Traditional B&W prints from digital input

[Jeffrey Sipress]

Greg is correct. A silver printing process will only produce a great print of an image that is well made and prepared. In fact, ANY printing process will do that. It's interesting to me, since this process is the opposite of what I do (and many others these days). I start with film and print digitally, except for the ocassional Chromira print, which is what's essentially being discussed in this thread.

[tim atherton]

However, IMO, some of the prints didn't look so great to me. Some still had the tell tale signs I see in the shadows of digital output prints. The very subtle areas in the darkest shadows that have kept me away from digital output of my B&W work.

It is very possible that it is not the output itself however, but the file scan and prep of the digital file that yielded what I saw. In addition, these prints I refer to may not be prints made at Elevator.

Maybe Bob could comment on the ratio of traditional vs digital print output at the Elevator showing.

yep - there are so many variables. For example (and all other things being equal - i.e. excellent scans etc), working from scanned LF negs, I often find I can get much more shadow detail - if that's what I want - when that is output digitally (usually inkjet) than from an enlarger print. Of course it's also possible to get carried away with that and push it too far and end up showing the crud in the shadows - stuff you probably wouldn't get that deep to see in a darkroom print.

And if the original input is digital rather than analogue - then it's a whole different set of criteria.

I had test prints done with the old Agfa (I think) paper set-up on the Lambda Bob had, and they were pretty damned good. And that was with a paper that wasn't designed for the laser process at all.

[Brian Ellis]

Greg is correct. A silver printing process will only produce a great print of an image that is well made and prepared. In fact, ANY printing process will do that.

Actually no printing process will produce a great print unless the person making it is a great printer.

This incessant emphasis on the equipment used to make prints can occasionally become very annoying (to me at least). People talk about what they see in "digital prints" as though there's a generic thing called "digital print" that exhibits certain fixed, immutable characteristics attributable solely to the equipment used to produce it. If people blamed film and darkrooms on every crappy "traditional" print that exists we'd all still be doing Daguerreotypes.

[Richard M. Coda]

I had a few prints made by Bob at Elevator. Some were from negatives (LF & 35mm) that I was trying to salvage because they could not be printed in a darkroom. My photoshop skills are far superior to my darkroom skills (graphic designer by day). Others were from a digital camera. And others were from LF negs that I either wanted to go larger than I can in the darkroom or just wanted to have minute control over certain areas of the image.

Yes, they are expensive. Are they traditional (wet processed by hand in a darkroom after exposure)? I would say yes and if I put them side by side with a darkroom print I defy anyone to tell them apart. See my website and look at Whaler's Cove, Iris, and WTC 1981. I have had those images done this way.

What would the nay sayers say about this scenario? LF neg to start. Drum scan. TOTAL and minute control in photoshop. Output back to a new master silver negative, with all the spotting, burning/dodging, contrast control built in. Enlarged or contact printed in a traditional darkroom. Digital or traditional? There is one well known photographer out there who uses this technique when necessary. He is displayed at one of those "traditional" galleries in Carmel. It's just another tool. If a silver print is what you are after and what you value... does it matter how it was made?

[Eric James]

It's just another tool. If a silver print is what you are after and what you value... does it matter how it was made?

For me, no.

As a participant of the 2006 LF photo exchange, I came to appreciate the traditionalist's appoach. Some of those "analog" BW images are superb and rank among my favorite. Three cheers for the wet process, and may your pulmonologist fail to make her boat payments.

Whether you strive to make silver prints, or your passion is simply BW, the print on the wall is what matters to me. I applaud the companies that are keeping step with the times, and offering progressive alternatives to photographic artists.

Maybe one day soon folks will concur: "these analog to digital BW prints are a vast improvement over the old wet process." I can make that claim today about my color work. Nonetheless, there will always be something special about going to your local shop for supplies, spending an evening in the darkroom, and framing you best traditional print on the wall.

[thomas]

...........

What would the nay sayers say about this scenario? LF neg to start. Drum scan. TOTAL and minute control in photoshop. Output back to a new master silver negative, with all the spotting, burning/dodging, contrast control built in. Enlarged or contact printed in a traditional darkroom. Digital or traditional? There is one well known photographer out there who uses this technique when necessary. He is displayed at one of those "traditional" galleries in Carmel. It's just another tool. If a silver print is what you are after and what you value... does it matter how it was made?

Hello - I'm just getting back into photography after quite a few years absence. I don't have much interest in digital (maybe a little, though) - but your statement in bold interested me. I didn't know that one could make silver negatives from a digital file. How is this done? Can you give a link to more info? (I'm hoping this is something possible in a home darkroom,)

I'll do a google search, but maybe you know a direct line to the information.....

Thanks,

Thomas

[RPNugent]

I believe he is referring to Huntington Witherill. I also think he is a bit off in that it is not a silver negative. Hunter has full contact print size negs produced, but they aren't silver and aren't enlarged. I have seen prints in his house using the enlarged digital negs and the same image printed from the 4x5 silver original neg and I at least can't tell them apart. When I asked him how to tell, he said something along the lines of the perfect ones are the digital ones, if you see minor dodging and burning errors they are from film. Obviously any truly noticable errors ended up in the trash so it was impossible to see a difference.

[thomas]

I believe he is referring to Huntington Witherill. I also think he is a bit off in that it is not a silver negative. Hunter has full contact print size negs produced, but they aren't silver and aren't enlarged. I have seen prints in his house using the enlarged digital negs and the same image printed from the 4x5 silver original neg and I at least can't tell them apart. When I asked him how to tell, he said something along the lines of the perfect ones are the digital ones, if you see minor dodging and burning errors they are from film. Obviously any truly noticable errors ended up in the trash so it was impossible to see a difference.

My quickie Google search turned up making an ink-jet negative on mylar from a digital file, and then printing on silver paper the old-fashioned way, contact or enlargement, but this is not the same obviously. A silver (high-resolution) neg, if that is possible, would answer the (major, to me) problem of really archiving a digital file - by making a "permanent" tangible record. Digital media change faster than hair styles, it seems, and require a continuous upgrading of equipment to keep up with the changes and keep the files accessible in the process.

Besides, a 4x5 b&w negative is beautiful in its own right, anyway!

Thomas

[Gordon Moat]

Try reading up a little on Dan Burkholder. Prior to mostly making contact negatives on inkjet, he used service bureax to produce a high resolution (2400 or 2540 dpi) negative for contact printing. The difference between this and a printing negative is only in preparation, in that there is no line screen, and output is dithered. It really is a negative, and it really is film, but not exactly like taking a photo of something. When you contact print to silver paper from one of these, there is enough diffusion (proper term?) through the negative to smooth the edges of dots on the contact negative, which gives a continuous tone look on the final silver print.

I have seen this method compared to inkjet produced contact negatives, and subjectively it seems better. There are a few downsides, such as cost, and the non-standard approach means the service bureau could get your output wrong (I am not describing all steps, to keep this posting short). A substitute method might be outputing on a laser printer to transparency, or getting a desktop platesetter (sometimes good used prices). Inkjet is lower effective resolution due to higher dot gain, though with some alternative process prints it might be tough to see any difference without a loupe.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio

[Mike Boden]

There's a company in Los Angeles call BowHaus that can make negatives and transparencies from digital files. The process is called LVT and has been around for quite a while. Check it out: http://www.bowhaus.com/services/lvtmain.php4