Low volumn color printing is expensive. The chemicals have a limited life span and the paper needs refrigeration. I love it anyway and my wedding lab will not do 4x5.
I am slightly into digital as I have 35mm film scanner, flatbed Epson scanner , and a cheap printer.
the Epson was purchased for scanning 4x5 color neg and it has a back light in the lid. Works absolutely great. Photoshop Elements 2 came with both scanners.
The idea was to be able to make proofs between set ups of the color darkroom and also make prints that are difficult in a traditional darkroom such as texture effects, detailed burn and dodging, various other things. I have been sucessful, but the learning curve is long compared to wet. If you can`t get it to work, there is a lot of money spent for nothing.
Wet printing is much easier to learn, but you can do many manipulations more easily with digital.
Another possibility is to scan the neg, do manipulations, and send the file to a laser printing lab via the internet. They don`t care what size the original neg was.
I would recommend Photoshop Elements 2 or 3 as it will perform all manipulations except some very specialised ones, certainly more than you can do in a darkroom.
Last caution, Epson ink cartriges have a limited 6 mo life too. I `m refering to the pigmented colors.
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