An interesting approach - revolutionary?

[paulr]

Paul ..... except photogravures ....

Ha ... yeah, I mentioned that to my friend when she was done with her rant. She grudgingly accepted gravures.

[David A. Goldfarb]

As for the issue of identifying the method as well as the material of the print, I saw some digital Ilfochromes at the Art Institute of Chicago a couple of days ago that were referred to as something like "Digital Dye Bleach Prints," so they are marking the distinction at least in some cases. There were some large C-prints up that were labeled "chromogenic prints" that could have been Lambda or Lightjet, but weren't designated as such.

I saw prints from the current version of the DeVere about a year ago, and up to about 20x24" they look pretty good. The attraction over LightJet/Lambda/Chromira is that they can be used with any paper. You could tell though which came from a DSLR original, because the DOF characteristics of the smaller sensor and the plasticky smooth grainless visual textures.

There is a headshot lab in New York that has two of them, and this seems like the perfect application for this method. They need to produce 8x10's (well within the enlargement range), with text superimposed (easier with digital than stripping in), in batches of 100 prints usually (much faster with roll paper easel and wet processing than by inkjet or even ganged on a LightJet, I suspect, and for the cost of a LightJet, you could buy a few DeVeres).

[Norm Buchanan]

A darkroom print is no more one of a kind than a digitally printed one.....it's just that the adjustments for the print are made at a different part of the process.

If I take the original digital Raw file or film scan and make my adjustments each time I make a print....then a digital print will be one of a kind as well.

The point is that you CAN make identical reproductions with digital work flow. It is not really possible to do this with an analog flow, although I'm sure some people will argue otherwise.

[Ben R]

I used to manage a 1 hour lab, with the automated (analog)minilab machine I could make identical reproductions from a neg time after time with the press of a button. Pretty much sure that this is not what you meant though Norm.. :-)

That said I've had a very difficult colour neg hand printed to a large size where the pro LAB tech made me multiple copies because it was such a pain to do, each was truly identical though if I'd had it done again a year later they would not have been of course. Could it be that your generalisation is more aimed at hand printed B&W prints?