View Camera article - platinum on digital prints.

[mark blackman]

I got the latest addition on Monday (I'm in London). The new Copy Editor is clearly doing their job - well done!
I was intriged by the article about Jim Collum use of Platinum over digital prints. This may seem like a very simple question & I do not want to be rude to Jim, but I don't get what he felt he was getting by doing the platiunum print on top of the CYM print? does the platinum layer give blacker blacks than can be achieved with laser/light jet methods?

[Jack Flesher]

Having been lucky enough to see some of Jim's Platinum/Pigment work in person, including many of the images from his trip to Cambodia, I can tell you they contain awesome blacks, tremendous detail and the colors -- while not highly saturated -- do contain a fantastic range of subtle hues. I suspect these "soft" qualities are difficult to replicate with traditional magazine printing processes, and even as high a quality publication as VC is, the images in the article did not really represent the originals very well.

He has posted a few of these images online at www.collum.omniblog.com (Scroll down a bit). While they still don't do full justice to the Pigment/Platinum originals, they do get closer and you can better understand the effect.

Cheers,

[Jim collum]

Good question (and not rude at all). There's a difference in depth of an image done with just platinum and an inkjet quad tone. The platinum image seems to come from beneath the paper's surface (which it does). Not all images work in this process, one of the images in the article is a scan of an inkjet image. For this image, the color needs to be bolder, blacks, blacker, for it to work. The other images are about subtlies, and the muted color of inkjet on watercolor paper, and platinum works for them.

I'm always torn about the display of images. I'm a print person. Most of my images are about detail, texture, and because I shoot in very low contrast light, subtlties in tone. These come across in a physical print. There's a tactile interaction between the viewer and the print that doesn't come across on the web, and even magazine publications. This interaction defines part of the quality of some images.

jim

[robert_4927]

Jim, Is your process a develope out process with pt/pd and then you are printing over it with an inkjet? What I mean is, are you actually making a Pt/Pd print to finish and then printing it again by adding ink over top of the already printed image?

[Jim collum]

I use the Ziatype process, which is a printing out process. I print the color layer onto the paper first, using an inkjet. Because it's uncoated and the colors have been stripped of the K layer (CMYK conversion), the colors end up being very subdued.

[Jim collum]

i added an entry at collum.omniblog.com that shows what the two parts look like for one of the images in the article

[mark blackman]

Thank you for replying Jim. I supose the nub of my question is: you must have tried purely digital printing before making the decision to use this process. Which one's did you try & why did you dismiss them?

[Jim collum]

I still do print inkjet monochrome and color images. It all really depends on the image itself. Imageprint by Colorbyte is an excellent program (need to use the newer 2200/2400/7600/7800/9600/9800 Epson prints to really get monochrome from it). A less expensive, but excellent quality RIP is Roy Harrington's Quad tone rip harrington.com/QuadToneRIP.html .

Dedicated quad tones from Cone Editions are also excellent, if you don't want to use the Epson inks.

[Pete Watkins]

How do you get View Camera magazine in the U.K.? PETE

[steve simmons]

To get View Camera in the UK contact

sales@robertwhite.co.uk