BW inkjet print quality

[Tom Westbrook]

Why would you use an inkjet print of a fine art black & white image for exhibition? I've only seen one show where this was done--Craig Blacklock's Voice Within about 3 months ago--and I was pretty unimpressed with the print quality. The blacks were not black, which pretty much killed the specular highlights. Those prints were made "using PiezoTone, Carbon Sepia inks on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag paper (a matte-surface, fine art paper)". I thought it was a joke he was asking >$1,000 each for those prints (they were 22"x28" ). I don't mean to bash Blacklock here, since I think the pictures themselves were quite good and I did buy the book.

I'm no luddite, but I would think people would want to show their work to best advantage. Did Blacklock pick the wrong printer, do people like weak prints, or does the emperor have no clothes here?

[Edward (Halifax,NS)]

Why would you use platinum, or albumin or any other media? He likes it and many others do to. I am sure that before a picture goes up it looks exactly the way he wants it. You may not like it but then again the one time I saw a Sally Mann pic I wasn't very empressed either. Maybe he will print them again differently in the future like Adams did. Adams' prints seemed to get darker and more contrasty as he aged. When I looked at the book "Adams at 100" I would have to say I hated many of the early prints of his more famous pictures. Many others disagree.

[Frank Petronio]

Funny, the first time I saw a Platinum print I thought the same thing.

Different media has different qualities. When was the last time you saw any print on uncoated artist's paper carry the dense blacks of a toned silver print? Look at Weston's blacks - he found an extra set of blacks on his originals - no repro ever gives them justice.

Maybe black and white inkjets will find their place - more "atmospheric" images and such - but even my stock 2200 lays down a nice rich matte black on matte paper. I never could do that in the darkroom. But you are absolutely right - it does a lousy job at emulating selenium toned Seagull.

[Brian Ellis]

I haven't seen the exhibit so I can't comment on the prints. However, people in a group with which I'm connected have often shown "before" and "after" versions of the same black and white photographs, "before" being the darkroom version and "after" being the ink jet. The ink jets were usually better. I can certainly understand someone preferring darkroom prints for various reasons and some people do both, but I wouldn't condemn all ink jet prints on the basis of one exhibit.

Since ink jet prints aren't yet highly regarded by museums, galleries, collectors.etc. (and may never be because of the ease of reproduction) I think ink jet printing will be a boon to those who continue with darkroom printing as darkroom prints become more and more rare ("wow, look at that honey, it's a real photograph made the way they used to make them in the old days"). If I made any significant money selling prints I'd certainly still be in the dakroom or at least doing both.

[Tom Westbrook]

I'm not sure the "it's a different media" arguement washes for all pictures. I'd think you'd want to at least pick images that take advantage of the strengths and avoid the weaknesses of the medium being used.

The landscape elements of his pictures bothered me most and seemed to just look weird in some pictures--especially the ones of the huge icicles, which looked especially dull. The skin tones were quite lovely, though, and the pictures where the landscape was fairly low in contrast, which is true of the majority of them, worked the best. I wonder if, in Blacklock's case, since he's always done color before, that he just went with the inkjets since that's what he was doing for color prints.

I'll presume from your comments that there isn't a headlong rush to convert all exibition work to inkjet. That's what I find a disturbing possibility.

[Ken Lee]

Inkjet Prints - "born to fade".

[Bruce Watson]

Sounds like your mind is made up after seeing one show. I say that because of the way you frame your question - Did Blacklock pick the wrong printer, do people like weak prints, or does the emperor have no clothes here? Clearly, you are coming from the perspective that inkjet prints are somehow "bad." This is an assumption that I don't share.

Most people I run into that have your attitude are making the mistaken assumption that inkjet prints are just wanna-be silver gelatin prints. But that's not the case, just as it is not the case for any of the myriad other alternative processes. Every media has its own strengths and weaknesses. The artist chooses the media that works best for the artist. If the viewer likes it, fine. If the viewer doesn't like it, fine.

And you don't like it. Which is fine. I personally don't like the limitations of silver gelatin prints. Which is also fine. To each, his own.

[David Luttmann]

Ken,

Your "Born to Fade" comment is rubbish. The latest carbon pigment inks on good paper have been tested to in excess of 100 years. I think that is quite satisfactory....don't you?

[Kirk Gittings]

For an upcoming retrospective show this coming fall I have decided to redo many of my vintage silver prints in inkjet. I have not seen the show mentioned above, but I have definitely seen some beautiful inkjet prints. Inkjet is different with its own character, not necessarily better. And I agree with the person above, I have seen awful shows in platinum and silver also. I saw a silver Sally Mann show that I thought was trash.

Working digitally allows me to solve certain problems in Photoshop that I could not begin to traditionally. I may not always print inkjet though after this show. This is just one phase in what I anticipate is a very long journey. I am also very interested in digitally enlarged negatives to be printed on silver, platinum or whatever. Dick Arentz is doing platinum this way as we speak. But the learning curve is long and steep and this is just the first phase.

[Ken Lee]

"The latest carbon pigment inks on good paper have been tested to in excess of 100 years. I think that is quite satisfactory....don't you?"



They seem to be making excellent progress - that's great. I presume that the tests were performed under "normal" lighting conditions. It's unlikely that anyone left the prints out in the Arizona sun for a few months.



Meanwhile, I have read that platinum prints will endure as long as the paper on which they are printed: five hundred to one thousand years.



I have silver-based photographs of my ancestors which were passed on to me, and which I intend to pass on to my descendants. It's delightful that they are in excellent shape, and will probably stay that way. I hope that some of my "fine art" images and family portraits will be appreciated in the same way, for just as long.