Digital negatives - what's the verdict on their use

[Jim Fitzgerald]

This is interesting and informative. At what point does the hand crafted part of print making process disappear? Does the new technology just become a means to an end? I can see it now, in years to come the cell phone camera guys will be spitting out carbon prints from the printer in their car! I hope I am long gone by then. I think there will be a time when we will discuss machine made carbon prints and hand made carbon print? Maybe I have my head up my ass and if i do that is okay by me. For me personally I would never feel the same about a digitally produced carbon print from start to finish. That is just me and my opinion. I always fall back to what is the artist method of presenting his work. I think that carbon printing is becoming more popular and I'm glad to keep this historical process alive. There will always be photographers such as myself who will rely on traditional methods and I feel we need this also. As it stands today people in the art community in Ventura still do not know what a carbon print is even with all the shows I've been in.

[mdm]

There is nothing hand crafted about an analog enlarged silver print, or an azo contact print. Not even an 8x10 carbon print on B&S tissue and fixed out fibre paper. Nothing. the only thing hand crafted about your workflow is the hand made tissue.

[Jim Fitzgerald]

It's funny that this has gone as far as it has. Don't worry everyone because the reality is that in time the Chinese will take all of this info, find a cheaper faster way to produce these prints and sell them at Ikea for 29.95! It will happen in time! Think about it!

[Jay DeFehr]

Hi Jim,

To some extent, printmaking is always a means to an end. If you ask a carbon printer why he goes to all that trouble, the typical answer includes something about the uniqueness of a carbon print- the long, straight line curve, subtle shadow separation, relief, whatever. Same goes for platinum printers, etc. It's rare a printer explains his printing process choice by saying he prefers to transfer tissue, or hand coat paper, even though they might admit to enjoying the process. It's the same with the guys I mentioned doing the multiple pass printing; they claimed to get results from their process unobtainable by others, so it is for them, a means to an end. I thin it's a mistake to conclude that because a machine is involved, the person is not. Any printer capable of making world class prints by any process has mastered his process, and if you suggest making great prints from digital files with digital printers is easy, you're likely to meet with disagreement by those who do it. It's arguable that making mediocre prints is easier by a digital process than by the laborious carbon transfer process, but who really cares about mediocre prints? I have a great deal of respect for print makers who consistently achieve excellence in their printing, whatever process they use to do so.

[bob carnie]

Jim , I hear where you are coming from , but I must pass this along.

2002 I put Agfa Classic on a friends lambda, drove 10km with the exposed paper and processed by hand. It worked, I was in safelight and could see the print emerge just like my enlarger print.
2003 invested every penny we had in a Lamda for ourselves.learned the machine
2005 Agfa went out of business, Harmon made a paper, no safelight,new learning curve.
2005- now and beyond intense PS training self inflicted.
9 solid years of making mistakes and successes before I feel good about it.

I finally feel I am now totally in control of my process, and that I can lay tone down as desired on the paper.
This 9 year journey was no different than the hand photo-comp journey I made in the 80's.
or starting a small silver lab in a large market in the 90's.

If there ever is a machine designed to spit out wonderful permanent prints I will learn that technology as well. I need to play with my rubik cube now so I can keep my brain fresh for that challenge.

Every time you pick up a camera, press a button on a timer, insert a fresh bulb in your enlarger you are using tools , and I think its what's going on in the grey matter that counts.

[Jay DeFehr]

Hi Justin,

I don't know either, but given the level of expertise (in both traditional carbon printing and digital printing) of the guys doing the multi-pass printing, I'd be surprised if someone wasn't working on it.

It seems to me several 3D printing technologies have potential for relief printing, Stereolithography with the photopolymer replaced by glop might be one possibility, selective laser sintering (SLS) might be another, and multi-jet modelling (MJM) might permit full color carbon with any degree of relief desired, blurring or erasing the line between photography and relief sculpture. It's inevitable these technologies will be used to create works of art, however those works will be labelled.

As for the size of works, there are machines capable of large parts/prints, though these are industrial machines, not desktop models, and the old model of the print shop would apply for these. In time, the capabilities of desktop units will increase as their costs decrease, just as it did (and continues to do) with desktop printing.

I saw this and was reminded of this thread:

http://www.tuwien.ac.at/en/news/news.../article/7444/

The degree of precision possible with Two Photon Lithography is well beyond anything achievable by the comparatively crude process of gelatin/ dichromate printing, though the former can be said to have evolved from the latter.

If managing large image files is demanding of resources, imagine managing large 3D files, and the creative possibilities that implies.