Cibachrome vs Digital Prints

[Kirk Gittings]

If you ever get a chance to see a b/w inkjet print from Richard Lohman http://www.richardlohmann.com/ or tom mallonee http://www.tommallonee.com/ do so.. they are masters of both craft and art with inkjets (richard was a very very good platinum printer before moving to inkjet

I would add to that extraordinary list, George DeWolfe

[poco]

The whole "spit out by a computer" rhetoric comes from people who haven't worked with the process.

I spent 7 months of 4-6 hour days printing my first show on an Epson last year, so spare the presumptuous, arrogant shit about knowing who has or hasn't "worked the process."

[paulr]

I spent 7 months of 4-6 hour days printing my first show on an Epson last year, so spare the presumptuous, arrogant shit about knowing who has or hasn't "worked the process."

I'm sorry to have hurt your feelings, poco.

Maybe the distinction is this: some people equate the work of printing with the mechanical acts of burning and dodging, putting sheets of paper in this tray and then that one, etc. etc..

I happen to like doing that stuff, but let's be honest: you could teach a monkey to do it. The skill and the craft--the rewarding part for me--is in determining what the print values aught to be, and finding a way to get them there.

Once that part is done, it doesn't make much difference besides convenience if prints 2 through 10 are made by me slugging it out with trays, or by an assistant doing the same, or by my finger clicking a print dialog box.

I actually like your analogy of walking up the stairs of the empire state building vs. pushing the elevator button. Walking the stairs is good exercise, but not especially interesting. Anyone reasonably fit can do it. It doesn't take the vision and skill of, say, climbing a new route on El Capitan. Given that it's essentially tedious, I'd understand someone pushing the elevator button and saving their time and energy for more rewarding activities.

[Drew Wiley]

Thanks for the links, Kirk. Fun seeing what other people are doing, though the web no substitute for seeing actual prints. Reviewing some of the ancient posts on this
thread I'm a bit amazed at the misinformed stereotypes, especially regarding issues
of permanence and acutance. I've become convinced that most people don't know
how to use an enlarger correctly, or how to enhance apparent acutance with masking (duh - where did the term "unsharp masking" get stolen from in reference
to "sharpening" in the first place?). To this day I've never seen a single digital print
with the kind of detail I expect routinely in a Cibachrome. Again, not a knock on the
digital processes, but an observation of strengths and weaknesses of particular media. Right now I'm goofing around with DT, which is about the last horse to finish
when it comes to fine detail, but the first horse across the line for gamut and sheer
transparent vibrancy of the dyes. (Don't hang those in the sun - won't win there
either!)

[paulr]

I've become convinced that most people don't know
how to use an enlarger correctly, or how to enhance apparent acutance with masking (duh - where did the term "unsharp masking" get stolen from in reference
to "sharpening" in the first place?).

I think those are two separate issues. I think I know how to use an enlarger, but I've never learned how to do unsharp masking. The one person in the world I knew who did this was the graphic artist at the lab where I used to work. She'd work with the ciba printer on some expensive custom jobs (usually ones involving problem chromes). It's such a convoluted operation that I decided to devote my energies to learning how to focus, and to chosing my film and lenses wisely.

To this day I've never seen a single digital print
with the kind of detail I expect routinely in a Cibachrome. Again, not a knock on the
digital processes, but an observation of strengths and weaknesses of particular media..

I'd wager it's an observation on the particular prints you've seen.

[rdenney]

To this day I've never seen a single digital print
with the kind of detail I expect routinely in a Cibachrome.

I agree. I have some Cibas from well-known photographers--prints that impress me deeply--but you are right, their level of detail differs from digital prints. At least at the 16x20 size from 4x5, it appears to me that the digital prints have more.

Rick "calling it like he sees it" Denney

[Greg Lockrey]

I agree. I have some Cibas from well-known photographers--prints that impress me deeply--but you are right, their level of detail differs from digital prints. At least at the 16x20 size from 4x5, it appears to me that the digital prints have more.

Rick "calling it like he sees it" Denney

...((()))...((()))...((()))...

[paulr]

This whole debate of digital vs. cibachrome makes no sense. Cibachrome is a material, digital is a way of working with information ... a print can be one or the other, or neither, or both!

The idea that one of these--digital workflow or the cibachrome material--will ever be the limiting factor in how detailed a print looks, is unlikely.

There will always be some bottleneck in the resolution of fine detail. It will usually be some factor unrelated to what we're talking about here. In my color prints that are printed as inkjets, the bottleneck is my soft negatives (made with a vintage lens). In my black and white 4x5 work, printed small, in silver or in ink, the bottleneck is the human eye.

Taking a step back, it would help to be more specific about "detailed" means. Are we talking about how much detail is visible at normal viewing distance? Or through a loupe? Or are we talking about image clarity and sharpness ... the subjective qualities that most people are really talking about. These issues are only slightly related to each other. I've seen prints that resolve over 40 lp/mm (visible through a loupe), which look muddy and soft under normal viewing. And digital prints that are Nyquist-limited to 14 lp/mm that have better sharpness and clarity than a contact print made from the same negative.

[Drew Wiley]

You need to compare apples to apples. A lot of transparencies are sharper than they
were twenty or thirty years ago. My own prints are a lot sharper than they were then too. Paper is simply incapable of holding the same level of fine detail as polyester. I am friends with some of the best of the best in digital printing - really
nitpicky types who charge serious money for their advice. And I live in the epicenter
of this kind of technology. I also have friends who have invested literally millions in
the very best of both optical and digital equipment (I'm talking enlargers in the six
figure range, and digital equipment far more expensive than that). They'd strongly
take my side in this question, because they know the limits of both approaches. I'd have to flip the coin over, and bet that you've never seen a really good Ciba. Beautiful prints can be done either way - I don't really care, but no sense prolonging a misconception either.

[paulr]

Are you talking about detail that can be seen with a loupe or with the naked eye?

If you're talking about a loupe, then I have no doubt that ciba would be a bit better than standard glossy paper and quite a bit better than cotton art paper.

But all these substrates can show finer detail than anyone can see with the naked eye. This can easily be demonstrated theoretically or with a simple hands-on test. Which means that differences in perceived sharpness are a factor of contrast at specific spatial frequencies ... easy to control with software, interesting to control with traditional masks!