Inkjet better than wet prints yet?

[Jay DeFehr]

Yeah I think the important thing is that you can make amazing prints with either method. I recently got an Epson 4900, it's my 4th inkjet printer and the first one that's not totally frustrating. It just seems to work.

On some of the new papers (Canson Infinity papers) I've made some really sweet prints. I haven't made silver prints in a long time and was never very good at it. So I have nothing to compare them to. But I think most "experts" would say they are at least "good" prints.

One advantage with digital is that you can bring all the elements of photoshop and that sort of thing into maximizing your negatives. You can do burning and dodging with a level of precision that I think is unavailable to anyone except the most very skilled digital printers. Since my negatives are all over the place, I tend to do a lot in PS before printing.

If you can't do darkroom printing anymore, I think you'll be able to do inkjet prints and be satisfied with the results. It's a learning curve, like anything else.

While I'm no expert, I would agree Paul's ink prints are very good.

I made several prints yesterday on Ilford Art 300 paper, and today I'll tone them in various toners, and see what the materials give me. Darkroom printing seems to me a bit more passive in this respect, compared to a digital workflow, or another way to put it might be, generous, depending on one's perspective. I'm not a great printer, able to wring a beautiful print from a junk negative, or to bend and contort my materials into delivering whatever my imagination dictates -- I try too keep things within range from the beginning so I can make an essentially straight darkroom print. If I get everything right, my prints are as good as the materials they're made with, so I try to chose the best materials I can find. This commits me to the processes and problems we most generally discuss here -- fitting the scene onto the film, and the film onto the paper, with all the little details and controversies along the way, but all of this is within the context of the materials.

So, the way I read the OP's question is: are inkjet materials as good as silver materials? This is a far simpler question than one about comparisons of prints, or workflows, though I don't pretend to have a definitive answer to it. I will say that the best prints I've ever personally seen are carbon prints, which might have more in common with inkjet prints than with silver prints, and I suspect that digital prints will inevitably eclipse all other varieties by any objective metric.

[Drew Wiley]

Marty Knapp is a reasonably well known traditional black and white printer in this area making strictly cold tone prints. When he lost his lease on the darkroom he started printing
inkjet and the results would probably look identical to the average observer. But he knew
exactly what he wanted and worked hard to precisely replicate the look previously achieved in the darkroom. With the specific kind of toning I happen to do in the darkroom
I think would be impossible to replicate that way; and if I was oriented toward inkjet I would simply select images better suited to that approach. But from a teaching standpoint,
I think there is still a big advantage when people learn to pay their dues and slow down,
and learn to see, and learn to evaluate image tones. Both a view camera background and
traditional darkroom skills are helpful in this respect, regardless where you finally land.

[tgtaylor]

Reflecting of the digital vs analogue discussions that pop up on this forum with regularity, it strikes me that they all seem to be universally brought by the digital crowd as if they are seeking a personal and public vindication for their decision to spend zillions of dollars on a technology that at its best faithfully reproduces the old. You never see an "analogue is better than digital" thread started by the analogue crowd but always the opposite in which the latter, few that we are, spring to the defense of the analogue as if a knee-jerk reaction.

Thomas

[bob carnie]

The latest development (no pun intended) coming out of our darkroom is enlarged silver gelatin film that is then contacted onto emulsions.

A year ago we tested onto carbon and platinum with results we were pleased with. As of the last couple of months we have scanned negatives from a series of work that is part of a very large neg- enlarger -silver-wet- print project.(Ilford Warmtone)

Just for fun we scanned a difficult negative from this series , that had a extreme lighting ratio in the original scene.( this enlarger print was a root canal type of print to make but in PS not so bad)

First go around we made negs for platinum print and as expected when we laid the film on Ilford Warmtone the print was not correct.
Second go around we softened the curve in PS and outputted a second film... We then contacted on Ilford Warmtone, the negative was the same size as the enlarger final print.( We did have some difficulty and if I was to tweak I would lower the contrast another grade in PS)
But to our eyes the print was pretty dam good. We then matted the digital rendition and inserted the print with the larger body of work for the client to judge without any prior knowledge to what we were doing.
Conclusions were that the prints from enlarger and print from digital film were both equally appealling and the client really would not have been able to pick one over the other blind test.

There are some differences and yes a good tech can pick out digital artifacts and a good tech can pick out enlarger artifacts.
I am lucky enough to be able to see daily various outputs from different printers, Ink , RA4 , silver lambda and enlarger, and I have to say that certain projects benefit with more than one type of process and trying to pick on over the other is tough call.
We spend a lot of our time showing clients tests in various end printing medias and basically let them make their choice.

I have seen a few of Jon Cones Ink prints in direct comparison to my silver lambda prints , and for the images I saw I would have chosen his prints.
We are setting up a dedicated printer for Cone Inks (Piezo) and by doing so have pretty much all the end processes at our fingertips. Our clients benefit from this but it does make me work 7 days a week.

Personally I prefer an enlarger wet silver print, over any process, but I do see the day where I will split my time between that and tri colour carbon and gum , that are generated from digital capture or scans of colour film.

The best lay down of ink on paper that I have seen that rivals a silver print would be the Hannamuhle Bartya or the Exhibition Fibre. I think these prints could be intermixed with a silver wet print show and very few would be able to tell the difference.

I only like the rag cotton papers for colour work, at this point yet, I am playing with Exhibition Fibre to see if I can beat my RA4 colour prints.

[Kirk Gittings]

Bob, I want to give one of your silver prints from digital file a spin later this year. Do you have a profile for soft proofing such?

The latest development (no pun intended) coming out of our darkroom is enlarged silver gelatin film that is then contacted onto emulsions.

A year ago we tested onto carbon and platinum with results we were pleased with. As of the last couple of months we have scanned negatives from a series of work that is part of a very large neg- enlarger -silver-wet- print project.(Ilford Warmtone)

Just for fun we scanned a difficult negative from this series , that had a extreme lighting ratio in the original scene.( this enlarger print was a root canal type of print to make but in PS not so bad)

First go around we made negs for platinum print and as expected when we laid the film on Ilford Warmtone the print was not correct.
Second go around we softened the curve in PS and outputted a second film... We then contacted on Ilford Warmtone, the negative was the same size as the enlarger final print.( We did have some difficulty and if I was to tweak I would lower the contrast another grade in PS)
But to our eyes the print was pretty dam good. We then matted the digital rendition and inserted the print with the larger body of work for the client to judge without any prior knowledge to what we were doing.
Conclusions were that the prints from enlarger and print from digital film were both equally appealling and the client really would not have been able to pick one over the other blind test.

There are some differences and yes a good tech can pick out digital artifacts and a good tech can pick out enlarger artifacts.
I am lucky enough to be able to see daily various outputs from different printers, Ink , RA4 , silver lambda and enlarger, and I have to say that certain projects benefit with more than one type of process and trying to pick on over the other is tough call.
We spend a lot of our time showing clients tests in various end printing medias and basically let them make their choice.

I have seen a few of Jon Cones Ink prints in direct comparison to my silver lambda prints , and for the images I saw I would have chosen his prints.
We are setting up a dedicated printer for Cone Inks (Piezo) and by doing so have pretty much all the end processes at our fingertips. Our clients benefit from this but it does make me work 7 days a week.

Personally I prefer an enlarger wet silver print, over any process, but I do see the day where I will split my time between that and tri colour carbon and gum , that are generated from digital capture or scans of colour film.

The best lay down of ink on paper that I have seen that rivals a silver print would be the Hannamuhle Bartya or the Exhibition Fibre. I think these prints could be intermixed with a silver wet print show and very few would be able to tell the difference.

I only like the rag cotton papers for colour work, at this point yet, I am playing with Exhibition Fibre to see if I can beat my RA4 colour prints.

[Drew Wiley]

I personally like all high quality prints. I do have my personal preference for my own images, my own skill set, and my own budget (so see no point in investing in a whole new
way of doing things). I know people who can do really incredible digital printing with an
overhead of a about 10K per month and millions of dollars invested in their gear. Do these
images (undeniably competent) inspire me any more than the platinum prints than Julia
Cameron made in a chicken house? No.

[sully75]

For an added point for discussion: to me the difference in quality between digital and silver printing is much different from the difference between digital and silver photography. Not saying that film is better than digital for taking a picture, but I think the difference between a picture taken on film and one taken on digital is much greater than the difference between silver and digital prints of a scanned B&W negative.

[sully75]

PS thanks to Jay for making my day, again.

Obviously digital prints are coming from somewhere...at least, mine are. I'm trying to chimp the look of really good printing. Mostly I've seen really good repros in books, so that's what I'm trying to copy. I have a couple of books with superior reproductions and I'm just trying to get that look. I haven't had my hands on too many great wet prints (have a really nice one from Jay though), but I'd like to, just so that I have something more to shoot for. I'm tempted to buy one of Peter Turnley's prints from the sale coming up on the The Online Photographer, just to have a really great inkjet print from a master printer in my hands. But man...I've been blowing some money lately.

[bob carnie]

Kirk and others interested.

We are starting a press and go service on the lambda silver prints, every second Friday we will be running this paper. ( we of course would run every day if you wish, but the amount of chemicals required limits the run times) I will send anyone interested the specs for printing at bob@elevatordigital.ca ... It will be a minimum four feet of paper .. two sizes 30 inch roll and 20 inch roll by minimum four linear ft. As well we will look at doing a test and printer judgement. Usually I would make a 12 inch on the longest side test full image, make my call and print. I will have the prices nailed down soon, and we have found this type of service is very popular with our clients.

One thing to remember ... this is a tray , rolled process and is not the same as a machine print... we are rolling 8-10 ft at time and there is Human variances, printer (me) is part of this process and I will use my best judgement... Our first go around may not be perfect or could exceed your expectations.

A sample bartya ink print or any kind of print is always a good thing for us..... Adobe 1998 is our profile mode of choice and setting your L channel numbers to min highlight and min shadow points are critical for good lay down of tones. will be explained in my emails.

[tgtaylor]

Not saying that film is better than digital for taking a picture, but I think the difference between a picture taken on film and one taken on digital is much greater than...

Absolutely! And that's the reason why many Hollywood directors have been slow to move to all digital photography notwithstanding the cost to digitize film which runs as much as $4 per frame!

Thomas