wet darkroom vs. inkjet

[jim kitchen]

Dear Group,

Just as a side note to this healthy discussion, which happens to be based upon a recent experience within the last month, and an event that triggered a few comments from a collector that recently made a large purchase of my framed images…

Our discussion started while we reviewed the images prior to their delivery, where they cannot argue nor do I wish to argue with anyone about today's quality printing issues, such as the continuous longevity issue, a paper's quality and its pulp source process issue, the constantly modified ink quality, and whether it is home brewed, manufactured, lightfast or not, the obnoxious runaway marketing hype surrounding each medium grouping, complete with their continually changing evidence, or even the darkroom print quality from my past life because I did not wash the print long enough within a changing fresh water source and, or tone the image properly in selenium. They stated that everyone has their own approach to producing a quality image with the tools that they own, the medium upon which it is laid, their own skill sets, and their own passion, whether the images originate in the darkroom or within their new found lightroom. My new finished image life just happens to be the latter, and I cannot go back to producing images in the darkroom. As I mentioned earlier, giving up the darkroom was a very painful experience for me, but life does move forward, just like collectors do…

I have a few clients that demand a silver image, so that is why I sought a qualified master printer like Bob Carnie to satisfy those clients and collectors, and I certainly have clients that demand a Jon Cone printed image because they love the softer smoother tones, the timeless depth that his inkset image projects, the thought that the image was created with carbon pigment inks and the fact that the inks are laid down upon museum quality cotton paper, and I definitely have clients that simply prefer the way an image looks when it is properly printed on Museo Silver Rag while using Epson's K3 inks. Every knowledgeable collector and client happens to have their own distinct tastes, likes and dislikes, and no matter how logical or tactful you might be about the finished image's physical quality, you cannot dictate to them what they should purchase nor should you ever try to so, because you just might lose them as a client forever once you inadvertently insult them about their choice. I lost that small scuffle several years ago and I continuously regret the irresponsible decision that I made. There are several excellent collectors that demand an old school silver image and, or an alternative process image, but unfortunately they are being overwhelmed by a new world order of younger knowledgeable and just as wealthy group of spirited collectors.

The collectors and the clients that I seem to attract, and those that purchase an odd image two, just seem to enjoy my finished images, whether they are produced upon a newly acquainted and trusted old school silver medium, or a new world medium, complete with all the new world hysteria, where it happens to be my task as a so-called wannabe artist to make certain that I did everything possible to produce an image that met my own finishing standards, before I mounted, matted, signed, and framed the image. I cannot believe that anyone else that produces a fine image, especially within this forum, would do anything less than I do, and especially when their finished work leaves their own hands, and is presented to a client that admires your talent, and just might become your future collector. There are too many gifted image makers within this group, so it would be very difficult for me to change my mind about my last comment.

That said, we all do things differently, approach our problems differently, and solve our problems differently once they are identified, and although I chose a blended film and digital print path, my choice does not make it correct for anyone else, nor would I ever imply that my path happens to be the best one to follow. Although I emphatically stated I would never look back. It was a path that I needed to follow to respect my son's issues, and since I could not relinquish my passion completely, I made a choice to explore a new evolving revolution and determine whether it could be successful, and for the moment it seems that I made the correct choice. However, my path was full of absolute misconceptions, misquoted individuals, incorrectly conceived process methods, archival myths and legends, a horrific constantly changing "mine is bigger, better, faster, and more powerful than yours," technical environment, and buried within this digital environment was the thought of carrying an enormous overhead just to be current or to surpass your next door neighbour. That is why I will never relinquish my film development and my scanning process, but I will leave my finished printing issues to a select group of trusted master printers that simply pass my digital file through their well maintained equipment. I now have the freedom to focus on capturing and authoring an image without any modern day overhead concern and, or whether I am current with my next door neighbour, and because of that mindset I do believe that I am more effective.

Lastly, and I do not want to present this statement as an arrogant comment, but I had a very important milestone occur this month, where I have now sold more digitally produced framed carbon pigment ink images to collector's, institutions, and interested individuals, than I ever produced or sold while making silver halide prints. I now have just as many collections floating around the globe, as I do years of exercising my passion, and just as many naked frameless cousins.


jim k

[paulr]

Forget inkjet prints.

Sophomore LFer, Freshman debater.

[JeffKohn]

Forget inkjet prints.

When printing color images from digital files, upload to WHCC http://www.whcc.com/ or Millers http://www.millerslab.com/ and have a real photograph in your hand in 2 days or less.

digital c-prints are inferior to pigmented inkjets by pretty much any measure you can name: dmax, gamut, resolution, and longevity. Not only that, but the RC papers those machines use just aren't as nice as the fiber-based papers most inkjet users are printing on now.

[patrickjames]

People are generally always going to claim their way is the best regardless if it is or not. That is human nature. It is also human nature to try to persuade everyone else to be in accordance with one's beliefs whether or not they are true.

People that make inkjet prints always talk about the science to justify their choice, and people who make silver prints justify theirs by saying they look better. Who is right? They are both right.

I have worked with just about every type of system in the last decade and I still make silver prints. There is nothing wrong with inkjet prints to me, except the images I make can't be reproduced appropriately with an inkjet print. That includes a system set up by Lenny by the way (which is capable of gorgeous prints if it suits you, highly recommend it). The first problem I have with inkjet is it doesn't provide the richness and separation in shadow tones that I can get with a silver print. You can talk until you are blue in the face giving me numbers but it just doesn't cut it for certain images. The second obvious one is that I can't tone an inkjet! I can of course print it in color, but it just doesn't look the same, and I would lose all of the tonal benefits of using a dedicated black an white system like Lenny's.

When it comes to color prints, I have decided it isn't worth the aggravation of keeping an inkjet printer maintained ($$$$) and profiled, although I have made a nice buck on the side the last seven years doing this for other people. It is far less expensive to just get the prints done by someone else. I also prefer to have color images printed on Fuji Pearl paper, which has no equal in the realm of inkjet that I have ever heard of.

One thing I don't understand is why amateurs spend so much money in the digital realm on printers and ink and paper, etc, when they can have much better prints made by someone who really knows what the heck is going on. Spend your money on a great monitor and calibrate/profile it the appropriate way. Leave the output to someone who knows what they are doing. You will be much better off.

[rdenney]

One thing I don't understand is why amateurs spend so much money in the digital realm on printers and ink and paper, etc, when they can have much better prints made by someone who really knows what the heck is going on. Spend your money on a great monitor and calibrate/profile it the appropriate way. Leave the output to someone who knows what they are doing. You will be much better off.

It depends on how you measure "better off".

One of my minor hobbies is amateur radio. It thrills me to sit at my radio, which is connected to a wire strung between a couple of trees, and talk to a fellow in, say, New Zealand, with him using his radio and his wire strung between two trees. (Okay, maybe his antenna is a little fancier than mine.) I was explaining this hobby to a colleague, and he asked why I would want to talk to some fellow over radio when I can call him on the phone and hear him much more clearly. I told him that what we said wasn't the point. The point was that we had done what it took to being able to say it, and that effort provided the satisfaction. The satisfaction was in creating the ability and having the control over the entire infrastructure.

Likewise, I don't care whether I make prints in an inkjet or under an enlarger. But I want to make the prints. I don't care about developing color film--any machine can do that. But I want to watch that print come out of the printer. I want control over the infrastructure of print-making. Why? Because for me that's part of what makes the hobby interesting and satisfying.

Even when I had my own darkroom, it was important that I made my own prints, because when I showed it to someone, I wanted to know that what I was showing them had been made with my own hands at the controls. Part of the satisfaction is in creating the ability and having the control over the entire infrastructure.

That attitude, taken to a little further extreme, is what motivates people to make prints in a darkroom, and then vehemently defend doing so. For them, the darkroom is part of how they identify themselves as photographers. I understand that, even if I don't much care what process I'm controlling, as long as I'm controlling it.

Of course, only amateurs can think like that. It is the special privilege of amateurs to produce mediocre results and feel greater satisfaction than having it done by someone else to a much higher standard. Why else to we amateurs persist in making pictures of famous places when we can buy a perfectly good postcard in the gift shop?

The cost issue keeps coming up. To build a darkroom in a room that has a wet wall, no windows, and a usable electrical circuit, in such a way that it meets code and is reversible if you have to sell the house, requires quite a lot of expertise many photographers don't have. My expertise is traffic signals--wiring a house or a darkroom is trivially easy for me. But I daresay that would not be the norm. And I'm also no stranger to sweating copper pipes, even though the only time I ever nearly set my house afire was when I was soldering copper pipes in a wall cavity for my darkroom in San Antonio and caught a flap of drywall paper on fire. Oh, and that was the second plumbing solution for that room--the first was with threaded pipe and I could not keep it from leaking, amateur plumber that I am. And rooms with a wet wall don't necessarily have access to a drain--good luck with that one.

Hiring the plumbing and electrical work done to convert a room into a darkroom capable of making 16x20 prints will immediately take you into greater expense than the combined cost of Photoshop, a color management system, an Epson 750, and an Epson 3800. And we have not yet paid for trays, beakers, chemical storage bottles, thermometers, safelights, a timer, an enlarger, and an enlarging lens. Thinking a darkroom is just the cost of the enlarger is like thinking a large-format photography setup is just the cost of the camera.

Processing one's own film is pretty easy in a normal bathroom. But making 16x20 enlargements requires far more darkroom.

And I never understood this notion that the computer stuff has to be replaced every 15 minutes. My photo computer is nine years old, though I have added RAM and upgraded the hard disk from time to time. The monitor is three years old. The Epson 3800 replaced a 1270 that was about 10 years old, and the 750 replaced a hundred-dollar Acer scanner with transparency adapter that I bought at least 10 years ago. Just because something isn't the latest doesn't mean it stops working.

But I'm still hedging my bets. I may have a change of heart and decide I must have a darkroom again. I don't know where I'll build it, but I still have all the stuff to equip it, including the sink and the Omega D3. I think I even still have the Arkay print washer that I hated, and the Oriental washer I replaced it with.

Rick "thinking you can't compare today's computer setup with the darkroom you built 30 years ago" Denney

[Paul Kierstead]

One thing I don't understand is why amateurs spend so much money in the digital realm on printers and ink and paper, etc, when they can have much better prints made by someone who really knows what the heck is going on. Spend your money on a great monitor and calibrate/profile it the appropriate way. Leave the output to someone who knows what they are doing. You will be much better off.

Even better, leave the picture taking to someone who knows what they are doing! You'll get much better results.

[Bill Burk]

Some very thoughtful posts today! I won't apologize for looking closely at my own negatives and prints. I don't take out loupes when I look at prints at museums, shows, galleries or friend's homes, I just take off my glasses. In a pinch one day I printed some small prints to fit a frame "just for size". I haven't gotten around to printing silver to fit. At a distance, the feeling is there. But I still get a pit in my stomach when I walk up to that frame and see the striations where there should be smooth grass. I am going to try to get my hands on a well-printed ink print to see what can be done. I'll send a cheapo 30x scope to anyone who'll send me something to look at, even if it's a scrap part of a reject print.

[patrickjames]

My point above is that an amateur has neither the capability nor the expertise to set up an inkjet printer to its optimum level. Buying a printer is the bare tip of the iceberg if you want ultimate quality. I am not knocking anyone if they want to make their own prints and get enjoyment from it, but realize that the prints would look better if done right by someone who knows how to properly translate your digital image back into the analogue world.

[paulr]

My point above is that an amateur has neither the capability nor the expertise to set up an inkjet printer to its optimum level. Buying a printer is the bare tip of the iceberg if you want ultimate quality. I am not knocking anyone if they want to make their own prints and get enjoyment from it, but realize that the prints would look better if done right by someone who knows how to properly translate your digital image back into the analogue world.

Patrick, it sounds like you're saying "only an expert can get expert results from an inkjet printer."

I wouldn't dream of arguing with this. But I'd also suggest that only an expert can get expert results from an enlarger and silver paper and a room full of chemicals.

I fail to see the difference. If we want to get masterly results from our tools, then we have to master our tools. No one promised it would be easy!

[JeffKohn]

My point above is that an amateur has neither the capability nor the expertise to set up an inkjet printer to its optimum level. Buying a printer is the bare tip of the iceberg if you want ultimate quality.

There's a bit of a learning curve, but It's not that difficult. The newer inkjets are self-calibrating and extremely consistent. If you have a good profile for the paper you use, and a calibrated display on which to soft-proof, getting excellent results is very achievable. Matte papers are a little more difficult (especially for color), but the newer fiber-based gloss/semi-gloss papers are so good that it makes things much easier. In fact, I bet getting excellent results from an inkjet is quite a bit easier than getting excellent results in the darkroom.

I am not knocking anyone if they want to make their own prints and get enjoyment from it, but realize that the prints would look better if done right by someone who knows how to properly translate your digital image back into the analogue world.

When you guys talk about having it "done right" by a professional printer, I have to wonder just what exactly you're talking about. A straight inkjet print from somebody like West Coast Imaging or WHCC will run you over $20 a square foot on high-quality papers. And at that price all they're doing is sending the file to the printer without any proofing or adjustments. I can do better at home, soft-proofing and making any necessary adjustments, as well as making hard proofs when needed before creating the final print. To pay a "master printer" to do that kind of work for you could easily run in the hundreds of dollars (if you can find one). And even then I'm not convinced they could do better than me, because adjustments they make to "translate" the image to print may not match my own ideas about what the final print should look like.

As others have already mentioned, there's a lot to be said for having complete control over the entire process, as well as having the satisfaction of knowing that the final print is completely your own. For me, printing is part of the creative process and I enjoy it, I wouldn't leave the final printing to somebody else any more than I would the post-processing or taking the initial exposure.