How do you describe ink jet process

[Vaughn]

I guess I can only speak for myself, but when I am making a print I am very precise about what I want it to look like. Variations from print to print during a printing session are not desirable.

When I was making silver gelatin prints, I was of the same opinion as you. Absolutely no defects, identical printing (though after a year or so I would have a hard time differentuating between the final prints and the few I rejected as not be spot-on.) But I never kept printing notes. The next time I printed the image (a rare thing for me to do, anyway) I wanted to approach the negative from a fresh viewpoint -- one that took advantage of new things I have seen, learned and felt.

When I began to make hand-made prints (as opposed to machine made photo paper) it was liberating to be able to accept a certain level of "defects" -- the hand of the artist in the work, so to speak (or literally when a beard hair gets in the gelatin! )

I have come to look at each print I make as its own piece of art -- not just a reproduction of an original idea. But for the most part, most people would still have a hard time seeing any difference between the prints.

Vaughn

[Paul Kierstead]

... William Crawford's book, The Keepers of Light: A History and Working Guide to Early Photographic Processes, ... "If we print the same negative on albumen paper, on platinum paper, and on modern resin-coated paper, we will end up with three distinctly different objects."

In which case the printing process determines some of the visual content, which is hardly surprising. So, we should pick a process that matches our desired visual content. That still doesn't elevate process beyond anything more then a tool, just like a viewfinder.

[Lenny Eiger]

Perhaps I have misunderstood you again. I am trying to process what you mean. Sidney makes true carbon transfer prints, but the prints that you pull from an inkjet printer are every bit as homemade as his? I don't think so!!

I suggest you read it before wasting any more of my time arguing that what you do in making inkjet prints is in the same league of homemade as making real carbon transfer print.
Sandy King

OK,OK, you and Don - don't bite my head off. This is a 10 page thread. I'm busted - I didn't read fully, or read it too quickly. My apologies. I thought Sidney was just one more fellow who thinks that darkroom prints are the only results that are "real" photography. I know what carbon prints are, I used to teach non-silver processes, live and breathe by Crawford's book - and I have plenty of respect for them and the process.

On the other hand, I do believe that the result is more important ultimately than the process. If a carbon print is what one must do to express one's vision, then a carbon print it must be. However, I am sure you have seen carbon prints you didn't like - because you didn't like the image. It all has to work together.

I do rail against the idea that one just sort of gets it ok on the monitor and then a great print just magically appears out of the printer. I think sensitive printing in any of the mediums, from darkroom prints to alternative processes to inkjet, is a matter of the eyes, and one's ability to develop that sensitivity. I think its just as hard in any medium one chooses.

Lenny

[JBrunner]

In which case the printing process determines some of the visual content, which is hardly surprising. So, we should pick a process that matches our desired visual content. That still doesn't elevate process beyond anything more then a tool, just like a viewfinder.

Precisely. The name of the process doesn't elevate anything. It is merely meant to be descriptive. The gist of the OP was to find a fancy name for a well made inkjet print in an attempt to elevate it from more mundane prints made by the same process.

Silver gelatin, carbon etc. are not fancy names, the are simply accepted descriptions of a particular process. An accurate description that everyone understands takes or gives nothing to the content of a print, as that is a separate, and possibly more important issue.

Never the less, if the print is to be described, it should be done accurately, rather than with an affectation.

Everyone understands "inkjet" including most lay people. That a very strong indication that the prints should be called "inkjet" or more specifically "pigment inkjet" or "carbon inkjet". The point is that then everybody knows exactly what we are talking about, and that is all the words need to accomplish.

[Greg Miller]

Everyone understands "inkjet" including most lay people.

The problem is that lay people equate "inkjet" with the $50 printer they buy at Staples. They have no knowledge of the state of the art pro level inkjet printers. Which results in an incorrect perception of what they are viewing. That's why people here try to add other adjectives to help differentiate their product.

Using "inkjet" as a descriptor for high end collectors is not a problem because they should already have an understanding of what "inkjet" means.

[Paul Kierstead]

Everyone understands "inkjet" including most lay people. That a very strong indication that the prints should be called "inkjet" or more specifically "pigment inkjet" or "carbon inkjet". The point is that then everybody knows exactly what we are talking about, and that is all the words need to accomplish.

The crux of the inkjet discussion (which is not really the only discussion underway here) is that not all of us are convinced that everyone understands "inkjet". The word comes with baggage; it is not just a literal word, but it has context. Just read through some of the threads here and you will see a wide range of misconceptions about the process, and the results. Maybe in the end, when people see enough inkjet prints to sway their opinion, the name will have more credibility but for the moment, it often does not, especially with the public at large, who think of their crappy HP deskjet at home. I expect this is less of a problem for gallery display, where they see the result before they see the process label, but recent results concerning peoples preference for specifications tells us that they will like something with better "specs" even in the face of poor results; they consider inkjets to have poor specs, just like a goodly chunk of the folks here.

[Bruce Watson]

A quality factor I personally like about 'non-ink jets':
Hand made.

Hand made? What about a silver gelatin print is hand made? Certainly not the paper itself as that's all done with high precision machines. Certainly not the coating(s), that's done with extremely high precision machines. Certainly not the chemicals, even those workers who make their own developers are using base chemicals from a chemical supplier. For those using enlargers, not too many darkroom workers make their own, and certainly not their own enlarger lenses and light sources.

Hand made? I don't think so. The bottom line here is that there is precious little of the artist's hand in a typical silver gelatin print.

Having done both silver gelatin and inkjet fairly extensively I can say with certainly that if you want more of my hand in a print, you want an inkjet print.

I spend considerably more time on the inkjet print because digital manipulation allows me greater control. I can control fairly exactly my dodges and burns digitally where with darkroom work dodging and burning are more gross controls. I can make intricate contrast masks that are beyond anything I could do in the darkroom. I can dither around with unsharp masks until I get it exactly right where in the darkroom I'd settle for good enough (or go insane).

I can do more digitally, and this results in my spending more time working the image. The reward for putting more into it is that I get more out of it; I get an image that more closely matches my vision than I was ever able to get from the silver gelatin process.

My inkjet prints are more "hand made" than my silver gelatin prints ever were. That's a fact.

[JBrunner]

The problem is that lay people equate "inkjet" with the $50 printer they buy at Staples. They have no knowledge of the state of the art pro level inkjet printers. Which results in an incorrect perception of what they are viewing. That's why people here try to add other adjectives to help differentiate their product.

Using "inkjet" as a descriptor for high end collectors is not a problem because they should already have an understanding of what "inkjet" means.

Silver gelatin also exactly describes the things churning out of my high school darkroom, many of which have serious conceptual, technical, quality, and archival issues, but I still call my prints done by the same process by that name. Should I call them "Activated Silver Bromide on Byrata" so they have the "correct" perception? If the execution of a particular process is excellent, it need make no apologies or subterfuge in being what it is. My five year old does watercolors. He has yet to be confused with Winslow Homer.

[Greg Miller]

Silver gelatin also exactly describes the things churning out of my high school darkroom, many of which have serious conceptual, technical, quality, and archival issues. If the execution of a particular process is excellent, it need make no apologies or subterfuge in being what it is. My five year old does watercolors. He has yet to be confused with Winslow Homer.

But lay people have no preconception of silver gelatin. So the term does not skew their perception. They can see the print with an unprejudiced eye. Lay people that see "inkjet" will have see the print with a skewed perception because of their association of the word with the $50 model at Staples..

[David A. Goldfarb]

For many decades, photographic prints of any sort weren't taken very seriously either. For inkjets to be more widely accepted, perhaps the medium has to pay its dues and circulate in the market for a while, rather than trying to confuse the market by borrowing terminology in a misleading way from existing processes.