Tmax400 (TMY-2)
Tri-X Pro (320TXP)
Still sounds half-baked compared to what properly equipped repro-print houses do around here for famous-name images. But I also know what they charge, which
really needs to be discussed is astronomical terminology. I also know what I once charged to do copy and repro work on small scale, which would have been unrealistic for any project this size but did deliver exceptional quality.
No they are using a LVT recorder using most likely FP4 on 8 x10 sheet and if smart include a grey scale.
A lightjet is an image setter that indeed can make fibre prints, but no one to my knowledge is making film off these large image setters other than my shop or shops with a LVT Recorder.
Two very different animals - the LVT has been around since the early 90's and people are still using them, you can make, silver negs, C41 negs or Transparancies.
the Lambdas and Lightjets are from about a 4-5 year time difference, and they indeed can make stunning silver gelatin prints, and have the potential for negative.
We are using a Lambda for making direct silver film which cannot be put in an enlarger, but the good thing is we can make the film to final size for beautiful contact prints.
We are also making Fiber silver direct prints from any source originals and these prints are extremely sharp and rival enlarger prints.
Originally Posted by StoneNYC
Bob, you should look up Jim Browning, who made his own 8x10 film recorder. But since he was the key engineer behind the Chromira for ZBE you might be prejudiced. Don't be. He had nothing to do with the business side or warranty fall-out.
Tha Salgado's team seriously estimated Durst Lambda, pretty nice prints with barited. At the end they concluded that beyond 50x60cm it was better for them to print a 4x5 Delta 100 negative with the LTV Rhino (in fact 4 images in a 8x10) and printing with the enlarger, it "looked" sharper, (Bachelier said) I guess that if the viewer see it at reading distance it is perceived the more.
(LightJet is used by Ilford Lab Direc, beyond 10"...)
I understand... sometimes you print ULF cuts (FP4 I guess) and then make a contact print...
Note my contact above (Jim B.) who uses exclusively TMX for recorder purposes, for very logical reasons, which I happen to know but don't care to get in an argument about here. Why anyone would choose Delta instead (even over FP4) bewilders me. Yeah, you can torture and reshape the curve digitally, sorta. Maybe
someone cut them a deal on it.
Not half-baked, Taschen there... I think that was not about cost, I guess that an additional reason to make optical enlargements was to sell prints to collectors.
I can understand trying to kill two birds with one stone: a LOT of images to catalog or post, with a secondary application of selling repro prints. But it would make
more sense to select out that relatively limited number likely to sell in print and more seriously handle those with a better technique. Collectors don't want copies
anyway, but the real deal. Otherwise, I call em posters, fancy or not, and not prints.
Pere
I know quite a bit about this topic, actually my Lab was the first lab world wide to make fiber base mural prints via a Lambda. This was 2002 four years before Ilford introduced their product. Many labs that have taken on this approach have failed due to good technicians- Picto being a classic case as well a well known lab in California that basically low balling the product.
You are speaking second generation (Bachelier said) right now on this thread or quoting other peoples words. I would really trust my own eyes since I am one of 10 labs doing this and not speaking from second hand knowledge. Kind of like he said - she said.
I have seen these LVT neg to prints and though good they not as sharp, by a long shot as a direct Lambda print. Remember you are going to a second generation original, and putting it through enlarging optics.
No I do not use FP4 cut then make a contact print, I am working off rolls of Ortho 25 for this purpose .
Bob
Drew is he doing this commercially? as Jim has a good name in the industry.
Larry G here does LVT and also a dude out of New Rochelle NY both members here who know these machines very well.
There are
His business is Digital Mask, and it seems most of his income comes from big display transparencies printed on his own Chromira (which he has the ability to maintain and repair himself). But as many already know, he is also a key player in the revival of dye transfer printing and offers recorder-output separation negs for this purpose, along with various other special lab services. The German couple are doing it completely differently - scan directly to blue-laser exposure of the matrices, but via the headache of having to own multiple laser devices for the sake of spare parts, official service of those having been discontinued long ago too. It's all quite interesting, even though I still do everything myself old-school, strictly darkroom. I could hypothetically understand copy work of b&W PRINTS being done with Delta due to its upswept curve. But back when I sometimes did that kind of thing myself, I too used dedicated ortho film.
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