Have never moved to digital scanning, still enlarge my negatives, have no desire to change!
Have never moved to digital scanning, still enlarge my negatives, have no desire to change!
Originally Posted by Randy Moe
And if it comes from an 8x10 (or 11x14) contact print... a damn sharp thing
I do a bit of both. Sometimes I make a way better silver print than inkjet and I'm thinking either I'm a bad inkjet printer, or silver printing is really that awesome. Sometimes what I have in mind for an end product/object works better inkjet printed. Sometimes alt-process is better than either.
The downside for darkroom printing is dust is better prevented than corrected. Keeping the darkroom clean prevents that issue for me. Silver printing takes longer, at least for someone who is good at inkjet printing. If you are super fussy, you may spend an hour printing/processing/drying test strips to get the exposure and contrast absolutely perfect before making a certain print. I figure costs are pretty similar. Photo paper is a bit more expensive than inkjet paper, but chemicals are much cheaper than ink.
To start, get a contact frame for contact printing, trays & chemicals. Be a rebel and skip the Gralab 300 timer and go for a used 451 timer.
An enlarger is a very good light source for contact prints, though anything will do. I use a color enlarger so that I may adjust contrast at the light source. If a photo looks nice in silver gelatin output, a contact print is unmatched.
I am very comfortable with computers and feel archival pigment inkjet has proven itself. But sometimes after dealing with computers all day, I go home and talk to my Epson printer and say, "are you going to print tonight or just make whirring noises for an eternity and ask for the paper to be reloaded?" while thinking about a scene from Office Space. There are certainly frustrations in the darkroom too, but it's more relaxing and magical.
Oh my goodness, am I bored with that. Do the engineers at Epson not use their creations? Sheesh.
So as to not drag this thread off-topic. Sometimes I wet-print. Sometimes I digi-print. Sometimes I alt-print (salt this last weekend, mean to get back to carbon one of these days). Seems to me it's just a matter of selecting the right tool for the desired outcome, and a question of whether you enjoy a particular process or not...
Robert
Yeah ! I've seen your salt in Flickr... great !!!
Long way to go, Pere, but...thanks. :-)
Robert
Well, I've to say that hybrid process is very straight, what is done with few mouse clicks may need a lot of work and an skilled printer in the darkroom.
To print optical copies one must know very well how to obtain a suitable negative, this is part of the big game.
If not... dodging, burning, SCIM+CRM is often needed. It's a lot of work and paper waste. Also it happens that the final result is very rewarding.
And that's precisely the point.
Any first grader can make computer prints.
- Leigh
If you believe you can, or you believe you can't... you're right.
Yes... but for an skilled photographer or artist hybrid also offers a great degree of control, he can bring the image to the point he wants with little effort and try more things, but he still needs a criterion for that.
But Ansel Adams did not need those modern tools to be the great one. What I mean is that tools have only relative importance, IMHO.
Lately I've been exploring Alan Ross (and others) way to use a laser printer to print SCIM/CRM maks. Well, at the end we can perform a pure analog workflow or some technology crossover...
I think it's a personal choice.
Even the best digital prints are limited by the technology (scanner in your case). I have never seen an inkjet print that is better than the best wet print, either b&w or color, and that includes many high level digital prints, gallery shows, etc.
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