6 years......with inkjet

[rdenney]

If my prints don't deserve to be on our living room wall, it's probably not because of the printing. There is no question that working with images in Photoshop after scanning provides far greater control over the image without even considering the print. The subtleties people talk about with prints often seem to me fine effects when those big tonal manipulations seem like gross effects. I want to get the big things the way that satisfy me before the little things.

I wonder how many time-strapped amateurs like me are swayed one way or the other by arguments between master printers over subtleties that we will never be able to explore, at least before retirement. For most folks, it's not about what is achievable with unlimited resources, but rather what is achievable with the limited resources remaining after addressing all of life's other concerns. As much as we might admire the work of guys like Bob Carnie, we still want to own our own results, however compromised they might have to be because of that. We look forward to having more resources, however, and we don't want to waste our time on compromised processes we will ultimately have to abandon. So, it's nice to know that at the high end, the two approaches are satisfying enough to warrant an even debate (at the very least) by real experts. Kirk's results tell us we are not learning to fish in poisoned waters.

Hmmm, I think I'll scan some negatives.

Rick "who has spent as many years with inkjet prints as Kirk but not a sliver of a fraction of the hours" Denney

[tgtaylor]

To borrow from Crawford (The Keepers of Light: A History & Working Guide to Early Photographic Processes) a photographic image is best presented by choosing an appropriate syntax with which to present it. Some images will work well with several syntactical constructions while others will work best with only one. Rather than arming oneself with only one syntax with which to present images, why not become fluent with several and choose the more appropriate syntax for the image. It certainly expands your possibilities and at the same time forces you to “previsualize” the scene before you.



http://www.flickr.com//photos/gallery_alternative/show/

[Kirk Gittings]

Sal, OK I'll bite. If you are talking about "Adams' position based on his being an active, perhaps middle-aged photographer in 2011" then you are talking about someone born in the 60's with a completely different history in photography-someone who was not there to rebel against pictorialism, someone who did not witness the beginnings of the modern movement, someone who did not help form F64 or be around with Stigletz, Strand, Weston etc. etc etc. You would be talking about someone with a completely different life experience. Sorry, it makes no sense.

[rdenney]

Sal, OK I'll bite. If you are talking about "Adams' position based on his being an active, perhaps middle-aged photographer in 2011" then you are talking about someone born in the 60's with a completely different history in photography-someone who was not there to rebel against pictorialism, someone who did not witness the beginnings of the modern movement, someone who did not help form F64 or be around with Stigletz, Strand, Weston etc. etc etc. You would be talking about someone with a completely different life experience. Sorry, it makes no sense.

It is highly likely that there are several currently middle-aged photographers who could have been an Adams had they been born in San Francisco in 1902 under the same circumstances. Thus, the question might well already be answered, if would could just figure out which photographers comprise those several.

(The tuba forums have threads where people joke, "WWAJD?", of Arnold Jacobs, who is similarly iconic and similiarly long departed. And there we see the same sort of unanswerable questions about how they would relate to the current reality.)

Any current top artist might have been the earth-shaking icon of a prior period. But being born later, they have to pick up where those icons left off, not where they began, if they are to become the icons of the next generation.

Rick "noting that few geniuses become icons" Denney

[Sal Santamaura]

Sal, OK I'll bite. If you are talking about "Adams' position based on his being an active, perhaps middle-aged photographer in 2011" then you are talking about someone born in the 60's with a completely different history in photography-someone who was not there to rebel against pictorialism, someone who did not witness the beginnings of the modern movement, someone who did not help form F64 or be around with Stigletz, Strand, Weston etc. etc etc. You would be talking about someone with a completely different life experience. Sorry, it makes no sense.

Kirk, that reply isn't to anything I posted. You're rebutting tgtaylor, not me. My comment stemmed solely from Adams' firm fixation (sorry for the pun) on only delivering prints exhibiting the maximum possible life expectancy. He would no doubt be experimenting with and aesthetically exploring inkjet, but at this stage in the new medium's evolution I don't think he'd abandon gelatin silver for prints sold / donated to collections.

At the risk of repetition, I am confident that a mythical "current" Adams would be either scanning film or employing digital capture, then enjoying all the control he wanted in PS, outputting files as "digital negatives" and printing those on gelatin silver. As soon as he became convinced that the life expectancy of inkjet equaled or exceeded silver gelatin, or silver gelatin paper disappeared from the market (whichever came first), he would move to inkjet. His aesthetic prediliction doesn't enter into my hypothesis at all.

[Tyler Boley]

Sal, may I suggest that your baseline assumption that silver has more longevity than ink is a much more complex issue than implied here. In fact, there are several ink/paper combinations now that may very well have more longevity potential than silver. The only reliable source any more, in my opinion, is Aadenburg-

http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/index.html

Results between comparative processes depend on so many variables, that performance may even reverse depending on storage, display, etc etc. I don't know if Mark has any silver prints in the testing, but he's been around long enough that he would have important input into this topic.
I'm also not so sure Ansel used silver primarily because of longevity, one might suggest if that were his criteria he would have chosen platinum which I can say without getting into anecdotes that was NOT interested in as a voice for his imagery.
As Kirk says, this shouldn't be a WWAD thread, but it is an inkjet thread, so clarity about process longevity is relevant.
Tyler

[Sal Santamaura]

...there are several ink/paper combinations now that may very well have more longevity potential than silver. The only reliable source any more, in my opinion, is Aadenburg-

http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/index.html...

I briefly reviewed that Web site, looking over some case study documents and the "Real World" information. My initial reaction is that accelerated light fading tests provide only a rough indication of the display life expectancy (LE) of visual media. Museums today illuminate their exhibited prints with barely enough lumens to avoid having visitors trip and fall into them, so dark storage might be an even more important parameter. Until "Real World" experience over many, many years provides reliable LE data, I'd suggest taking this type of information with a grain of salt. How many times have photographers been told that RC paper was "as good as or better than fiber-based?" Does anyone still believe that?

I'm also skeptical of any entity's test results when it accepts funding from manufacturers of the media.

...Results between comparative processes depend on so many variables, that performance may even reverse depending on storage, display, etc etc. I don't know if Mark has any silver prints in the testing, but he's been around long enough that he would have important input into this topic...

Please encourage him to post that input here. Despite my doubts about the usefulness of his testing, it would be interesting to see how a properly processed and mounted gelatin silver print fared against the inkjets that are doing best in his trials.

...I'm also not so sure Ansel used silver primarily because of longevity, one might suggest if that were his criteria he would have chosen platinum which I can say without getting into anecdotes that was NOT interested in as a voice for his imagery...

While he might have aesthetically preferred gelatin silver to platinum, based on his writings it is entirely reasonable to assume that the LE of silver gelatin is a threshold he would not go below for the type of work I described.

...As Kirk says, this shouldn't be a WWAD thread...

That ship sailed before my first post in this thread. Even Kirk has thrown up his hands and engaged the subject.

Fortunately, being a complete amateur, I don't have an interest in whether inkjet prints are thought by collectors to be shorter-lived than gelatin silver prints. I completely understand the position of those who sell inkjet prints.

[Oren Grad]

We have no idea how either today's FB or RC silver papers will fare over the long run. Past dogma can't be trusted, for several reasons:

* We do not actually know the survival probability of silver prints made decades ago; we have neither a reliable numerator nor a reliable denominator to estimate such rates. Even if we assume that such prints somehow define a standard for stability, we do not know how the paper base used for today's FB papers compares with that used decades ago. We do know that recent RC papers benefit from stabilizers, but we also know that in themselves these are not entirely protective, and we do not know how long their effect will last.

* We know that today's Kodak Rapid Selenium toner is not so protective as was believed to be the case in the past; a change in the composition of the toner, eliminating sulfiding contaminants, has been proposed as a plausible explanation. At the same time, we do know that selenium toning has at least some protective effect against light-driven deterioration modes distinctive to RC paper. Selenium toning to completion is likely highly protective of the image silver on either base, but is rarely done because with virtually all papers it has radical and typically undesirable effects on image character. Sulfide toning with complete conversion is also likely highly protective of the image silver but also is rarely used, for reasons both esthetic and practical.

* Print life is critically dependent on storage and display practices and conditions, including illumination, temperature, humidity and atmospheric contaminants, especially oxidizing agents. These attributes differentially affect FB and RC papers in ways that are far from completely understood and probably never will be completely elucidated, now that silver paper is no longer a mainstream medium and R&D has just about ground to a halt. Storage and display practices and conditions are also highly variable and continually evolving.

I'm not arguing that RC paper is more stable. Rather, I'm arguing two things. First, the traditional view that light selenium toning of prints made on FB paper is an assurance of print longevity has little empirical foundation today, if ever it did. And second, more generally, we don't have sufficient empirical basis to make any sweeping claims about longevity of modern silver prints of any kind, FB or RC.

The same, of course, is true of inkjet prints. The work on inkjet print stability by Wilhelm and by Aardenburg is extremely important and valuable, but nowhere near definitive with respect to long term, real world stability. We do not fully understand the failure modes of inkjet prints and their relationship to environmental conditions.

I print my own pictures in silver, because that's what I like. I use both FB and RC, for different purposes and on different occasions, and I take reasonable care in processing and storage, subject to practical constraints, to maximize longevity. But if I were selling prints, I wouldn't make any claims about long-term stability, because I think none are justified. The same would be true if I were printing in inkjet.

If somebody told me they wanted to create a photographic record that would be retained indefinitely as historical documentation, my advice would be to capture the pictures on polyester-based sheet film and print in Pt/Pd on a suitable paper.

Beyond that I'd just say pick the print medium whose esthetic characteristics you like most, take reasonable care to learn and follow best current understanding of how to process and preserve for maximum stability subject to your own esthetic and logistical requirements, and then don't lose sleep over it.

[Brent Long]

Brent - one of the best things you can do is look at as much original work as possible. If you can see a couple of high end shows, you will start to develop your eye. There are some well produced books but original photographs are a great experience.

Not sure what area you are in, but if you can find a great instructor at a college or giving classes that can speed up the process.

I think the statement about people who learned in the darkroom has some validity. To learn to print that way takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears. The people who stick with it will tend to have a better eye. Just don't think just because you try traditional printing you willl be better than someone who starts on a computer. A lot of garbage has come out of darkrooms (even mine haha).

The most important thing is it takes time, effort and patience. Like anything worth doing, you have to put in the time to get good.

Thanks for your response. I'm pretty comfortable using my desktop inkjet to make fine prints. I haven't done much printing, but with what little I've done, I see some things I like, some things that need tweaking, and am overall confident that I can get good prints with the practice that you advise.

Unfortunately, living in Okinawa puts some limits on viewing actual fine prints. Books and the internet will have to suffice for the most part. I think, though, that as long as I can, first, get a vision, you know, of what I want to do, and be relatively clear on that, I can manage, with practice, to get it on paper (dang that's a lot of commas . . . sorry if I've used more than my fair share).

[Adamphotoman]

Maybe an exaggeration? 2 min. exposure on one million prints would be almost 4 years of exposure alone, not counting the other parts of the process! Yikes, hope you don't have a wife!

That divided process is interesting - hadn't thought about that. Cheers.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

Nathon,

The 2 minute exposures were only for a small selection of tough prints. Just for the "divided process prints", and most exposures were under 10 seconds. So no exaggeration on the million prints.
I was in a darkroom for 30 years, sometimes running up to 5 enlargers at the same time... In the microscope division I would make multi exposures on single sheets and process up to 16 sheets at a time in a rocking sloshing kind of machine.
So 500 prints a day was normal. Washing and drying were also assisted.

The point is that I don't miss the darkroom.

It is pretty cool to shoot a 216 mega pixel digital file and then be able to use the the RGB channels to effectively get Colour Filter effects when switching to grayscale.