Dear All!! I never imagined asking this and it is bordering on the heretical, b ut what sort of print quality can you expect to get from LF black and white nega tives that have been produced via a PC and printer? The reason I ask is that I am toying with the idea of having a go at producing d igital prints....there I've said it now!! (the "D" word!!) How would a digital print compare with a traditional print on (say) multigrade RC paper? Thanks in advance, Paul
It can be incredible. It depends of the resolution of your original scan and the quality of your printer. There is a good book on this called MAKING DIGITAL NEGATIVES by Dan Burkholder. Good Luck! John
Paul, I remember a couple of years ago, my friend showed me an 8x10 sepia toned print that he had made. Judging by the clarity, the amount of detail the print had and the size, I assumed it was an 8x10 contact print. I was shocked to find out that it was actually a digital print that he had made from his 8x10 neg. I think he used an epson inkjet printer and a heidelberg (i think that's how it's spelled) flatbed scanner. I was very impressed at the quality. Unless you used a loupe on the print, you would have never guessed that it was an inkjet. That was a couple of years ago, I am sure the new printers are even better. I haven't gone that route yet but i would imagine that the manipulation process opens incredible possibilities. Who knows...someday the zone system may be calibrated to your scanner instead of your enlarger!
I was able to make an interesting comparison of this sort at the Atget exhibit at the International Center of Photography in New York, which had one Iris print alongside many of Atget's albumen prints and some modern albumen prints from Atget negatives. I would assume that given the standards of the exhibit, this would be the best one could expect of a giclee print.
The Iris print was a very beautiful print, but lacked the rich shadow detail and sharp line of the albumen prints. A friend of mine, also a LF photographer, who was with me, speculated that it might just have to do with the difference between an emulsion that floats on a paper surface and ink that is sprayed into and absorbed by the paper. It looked more like a gum bichromate print than an albumen or silver gelatin print. A glossier surface paper might produce a different effect. I wonder what would happen if you fixed and washed a sheet of conventional photographic paper and printed on that.
With the correct scan and photoshop and the Burkholder book and ideas you can do what you want. You might also check out injetmall.com and the material written by George De Wolfe. Using the Cone editions quadtone approach and an inexpensive epson printer you can produce excellent digital images from your negs also. bob
I have been using digital as a "proofing" procedure for my darkroom prints for about two years now. I use the Minolta Dimage Multi which scans up to 6x9. I don't know what I will use when I go LF. However, I have been extremely pleased with the quaility of the scans and the prints using the Epson 1270 printer. I use Photoshop 6.0. The digital proofs allow me to look at a print before going into the darkroom for FB prints. I know exactly what I want to dodge and burn and the cropping. I will often take digital prints to club meetings for critique. That is the extent of my involvement with digital. I have never seen a digital print that I loved......liked, yes! It is convenient. I seldom shoot color.
Good luck....
Bob
May I suggest you read the Caponigro article in the Jan/Feb View Camera mag?
John Hennessy
Paul -
In Seattle is a company called Ivey-Seright that has a very good reputation for printing digitally - whether on photographic paper or traditionally, color or black & white.
Check out their web site at http://www.ivey.com/.
I've seen some of their color panoramic prints that measure almost 24"x72", and they're beautiful. I believe they were printed on a Durst Lambda, which is a process of exposing photographic paper to a laser. They also do output to Fujix (I think), as well as traditional 4 color work.
Best of luck.
Ciao.
Top class Toyotas, Mitsubishi, Nissan and so on, are great cars but can you compare them to Aston Martin, Ferrari, Jaguars and so on? I mean the fascination of producind a print coming out of the traditional processes cannot be compared to a digital print and not on its rational merits but rather on a complex array of irrational and rational merit. Preservation is an issue here, as it stands any method of protection cannot reach the performance of traditional method. Flying a kite in the space age might look like an anachronism, but if you do that you don't do it to get the effect of flying to the moon but to get the feel of the wind in your hands. Printing pictures is the same. The amost Mystical experience of wiggling you hands under your enlarger to produce the magic of dodging or burning gives you another feeling to it. Other than that, I wonder why should one go take a picture with a camera that has changed very little in the last two hundred years and then produce a negative which is scanned and printed with a nowadays technique! Let's go totally digital then it makes a lot more sense! I don't want to equal the famous Englishman John Lud(I vaguely remember) who started a movement against the introduction of the mechanical steam powered loom, but since we do this mostly for fun......I wonder if this is the right way forward. But I might just be an old .(art)!
While I have not yet embraced the business of digitally printing my negatives, I don't reject the process. I look at it in the same way many painters look at the wide range of tools they have at their disposal. Just because Acrylics and Miscible (sp?) Oils have gained acceptance by modern artists, this doesn't seem to deter others from painting with traditional materials that have been around for hundreds of years like Oils, Egg Tempera, Watercolor, etc. All these various mediums offer many subtle nuances that belong to each of them solely. They each respond differently to the Artist's technique as well. So why not just look at Digital Printmaking as a new medium available to the Photographic Artist? This way, one doesn't eclipse the other, but rather, provides a choice.
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