"I am a good printer. My work is intentional. "
In that case, you do need to do the work in a wet darkroom so that the hand work becomes part of the final print.
I do some work that includes a B&W mask over the transparency. I color the mask using tiny brushes and retouching dyes so that the handstrokes and color are printed into the final print. I developed the technique because I was printing on Ilfochrome glossy material, and I could not make the strokes on the final image without ruining the surface of the print. I have printed the work on an inkjet printer, but I still like the Ilfochromes better as the dichotomy between the altered image (obvious hand strokes) and the pristine, glossy surface enhances the effect.
Believe me, I understand hand work as being an important part of the image. Prior to the work with the masks/transparencies, I hand colored photos using a little known system (now unavailable) using liquid dyes put into a powdered carrier that were then set on the image using steam. This gave a wide range of effects as the dyes were totally transparent, and could be made to give extremely vivid colors down to soft, subtle tints. The colors could be made to show brush strokes or become totally flat by carefully blotting the image using a wadded facial tissue to even out the dye and merge the brush strokes.
"You seem to be imagining an attack against digital that does not exist. "
On the contrary, I'm merely responding to someone who's assigning generalities to a certain type of photographic printing, and apparently expecting people to concur with the generalities.
"Shall we go there, or will you simply admit that you like digital printing - that's your point and stick to it.
We can go there anytime you want. However, I would still like answers to the questions I posed earlier as part of the hyperbole comment. When you can give a clear answer to what the "something" might be that is missing from digital printing - then we can go anywhere you want. I'm trying to understand this, as apparently, I missed this for the past 40 years. I always like to learn new things.
As for liking digital printing - only because it involves ink on paper. I've tried to satisfactorily translate photographic images into ink on paper since 1978, and have never been satisfied until the high-end inkjet printers became available.
To that end I pursued hand lithography in the early 1980's to the point that I was accepted into the master printer program at Tamarind Institute. Like you, not to "get into that bragging thing," but only to make the point that I've pursued ink printing far outside of digital inkjet printing; and I DON'T use inkjet printing because it's easier. I use it because it gives me the means to reach an aesthetic end that I cannot do any other way.
I only work in color at this point, and often with multiple photographs within a single image. This can include "hand work" done in Corel Painter - which is, if anything, more difficult to work with than traditional painting materials as you don't have the tactile feedback (in the form of friction and bristle feel) between the brush tip and the surface.
[i]"By the way that was a very creative job of piecing together a collage of different posts from different people without ascribing credit. Made it sound like John and I were the same person.[i/]
I'm merely responding to points made in this thread. Who said them is not germain to the points I'm trying to make as the quotes are really universal in nature. If you feel somehow slighted, well I can't help that, to quote someone with a deep philisophical bent, "chill out" no one is attacking you personally.
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