Viewing distance-digital vs.silver prints

[tim atherton]

darn - souldn't read the list so late at night - read Imagepritn for Studioprint... when I know full well it's Studioprint that runs with the Peizo stuff!

[chris jordan]

I still use the Epson drivers and Bill Atkinson's profiles for color, but I've seen some amaaaaaaazing B&W prints with some of the new RIP's you guys are talking about; far better than what Bill's profiles can create. My experience generally with the newer Epsons is that they can print everything that's in my file-- film grain and all.

I'm still trying to figure out "YMMV". Yo Mama Moves Vaccuums?

[Kirk Gittings]

Great replies, I learned much from the discussion. I had a feeling there would be many points of view.

I'm one of those guys who takes a 8x loupe to an exhibition. Such as the "Ansel at 100" when it was at the Art Institute of Chicago. I made the guards very nervous. I like prints to be beautiful on a micro level also and many of Ansel's are.

I also went to an exhibition of another friend of mine when I was considering getting into digital darkroom. He had a show of platinum prints from digitally enlarged Imagesetter negatives in Santa Fe. I took my loupe to that show too (much to his chagrin) and I hated the "offset" look to the dot pattern that I saw. I ruled out Imagesetter negs. at that point.

I believe (and maybe I am nuts) that I can see a slight difference in the 2880 dpi prints. I use a Epson 4000 with Imageprint and am currently experimenting with the Ultrsmooth fine Art paper. They seem slightly richer to me at 2880 like a silver print made on a paper with a hair more silver in it or the difference in developing a silver print for 5 minutes instead of four. They are slightly deeper and richer. If only I can see it so be it. I've always believed that an artists standards should exceed their clients. That way you only have to worry about your own expectations.

Then again...........

[JanE]

May I use the opportunity to ask a possibly silly question; Where exact do you see the differences between, say Bill Atkinson profiles and the Epson own profiles?
I've tried both, and get decent results with both, depending on your monitor settings.

The big question is, which way gives the most out in tonal separation for true photographic work?

Thank's, Jan, Finland.

[julian_4860]

One of the problems with BW digi printing is that there is no ICC standard, so you can't profile. All you can do is linearise the rip so that the inks lays down in a uniform manner. If you use a rip to get a fair comparison, you need to linearise the inks for each resolution AND make a new softproof for each res too. Differences in tonality could well be IMO the need for a new softproof. And you need to do this for each paper too. One of the benefits of the latest Piezo (the one that doesn't need a rip) is that Jon Cone has come some way to devising a 'standard'

[Glenn Kroeger]

Chris:

Your mileage may vary.

[paulr]

"Analog prints can't be any sharper than your original film; in fact, they can never be made as sharp as the original film because of the inherent character of the optical enlargement process. "

this might be academic, since I don't know anyone with the patience to put it use, but unsharp masking is (originally) an analog process.
so it's not that you can't sharpen analag; it's just that you probably won't.

[Kirk Gittings]

I just did some test prints on premium luster paper with the ImagePrint to look at this issue, one printed 1440 4 pass HS, one 1440 8 pass HS and one 2880 HS through image print all with the balck point set at 50%. While it is true that the dot differnce is all but invisible with all of them, there is a distinct difference in the look of all of them. As someone said before they each lay down ink very differently. The 1440 4 pass seems to have the deepest blacks, then the 8pass is abit thinner in the blacks but smoother tone overall, then the 2880 which has the most open and lightest shadows and incredibly smooth tone overall, but a "thin" feel to the inks.

The one I now like the best with this print at least is 1440 8 pass with the black point setting at 0 to deepen the blacks a bit.