labs that prints digitally. You can print via Lightjet or Chromira and get continous tone prints on Kodak or Fuji papers.

[paulr]

With the best printers today I don't think visible dots are an issue. I'm one of those compulsive squinters, and I was surprised looking at the last generation of Epson prints to find no hint of dots.

The prints still look different, though. I haven't studied enough good color ink prints to put the difference into words, but they have a different vibe. And if you're printing on matte artist's papers--which some would argue is the ink print's native territory and greatest strength--they have a completely different feel.

[steve_782]

I've made color prints "C" and Ilfochromes since 1967. I've also run offset presses professionally, and have hand printed fine art lithographs professionally. I have a full color darkroom with a roller transport processor. I've been printing for the past 5 years with inkjet printers, 1200 series, 9600, and 9800. Just to give you my background.

I scan using an Imacon - and frankly, if you think you'll get adequate results with an Epson flatbed at 20x24 print size - you're fooling yourself. I own a flatbed in addition to the Imacon - there is NO contest, the flatbed just doesn't get the job done. My advice is to rethink your approach if you want to print that large.

Ink on paper looks totally different than dyes with a gelatin overcoat. If you want to match the look of a C print as closely as possible, then you need to use one of the HP dye printers with HP paper. The print longevity will be equal to the Epson IF you use the professional HP printers AND the HP papers. Don't take my word for it check Wilhelm for the 5500 series HP printers.

The first thing you need to do is quantify how you want the prints to look. Do you want to print on a gloss, semi-gloss, lustre, or matte paper? The choice of paper will drive a lot of what you do with a printer. If you want to print on semi-gloss or lustre, then you really need to use the photo black ink in an Epson printer and not the matte black. The downside is you lose D-max compared with the matte black ink.

You can get some of the D-max back if you coat the print with a UV inhibiting spray. I currently use Clearshield on my prints and you can see the blacks, and dark colors deepen as the are wetted by the spray.

You can spend an inordinate amount of time testing papers. I've probably tested 30 different papers, and have more on order trying to get the best look for my work.

On that subject, you really need to profile papers if you want to get the best results out of them. To that end, I also have an X-Rite profiling system. It's the only way I can try all of the different papers as the inking has to be controlled, and that's part of what the profile does. Another way to do this is to buy a raster image processor (RIP). The RIP software company will usually have environments available for most of the popular papers.

But, there's another thing you have to look at. If you want to use a RIP and it does not have an environment for the paper you want to use - what good is the RIP? The answer is to get a RIP that will allow you to use a spectrophotometer to read in a test chart to build the new environment for a paper.

But, to your original question, how can you quantify the difference? You really can't inkjet prints look like ink on paper especially if you're using a matte or art paper. They look more "art print like" and less "photo print like." They have a completely different character than a wet darkroom print. Let's say more like a carbon print or a cross between a carbon print and a lithographic print (fine art, hand printed - not mass produced offset press type).

But, you can also control the final look by how you overspray the print or laminate it - and ALL inkjet prints should be sprayed or laminated. I use a mixture of gloss and matte coatings that I custom mix - 1 part gloss to 3 parts matte. It gives a satin sheen to the print, and deepens the ink colors while protecting the print.

If you've used an HP printer with glossy paper and put the print behind glass, you honestly couldn't tell the difference between that print and a C print. If you use a smooth matte paper, and overspray with a gloss spray, and put the print behind glass, you'd probably have to stick your nose on the glass to try and determine if it was an inkjet or C print.

If you care to use the inkjet process for its own intrinsic look - well, then you're into a whole different area as you can give the print it's own unique character with the type of paper chosen and how glossy or matte the spray is.

Just don't go into this thinking all you have to do is push the button and the computer will do the rest. There is as much or more to learn about how to get an inkjet print to look good as there is in learning how to print in a wet darkroom.

And, if you choose to print digitally - the sooner you quit thinking "this is how I did it in a wet darkroom" - and learn the correct digital workflows, the better your prints will become.

As to the "continuous tone" on wet darkroom prints versus "dots" on inkjet prints. The people who think wet darkroom prints are continous tone are fooling themselves since the prints are made up of dye clouds OF CYAN, MAGENTA, AND YELLOW dyes - that's NOT continuous tone in any way, shape, or form. The dye clouds and inks are doing the exact same thing - mixing the proper ratios of the colors available to make the color needed.

If you think you can see the inkjet dots at "nose distance" - you've never looked at a print from an inkjet printer at 2880 dpi - you cannot see the dots without at least a 4x loupe on the print. I can see individual dye clouds with a 4x loupe too - so there's really not much difference in granularity.

The prints from an inkjet printer are NOT like offset press prints in any way either. The person who made that statement knows nothing about offset press printing, and apparently little about inkjet printing.

Offset press printing uses screened CMYK plates that provide a DISCRETE dot pattern of the 4 colors. The inks are NOT MIXED and you can see dot pattern and the 4 individual colors with a loupe. The eye is fooled by metamerism into thinking it's seeing different colors, when in fact only 4 exist.

While an inkjet printer puts down discrete dots, it is also MIXING the colors on the paper's surface to create the color needed - it does not put down a discrete screened pattern of dots for each color. In other words, you're actually creating the color needed by mixing the inks in the correct proportions. That is totally unlike offset printing.

[Ed K.]

Another 2 cents ...

Al, could it be that you are in part asking the difference between a pure analog process, such as using neg film to make your C print vs. a digital of any sort but especially an inkjet?

If so, I can't give you any scientific data on the differences, however some things that seem to come up are that digital prints often appear more sharp and consistent between more than one print from the same photo. Digital prints can also lack dust or other small defects. For me personally, I find that images that have been scaned by just about any kind of scanner can have the appearance of more grain and general coarseness than pure analog prints. Inkjet prints do offer the most flat and glossless surface, which could be good in some cases as well as textured paper if you like that. Most people these days prefer a Lightjet from a digital scan to a C print, in part because of the digital adjustments that are possible. Frequently, inkjets are described by labs as something to do when one wants a different and more delicate palette. For some types of subjects, I prefer an analog Ilfochrome from a slide to any Lightjet or Inkjet, but you didn't ask that. In terms of gloss, even glossy inkjet has a different look to it than a C print - so you may or may not like the inkjet if you normally like very glossy photos.

The others who mention that it is tricky to scan color negatives are right. Slides are much easier to deal with when one is doing digital output, for me at least.

Most of the big labs offer C prints as well as drum scanning and output to Lightjet, Chromira and Inkjets, even the exact inkjet you are contemplating. The prices for inkjets can be high, however the Lightjet and Chromira prints are inexpensive enough. You could take a sample shot and have one of each done to compare for yourself without breaking the bank too much.

[Brian Ellis]

I've primarily worked with black and white rather than color for the last twelve years. However, I used to print some color in the darkroom, now I print color with an Epson 2200 and scan with an Epson 4990. I don't think there's any comparison between the two. In the darkroom using my Beseler 45A it took maybe two tries to get the exposure and color balance right. After that I might be able to do a very little dodging and burning and that was about it. I didn't learn to mask, I'm sure that would have made a difference but what a pain. Between the 45A and my roller transport processor I could crank out a whole bunch of nice looking color prints in a single session, not that my goal was to make a whole bunch of prints, just that it didn't take much time to make a print because there was so little of a creative nature that could be done to it.

With digital printing I can do anything I want with the print. I don't mean things like moving parts of one image into another though I do that occasionally with skies just as the 19th century photographers did - I mean extensive tonal and contast adjustments, changing tones or colors of various parts of the image while leaving others the same or making different changes to them, blurring, sharpening, correcting shapes and perspectives - the list could go on and on. I don't think I ever spent more than an hour on a single color print in the darkroom and even that much time was unusual. With digital I often spend several hours working on a print and it's all creative time, I'm not standing around waiting for the print to roll out of the processor, I'm not cleaning the rollers on the processer every three prints, I'm not setting the darkroom up or taking it down. To me it's the difference between using a word processor instead of a typewriter.

My 4990 and 2200 do fine with my maximum print size of about 11x14. With Silverfast Ai software I don't have any particular trouble scanning color negatives. But if you're talking about 20x24 prints I think you'd need to get something better to scan or have the scan made by a lab and you'd need a larger printer.

[julian]

I know how to make a very good C-print using the best pro equipment.



If you want to compare apples and apples on this, you have to compare pro analogue and pro digi equipment. That starts with a pro-level scan. Imacon, drum (the best) or similar. An epson flatbed really won't do it - it is like sticking a holga lens on a devere 504 (well, almost), without a top notch scan everything else fails - resolution, tonality etc etc. If you then want to match your c print, output to normal colour paper on a chromira - try this first, it will give you a bench mark. A high level pro scan and output by people who know what they are doing. If you want to try inkjet, you get a different kind of print, and this depends a large amount on your paper choice

[Leonard Metcalf]

I have been printing Type C prints for years, and have done a number of Ilfochromes with masks etc. I started using an Epson 7600 a couple of years ago and haven't looked back. I print on matt cotton rag papers, and get very different results from the glossy prints I was used to. It took a while to work it all out, but frankly I believe it was worth it. I love the prints I can produce with the printer, and I don't have the headaches from all the chemicals. But yes they do look different. Perhaps it is like comparing a silver gelatin print with a platinum. Photographs I gave up on trying to print in the dark room are now shinning from the inkjet. I particularly love the control the computer gives.

[Ron Marshall]

At present I don't have room for a darkroom, so until recently what I have been doing is scanning my negs and gradually improving my Photoshop skills in preparation for the eventual purchase of a printer. However the B/W inkjet samples that I have seen at the local Epson dealer I can only describe as unerwhelming. I love the look of a selenium toned fiber based print. I didn't expect an inkjet to mimic that look, nor did I especially want that. Why reinvent the wheel. However, my main impetus for entering the digital world is the ease and control of Photoshop, that is, once PS has been mastered. I'm not quite there yet, but I can get the look I want in print much faster than I ever could in the darkroom.

A couple of weeks ago I finally took the plunge. I decided to experiment with digital printing as cheaply as possible; that way if I couldn't get the look I wanted I could dump the printer for a small loss and then set-up a darkroom.

I opted for a refurbished Epson 2200, only $450 including shipping. But, the 2200 can't produce good prints, in my opinion, by itself; it needs two key additions to do so. The first is a good RIP. I decided to do this on the cheap as well, I downloaded Roy Harrington's Quadtone RIP for $50. The second is a set of Piezography NK7 neutral B/W ink cartridges from Jon Cone's Inkjetmall. This inkset consists of seven serial dilutions of a neutral black ink. Warm or cool tones depend on the tone of the paper used. This ink is pure carbon based set that is archival for over 200 years. It can only be used on matt media. Hence there is no gloss differential, bronzing, or metamerism. It comes in seven individual cartridges, but I intend to install a CIS, continuous inking system, to dramatically lower ink costs, once my first set of ink cartridges are nearly exhausted.

I had read about Piezograpy many times, but three things made me hesitant to try it: Third party inks void the Epson warranty (Doesn't bother me much with a $450 printer); the possibility that Piezography ink would increase the incidence of nozzle blockages (From my limited experience and from my research no more than with Epson inks); most importantly though the fear that I just wouldn't be happy with the look of a matt print.

Well, much to my surprise I love the look of Piezography prints. A good friend and fellow LF shooter, and a very accomplished traditional printer, was there for the first prints and we were both stunned by the result. Using the paper profile supplied with the RIP (My monitor has been profiled) the first print was a perfect match for what was on the screen. I had prepared myself for a long and painful learning curve, so I was pleasantly surprised. My friend, who has taken a couple of workshops with John Sexton, intends to purchase the same set-up. He will not abandon his darkroom, he likes the look of traditional prints. But as he is also a Photoshop expert he remarked that to get the look he wants with PS and Piezography is much easier and quicker.

As I mentioned I love the look of a glossy fiber based silver print, also the look of platinum prints. I am equally pleased with the look of Piezography prints. They will not replace traditional prints for me. I may still make silver prints from some of my negs, or try platinum or other alternatives, but if Piezography becomes my sole printing method I will be perfectly content.

Sorry for hijacking the thread, since your post is about color inkjet printing. But in case you sometimes do B/W I thought I would mention this set-up as another option. $500 may not be prohibitive for a dedicated B/W.

[Bruce Watson]

...can someone tell me what difference(s) to expect when I switch to do-it-myself scanning (ie, 4990 or 750- not drum or Imacon) --still from color neg-- and Epson 7800 printing to 20x24. ...when you literally put the prints side-by-side, what differences are there?
You are talking about a 5x enlargement. This is about the limit of what you can do with a consumer flatbed and have it look good. Not excellent, not professional, but good. At this level the improvement in a professional flat bed or Imacon scan is evident. A drum scan even more so.

As to print differences, it depends of course on your skill levels, both darkroom and Photoshop. Assuming equal competence in both, I think you'll find the following to be more or less true.

The digital version will be flat and sharp corner to corner, something that becomes more difficult to achieve in the darkroom at higher enlargement levels because of optical alignment issues. Detail will be more veiled in the digital print due to the consumer flatbed being a bit beyond it's capacity to capture detail and tonal separations. If you use a drum scanned image, sharpness, detail, and tonal separations will likely be better than the darkroom print because of the increased optical capabilities of the drum scanner. The digital print may well have better gamut (subject dependent). The darkroom print may well have better Dmax. The darkroom print will be plastic (IIRC, all RA-4 print materials are RC). The inkjet print can be fiber if you choose. You can print inkjet now on either matte or glossy papers and anything in between, and you have many more choices as to texture and color for the paper you use.

Bottom line - they aren't the same. Inkjet prints are not wanna be darkroom prints. They are their own separate media. If you accept that, fine. If you try to bend them back on themselves to make them into darkroom look-alikes, you are doomed to fail.

If you really want to do this, you should recognize that you have a fair amount of learning curve in front of you. Most of what you know about darkroom printing won't translate. You have to learn how to scan. You have to learn how to use a photo editor. You have to learn how to use the printer. If you want the best quality prints, there are no "push button" solutions. Digital is actually more work than darkroom printing, mainly because you have so much more control and capability.

And it all starts with a good scan. The saying still holds: Garbage in, garbage out.

All that said, it's eminently doable. I haven't made a darkroom print in I don't know how long. I do my own drum scanning of my own 5x4 negatives (Tri-X and 160PortraVC). I print using both UltraChrome inks and Piezotones (B&W) on Epson printers. I find the results outstanding. Better than I could do in the darkroom. I don't have any doubts that this is the path to my best prints.

I suggest to find out if this is what you want, send one of your negatives out for a drum scan and print on an inkjet printer. Take the same negative into the darkroom and make your best darkroom print. Pin them up on a wall under the same lighting and have a look. It is after all your choice - not ours.

[Helen Bach]

Bruce's reply looks spot on. I might add to "The darkroom print may well have better Dmax" with "...or the inkjet may have better D-max and density range, as well as more potential for precise control of shadow detail - ie you can actually work right to D-max without losing detail in the toe."

I'm measuring a D-max of almost 2.7 with current paper/pigmented ink combinations. How useful that is is another matter. I also find that it is a lot easier to use the full dynamic range of colour negative film when doing digital post. The non-parallel nature of the curves near the shoulder is not a problem. The predicted life of pigmented inkjet colour prints exceeds the predicted life of any chromogenic paper. But they are only predictions.

As far as B&W goes, I use K3 and diluted R800 inks in a 2200 with IJC/OPM and prefer that to the Cone K7 option, especially for papers other than matte. If you are willing to dedicate a printer to B&W, and to do some tweaking, you will probably be able to produce prints that have a depth and tonality that is difficult to match with any other process.

Oh, and I don't know of a darkroom equivalent of LAB colour correction, despite the name.

Best,
Helen

[Bruce Watson]

Yes. I knew I was leaving something out (it's a weekend - that's my excuse anyway ;-)

The digital print may well have both better shadow detail and better highlight detail in the same print (often difficult to accomplish in the darkroom). The digital print doesn't have a toe or shoulder unless you create one in Photoshop. The digital print won't show any reciprocity failures either - I used to get those with the old Cibrachrome process (areas burned in went yellow, areas dodged went cyan, or the other way around - it's been awhile).

And you can do neat things that are nearly impossible in the darkroom, like burning in just the shadows (makes cracks in rocks more dramatic, or brings up textures without changing fundamental tonality).

IOW, you have more control to make a print that is a better match to your artistic vision, with digital printing. Color and B&W.

[Ken Allen]

Back to the topic of scanning a color neg.
The old Kodak PhotoCD scanners did a great job converting negs to a good color balanced image, even if the scans were limited by the CCD's of the day. Since Kodak (or the others) do not provide their proprietary film terms or imaging technology to other companies, few scanners do well at automatically converting negatives to a positive image.

I am experienced at color correcting so I do all of the transformations manually. I get much better quality this way, but you it will not work for everyone.

First, I make a raw scan of the negative as a positive. You can adjust the global white and black point to eliminate some of the dataless area, but you do not gain anything by doing that in the scanner verses in Photoshop. When you set the scanner to 16bit per/channel and positive scan, that's all the scanner can give you (not addressing multiscanning). I also scan at the best (debatable) resolution possible. Some scanners like the 4990 I have not seen and improvement from 4800ppi Vs. 2400 ppi on a 4x5. On the Imacon the highest natural resolution is definately gives you more information than a lower resolution setting on that scanner. I scan for the purpose of archiving, so I always go high res, but if your goals are different you may want to scan just at the resolution you need for the applicaiton.

I then open the image in Photoshop for the remainder of the work:

The second step, is to Invert the image, this is a linear transform and is easily reversed... just in case you want to see what the original negative looked like. I actually do this some times to show various degradions on historic negatives.

The third step is to make a new curves (or levels) layer adjustment correcting for the overall contrast... coarsely. I may use the black eyedropper to set the base to black, somtimes I will find an area in the image... it's a matter of judgment. I hardly ever use the white eye dropper to set the white point, I usaully make this adjustment manually and gloablly to all channels.

For the fourth step I often downsample and save a "sized" version at this point, sinced I scanned at a higher than currently needed resoultion. This makes the editing go faster and many of the edits I'm going to make can be reverse applied to the master file when I'm done.

Step number five! Since this is a copy file now, I'm a lot looser about making permanent changes, so I merge the first curves layer that had my global contrast correction.

Step six, create a new curves adjustment layer for fine tuning. I do look for reference areas (skin tones, neutrals, skies) to watch the numbers and make sure I'm on track, but otherwise I adjust visually (calibrated monitor) to get a pleasing color corrected image. I may try this several times creating different versions of color correction. Each time I make a new adjustment layer, title the layer, and I end up with several layer adjustments that I can click on and off to see which one I like best.

Optional step: make a scan using the best negative setting on the scanner and compare to your correction. Yours should be better, mine (usually) are.

Note: there are lots/too many tips and tricks to get this right depending on the image. Give it a try.

I know there is another positing somewhere that provides a similar process with illustrations and everything. Con't find the link right now.

[Al Seyle]

Thank you everyone for your generous informative replies. Looks like I will be changing plans and probably go with having some drum scans made. It's just hard to find labs that will and are good at scanning from color neg.

[julian]

Thank you everyone for your generous informative replies. Looks like I will be changing plans and probably go with having some drum scans made. It's just hard to find labs that will and are good at scanning from color neg.

this guy http://www.precision-drum-scanning.co.uk/

does Cookes 8x10 colour neg scans.

[Jeffrey Sipress]

Good info from Bruce and others. Drum scans are required if anyone is to try this comparison. What has not received enough mention here is that once a good scan is acheived, the control you have over your image by using computer image editing software is so far beyond what you can do in a darkroom, that even if you are a loupe-using inkjetdot hunter, the image itself will just be so much better if edited to ones own desires. To me, that's what makes the new processes worth it.