How do you describe ink jet process

[David Luttmann]

Dave,

The issue is not digital versus analogue. One can reasonably make a case that my prints are digital carbon transfers since nearly all of my printing is done with digital negatives.

To go back and re-work the RAW file for the sole purpose of making a print that is a slight variation from another is somewhat contrived in my opinion. That to me would be like adding brush strokes to the digital file and then printing an inkjet print. Or like deliberately introducing frilling with a carbon transfer print to show that it is a home made prints.

One of the things I have learned with digital controls is, "don't do a thing just because you can do it."

The slight variations that occur in my carbon transfer printing are there not because I am trying to to make them happen, but because they happen in spite of my best efforts to make duplicates. I accept them because the process "is what it is" and "gives what it gives."

Sandy king

Sandy,

While I may agree to a point, it is no more contrived than going to the darkroom to work with the negative each time for print. I am only pointing out that it is silly to make comments that with digital capture or printing that it's only done once and then we spit out the same shot like an assembly line.

As I said, one could treat the Raw file like the negative and go back for each print. The reverse it true as well....I scan the neg once, and then work on it for print. I can go back each time and work with the Raw scan if that somehow makes it more valuable to the person viewing it. I however find that they don't care. They either like the image of not.....whether or not it says Silver Gel, Chromira, Pigment on Bamboo, Lightjet, etc, etc.

Sorry to ramble, but the "one of a kind" thing with Silver Gel is a tired old argument that doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

[sanking]

Maybe someone will develop a random variability plugin for Photoshop. Each time you print on your friendly inkjet printer you run the RVP and it introduces a small variation. I think there is already one of these for clouds, right?



Sandy King

Sandy,

While I may agree to a point, it is no more contrived than going to the darkroom to work with the negative each time for print. I am only pointing out that it is silly to make comments that with digital capture or printing that it's only done once and then we spit out the same shot like an assembly line.

As I said, one could treat the Raw file like the negative and go back for each print. The reverse it true as well....I scan the neg once, and then work on it for print. I can go back each time and work with the Raw scan if that somehow makes it more valuable to the person viewing it. I however find that they don't care. They either like the image of not.....whether or not it says Silver Gel, Chromira, Pigment on Bamboo, Lightjet, etc, etc.

Sorry to ramble, but the "one of a kind" thing with Silver Gel is a tired old argument that doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

[Kirk Keyes]

They have one. It's called the "Noise" filter. Feel free to apply it to all your prints before you print them.

[Don Hutton]

Sandy,

While I may agree to a point, it is no more contrived than going to the darkroom to work with the negative each time for print. I am only pointing out that it is silly to make comments that with digital capture or printing that it's only done once and then we spit out the same shot like an assembly line.

As I said, one could treat the Raw file like the negative and go back for each print. The reverse it true as well....I scan the neg once, and then work on it for print. I can go back each time and work with the Raw scan if that somehow makes it more valuable to the person viewing it. I however find that they don't care. They either like the image of not.....whether or not it says Silver Gel, Chromira, Pigment on Bamboo, Lightjet, etc, etc.

Sorry to ramble, but the "one of a kind" thing with Silver Gel is a tired old argument that doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

David

I think Sandy's point was that his strictest definition of a hand-made print excludes silver gelatin anyway and that a "hand-made" print should require that the application onto the substrate be a "by hand process"... and at that level, there are unique differentiating attributes to every single print as a result of that very direct creative process - which are not contrived in an attempt to be so, but rather the result of the "human factor" in the process.

Despite the fact that traditional silver gelatin printing requires enormous skill and aptitude to perform well, I'd have to agree that a "hand coated" print should become an automatic differentiation at many different levels. If you've ever observed first hand the amount of skill, effort and dedication that goes into a complicated alt process like carbon transfer or tri color gum, I think you'd not even question the merit and differentiation of such prints from prints made through other basically mechanical processes. I mean I can actually make an inkjet print while sitting on the can armed with my laptop instead of the NYT, provided I load paper into the printer first...

[nathanm]

Variation in inkjet printing is inevitable given the dozens of different settings you can screw up, forget to set, forget to save a preset for, load the wrong paper, use the wrong paper setting, load the wrong profile, choose the wrong rendering intent, oh and hey, the ink just ran out 90% of the way through the print… Getting a totally consistent, boring and predictable result time after time is the real trick!

[willwilson]

Variations do not make a print good. Inkjet prints are Inkjet prints. The viewer should read the title block next to your work, look at your work, read the title block again, and then look at your work again and say, "Wow, that's an inkjet print. That is one hell of a photograph."

If you don't get the "one hell of a photograph" remark, I don't think a fancy name for your print medium will push them over the edge.

Just call them inkjet prints, and get over it. If you are french call them giclee.

[David A. Goldfarb]

I think the French would be the least likely to call them "giclee."

[JBrunner]

One of the problems that I see, and it's not a shot, just a consideration, is that many artists use inkjets (or whatever you care to call them) as a method of reproduction, and although many of them take great pains to make the prints as faithful to the original as possible, they would be taken to task if they called them "original".

A case in point:

If I take one of my bleached and toned cyanotypes, make a high quality scan, use a paper that is similar or identical to the paper I printed the original on, and use a proper profile on a high quality printer, and all the other attendant details needed to produce a fine inkjet print, that is exactly what I will have, a very fine print that isn't the original, nor could I ethically sell it as an original, but still matches an "original" inkjet print by all the technical specifications or descriptions that could be offered.


As far as photography, Clyde Butcher for example offers open edition "giclees" at a lower price point, in addition to the original silver gelatin prints, and I have no doubt the giclees are well executed.

OTO you have somebody who takes a file from a digital camera or film scan and uses the inkjet printing method to produce their original work. In that case it is absolutely original, as that print represents the intent of the artist. By that mark, inkjet printing is subject to interpretation as to intent, and so all of a sudden the digital printer has that to contend with.

I think as long as artists use the format as a method to reproduce original work, and market as such, there will be a stigma to overturn on the part of digital printers who use it as the original iteration of printing. I feel that is a far more difficult perceptual hurdle for the digital printer than the $50 officemax printer crowd and their decor seeking customers, as a really good printer of any medium never need be overly concerned with that bunch. I think that the digital printer must find a way to be comfortable with the fact that their chosen printing method is also a medium of reproduction for artists working in other media, and the fact of that illustrates that photography is a branch of the arts with its own subdivisions. Photography these days is a big word, that covers may disciplines. It isn't all the same thing. That makes it doubly important to make intent clear, and be proud of the method used to arrive at a print.

I might offer "signed reproductions" of some of my prints in the future, and they will be as good as I can make them. With proper consideration they should be pretty darn good. What should I call them? IDK.

[David Luttmann]

David

I think Sandy's point was that his strictest definition of a hand-made print excludes silver gelatin anyway and that a "hand-made" print should require that the application onto the substrate be a "by hand process"... and at that level, there are unique differentiating attributes to every single print as a result of that very direct creative process - which are not contrived in an attempt to be so, but rather the result of the "human factor" in the process.

Despite the fact that traditional silver gelatin printing requires enormous skill and aptitude to perform well, I'd have to agree that a "hand coated" print should become an automatic differentiation at many different levels. If you've ever observed first hand the amount of skill, effort and dedication that goes into a complicated alt process like carbon transfer or tri color gum, I think you'd not even question the merit and differentiation of such prints from prints made through other basically mechanical processes. I mean I can actually make an inkjet print while sitting on the can armed with my laptop instead of the NYT, provided I load paper into the printer first...

Don,

If I could do that while on the can, and have a rack of magazines close by....I'd never have a reason to leave.

[Don Hutton]

Don,

If I could do that while on the can, and have a rack of magazines close by....I'd never have a reason to leave.