It's official! Ink jet prints equal or surpass Eastman's dye transfer prints!

[Drew Wiley]

Really doesn't matter, Jay ... it's what works for him, and that's what's important. In this
day and age, inkjets prints are the easiest route for most people. I prefer a more tactile
darkroom route, which dye transfer is amenable to. But only a very small number of my
images will be printed that way. The whole difficulty of forecasting permanence with either
DT or inkjet is that there is no standardization of ingredients. Different dyes can be used,
just as inks per se contain many ingredients and many paper variations - some of the inks
actually contain dyes inferior to those often used in DT printing - so the long-term failure
is premature color shift in part of the spectrum. This is an area when Aadenburg seems to
have improved upon Wilhelm's studies. Back when I made a lot of Cibachromes I put samples up under all kinds of conditions, including abusive ones. I learned a lot more over
those decades about the real world than any extrapolated fade test could provide.

[Jay DeFehr]

Drew,

I agree it doesn't matter.DT is gone, and IJ is here, for better or for worse. Whatever happens to any existing DT prints is not very relevant to any characteristics of IJ prints, and comparisons between the processes is a curiosity, at best.

[bob carnie]

I replied early in this thread , I like the look of dye transfer prints and as Drew points out about the bleeding and softness of Dye Transfer make them unique.
That may be exactly what I like about them. This may hold true for the tri colour carbons that I want to make from the continuous silver film I am making. Many, including Charles Bergger have warned me that I will get bleeding of colour with a con ton film, and that I need a hard dot film to hold delicate colour fidelity.
Maybe its not exact colour fidelity I am looking for.. Thanks Drew.

[Drew Wiley]

It's what I like about Vermeer versus the older Dutch miniaturists - he painted how vision
felt. When I need tack sharp, I do polyester (Fuji Supergloss or prior, Cibachrome) - this
is what some images need. DT has a whole different range of strengths as the Queen of
color media, and carbon as the King perhaps. Each has a different look.