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Tom Westbrook
7-Jan-2005, 05:31
Why would you use an inkjet print of a fine art black & white image for exhibition? I've only seen one show where this was done--Craig Blacklock's Voice Within (http://www.avoicewithin.com/) about 3 months ago--and I was pretty unimpressed with the print quality. The blacks were not black, which pretty much killed the specular highlights. Those prints were made "using PiezoTone, Carbon Sepia inks on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag paper (a matte-surface, fine art paper)". I thought it was a joke he was asking >$1,000 each for those prints (they were 22"x28" ). I don't mean to bash Blacklock here, since I think the pictures themselves were quite good and I did buy the book.

I'm no luddite, but I would think people would want to show their work to best advantage. Did Blacklock pick the wrong printer, do people like weak prints, or does the emperor have no clothes here?

Edward (Halifax,NS)
7-Jan-2005, 05:41
Why would you use platinum, or albumin or any other media? He likes it and many others do to. I am sure that before a picture goes up it looks exactly the way he wants it. You may not like it but then again the one time I saw a Sally Mann pic I wasn't very empressed either. Maybe he will print them again differently in the future like Adams did. Adams' prints seemed to get darker and more contrasty as he aged. When I looked at the book "Adams at 100" I would have to say I hated many of the early prints of his more famous pictures. Many others disagree.

Frank Petronio
7-Jan-2005, 05:43
Funny, the first time I saw a Platinum print I thought the same thing.

Different media has different qualities. When was the last time you saw any print on uncoated artist's paper carry the dense blacks of a toned silver print? Look at Weston's blacks - he found an extra set of blacks on his originals - no repro ever gives them justice.

Maybe black and white inkjets will find their place - more "atmospheric" images and such - but even my stock 2200 lays down a nice rich matte black on matte paper. I never could do that in the darkroom. But you are absolutely right - it does a lousy job at emulating selenium toned Seagull.

Brian Ellis
7-Jan-2005, 06:12
I haven't seen the exhibit so I can't comment on the prints. However, people in a group with which I'm connected have often shown "before" and "after" versions of the same black and white photographs, "before" being the darkroom version and "after" being the ink jet. The ink jets were usually better. I can certainly understand someone preferring darkroom prints for various reasons and some people do both, but I wouldn't condemn all ink jet prints on the basis of one exhibit.

Since ink jet prints aren't yet highly regarded by museums, galleries, collectors.etc. (and may never be because of the ease of reproduction) I think ink jet printing will be a boon to those who continue with darkroom printing as darkroom prints become more and more rare ("wow, look at that honey, it's a real photograph made the way they used to make them in the old days"). If I made any significant money selling prints I'd certainly still be in the dakroom or at least doing both.

Tom Westbrook
7-Jan-2005, 07:07
I'm not sure the "it's a different media" arguement washes for all pictures. I'd think you'd want to at least pick images that take advantage of the strengths and avoid the weaknesses of the medium being used.

The landscape elements of his pictures bothered me most and seemed to just look weird in some pictures--especially the ones of the huge icicles, which looked especially dull. The skin tones were quite lovely, though, and the pictures where the landscape was fairly low in contrast, which is true of the majority of them, worked the best. I wonder if, in Blacklock's case, since he's always done color before, that he just went with the inkjets since that's what he was doing for color prints.

I'll presume from your comments that there isn't a headlong rush to convert all exibition work to inkjet. That's what I find a disturbing possibility.

Ken Lee
7-Jan-2005, 07:14
Inkjet Prints - "born to fade".

Bruce Watson
7-Jan-2005, 08:40
Sounds like your mind is made up after seeing one show. I say that because of the way you frame your question - Did Blacklock pick the wrong printer, do people like weak prints, or does the emperor have no clothes here? Clearly, you are coming from the perspective that inkjet prints are somehow "bad." This is an assumption that I don't share.

Most people I run into that have your attitude are making the mistaken assumption that inkjet prints are just wanna-be silver gelatin prints. But that's not the case, just as it is not the case for any of the myriad other alternative processes. Every media has its own strengths and weaknesses. The artist chooses the media that works best for the artist. If the viewer likes it, fine. If the viewer doesn't like it, fine.

And you don't like it. Which is fine. I personally don't like the limitations of silver gelatin prints. Which is also fine. To each, his own.

David Luttmann
7-Jan-2005, 09:01
Ken,

Your "Born to Fade" comment is rubbish. The latest carbon pigment inks on good paper have been tested to in excess of 100 years. I think that is quite satisfactory....don't you?

Kirk Gittings
7-Jan-2005, 10:41
For an upcoming retrospective show this coming fall I have decided to redo many of my vintage silver prints in inkjet. I have not seen the show mentioned above, but I have definitely seen some beautiful inkjet prints. Inkjet is different with its own character, not necessarily better. And I agree with the person above, I have seen awful shows in platinum and silver also. I saw a silver Sally Mann show that I thought was trash.

Working digitally allows me to solve certain problems in Photoshop that I could not begin to traditionally. I may not always print inkjet though after this show. This is just one phase in what I anticipate is a very long journey. I am also very interested in digitally enlarged negatives to be printed on silver, platinum or whatever. Dick Arentz is doing platinum this way as we speak. But the learning curve is long and steep and this is just the first phase.

Ken Lee
7-Jan-2005, 10:55
"The latest carbon pigment inks on good paper have been tested to in excess of 100 years. I think that is quite satisfactory....don't you?"



They seem to be making excellent progress - that's great. I presume that the tests were performed under "normal" lighting conditions. It's unlikely that anyone left the prints out in the Arizona sun for a few months.



Meanwhile, I have read that platinum prints will endure as long as the paper on which they are printed: five hundred to one thousand years.



I have silver-based photographs of my ancestors which were passed on to me, and which I intend to pass on to my descendants. It's delightful that they are in excellent shape, and will probably stay that way. I hope that some of my "fine art" images and family portraits will be appreciated in the same way, for just as long.

Jeffrey Sipress
7-Jan-2005, 11:01
Hogarth said it all. Wonderful!

Jerry Flynn
7-Jan-2005, 11:40
I saw the show in question (I am a Minnesotan as is Blacklock), and was not knocked out -- but really, the print quality wasn't the issue. As others have noted, there is a lot of variety in print materials and style.

As to picking the wrong printer, he prints them himself. See his discussion of his technique in a recent issue of View Camera (Sept/Oct, perhaps?)

Frank Petronio
7-Jan-2005, 11:42
We've all been burned by archival promises for traditional color and new digital media. While the accelerated test results are useful, and give us hope, we simply don't know for sure how long these materials will last. But who is to say that coatings won't pop off silver prints prematurely? Or that the archival print you took pains to make twenty years ago really did get washed enough for the long haul? Or - worse than a faded print - the darkroom chemicals made YOU somewhat less "archival."

I'll risk carpal tunnel, thank you...

Shilesh Jani
7-Jan-2005, 12:02
Let me share my recent experiences:

I have never spent any time in the darkroom, other than printing TEM negatives many years ago as a graduate student.

I shoot traditional b/w and color on 4x5 and 6x9 RF, scanned and printed inkjet. I will not go into color printing here.

For b/w, I must say I have seen many, many prints from others done on inkjet that were stunning. But, I have also seem many, many crappy inkjet b/w prints. Being a novice myself, I still show my work at the local camera club for competition. At a recent year-end competition, with local pros judging the prints, I had 4 inkjets in the b/w category. Others had many traditional b/w drakroom prints, many done "custom" by professional labs. They were very good. My 4 inkjets won 4th, 3rd, 2nd, and 1st place! When the judges realized they were inkjet, there was surprise all around. These judges do color inkjet, but have gone back to the darkroom for b/w because "inkjet just does not do it". Well, it is all in one's competence with the technology. After I helped two of them properly set up their digital systems/workflow, which includes proper choice of inks/paper, they have completely abandoned their need to go into the darkroom.

Another exprience: I got a gift of "botanical dances" by Huntinton Weatherhill (sp?) along with a very well made darkroom print of his. In comparing the depth and presence on paper, my inkjets certainly don't beat the darkroom print, but neither do they wither as if in presence of some greatness.

Well made inkjet has a different feel/look, but I like it. It is not like any other print medium really.

Shilesh

David Luttmann
7-Jan-2005, 12:06
Ken,

It's snowing like crazy here today. I'll take some of that Arizona sun if you have some extra lying around!

bob carnie
7-Jan-2005, 12:50
Very interesting debate or observations

I have had an interesting project come through my shop recently that may be of interest to this debate.

One of my competitors is doing piezography prints using the John Cone sets. A prospective client came into my shop and inquired whether I would be interested to do a test for him. I made a 12x18 silver print from negative supplied on agfa classic glossy.
When he saw the print, he told me he was going to give me a rather large show.
He had already printed 36 of these digitally and wanted me to reproduce 1 each of 100 negatives to silver prints onto 16x20 paper
When he came in he brought the already printed and paid for digital prints...... they looked lovely, I therefore was apprehensive as now I had commited to make them all over again, as well as 75 more.
I started with the first 36 that had been already printed, guess what !!! The silver prints totally blew away the inkjet prints!!!

To be fair, I print both digitally and traditionally , I am not sure whether the former printer is crap, they are very strong in the community here and I don"t want to bad mouth them.. But I have to say I was very suprised comparing prints made by two different shops using two different processes.

I think that to make critiques of processes you must actually do them side by side and judge for yourself which process matches your vision. I do prefer silver prints, but I am not adverse to seeing a good platinum , cyanotype or inkjet, if it is printed properly

Tom Westbrook
7-Jan-2005, 12:58
I think I'm mostly wondering if there is any hope for improvement in the quality. I'd be more in favor if the blacks were actually black (or at least blacker than they are now). Maybe I am trying to force inkjet to be more like a silver print, but I don't think that asking for blacker blacks is going to make them look identical. I'll take that criticism under advisement, though.

Hogarth: I don't think I've made up my mind about it at all. If I had I wouldn't have bothered to post this question. I actually just got a little Epson R800 (and Eye-One Display2 calibrator) for Xmas and some of my impressions are based on prints I made with that (with default ultrachrome inks) as well as the Blacklock show. Admittedly, my experience is limited, but part of my question is whether other people feel the quality of inkjet is really ready for prime time (e.g. $1,000 a print).

I wonder, too, if pictures originally ‘visualized’ for traditional silver prints translate well to inkjet. I'd be interested in hearing comments from Kirk and those who have reprinted older pictures on inkjet and directly compared them to the original prints (if any were handy).

Maybe I'll post another question later today about what the current state of the art is in BW inkjet printing, as I'd be interested in hearing what's required to produce the best prints possible, even with my little R800.

Jorge Gasteazoro
7-Jan-2005, 13:57
IMO, it is not the ink jet print but the photographer who is at fault. The process influences the choices we make of things to photograph. Pt/pd has a very low Dmax compared to silver, the tonal relationships are very diferent, and as such I pick my subjects with the process in mind. In his book Arents says we dont need the deepest blacks, we need convincing blacks. I think this also applies to ink jet prints, whoever is doing an ink jet print needs to pay attention to the tonal relation ship .

For example in this print

http://xs7.xs.to/pics/04515/FNQ-001.jpg

You would think the shadows at the bottom are black, but they are not, they actually have detail and only have a RD of about 1.3.

IOW, an image that is good in silver does not necessarily will translate to a good image in ink jet, and trying to make them look the same is foolish. This is the problem I see with many people doing B&W ink jets. It seems they are used to printing in silver and when they change to ink jet they approach their subjects in the same manner.

I have seen gorgeous ink jet prints, but they were done by people who understood it is not the same media...and adjusted to it.

Frank Petronio
7-Jan-2005, 14:03
Go top the mall and look at any large branded retail "environment" - like Ambercrobie & Fitch - all inkjet. Perfect prints. (Bruce Weber)

If you can get inky blackness out of color images on inkjets (and many of us do) then you can do likewise on your little Epson printing B&W. FWIW, I don't care for the Piezography stuff I've seen either - but blame Jon Cone, not the entire form of media!

Ken Lee
7-Jan-2005, 14:24
Dave - I'm with you. I wish I had some to send :-)

Just that dim January stuff we get here in New England.

But the nice thing is, this time of year, the shadows are long all day. It's always that golden hour.

tim atherton
7-Jan-2005, 16:04
Jorge makes an important point.

I've often printed something up as in inkjet print and thought hmmm - those blacks don't really seem that black - especially when it's something I've also printed on silver gelatin.

But then I go back and look at the negative and/or scan and realise that the blacks aren't black at all - in fact often quite far from black. On urban work, where you often get "man made" blacks in signs and such, those usually do come out as nicely black. but what I accept as blacks in silver gelatin are usually the papers characteristics killing all the shadow detail and taking it down to black. In a way it's an accepted characteristic of silver gelatin paper we have adapted to, accept and use.

Yes, you can dodge stuff, but often people A) don't want to - because they prefer the look of a more compressed range and B) sometimes all the dodging and burning in the world won't make that much difference (as well as making for tedious printmaking...)

Basically I find that I get a much wider range going from negative to scan to inkjet print than I do negative to enlarger to silver gelatin. (even contacts on Azo etc)

What is problematic is the psychological aspect. You look at the scan in Photoshop and see all that shadow detail, you print it on a good inkjet system on a good paper and often see even more shadow detail showing itself, and then think - hmmm doesn't really look like my darkroom prints though - with their more compressed range.

At that point, there is a psychological hurdle - you find yourself loath to throw away all that lovely detail just to get areas that look like the deeper blacks of a silver gelatin print.

It's easy to do though - you can compress the bottom end of the scale (and the joy of digital is you can do it without losing highlight detail if you don't want to) to mimic the look of a darkroom print - it can work pretty well. In fact in Franks example, that's often what I see in those big Bruce Webber fashion - the range is compressed so the whites and blacks stand out more with more the look of a silver gelatin print.

In the end, the inkjet prints especially on cotton rag papers have a different look. In some aspects it is more akin to a Pt/pd print - yet different again.

On holiday I fond a nice $5.00 copy of Arentz's Outside the Mainstream catalogue, the book plates obviously made from Pt/pd prints and it struck me how similar the look and feel (as opposed to the content and composition) was to what I get in many of my inkjet pigment(ed) prints

(just for the record J - I'm not saying inkjet/pigment prints and Pt/pd etc are the same... :-0 )

So in part you can find subjects that fit it, and in part you can learn the process better and experiment with it more - many prints I see aren't pushing close to the limitations of the process - there is much more flexibility than people often seem to take advantage of. But in a way, trying to make an inkjet print look like a silver gelatin pritn is often a mistake.

Jorge Gasteazoro
7-Jan-2005, 16:18
just for the record J - I'm not saying inkjet/pigment prints and Pt/pd etc are the same... :-0

I understand, but I think the approach to printing is very similar in both. We both have to "live" with lower Dmax values in the prints than commonly expected for silver prints.

IOW, choose the subject carefully to fit the process.

Henry Ambrose
7-Jan-2005, 16:30
Here is my version:

When a photographer selects a print method or technique I assume that he picked it because it helped speak what he meant to say in his pictures. But this may not be the only reason for his selection of silver, platinum, inkjetted or laser exposed paper, black and white or color. Adams wrote about printing a show much too dark and not selling a thing. He simply picked wrong in his look, which was brought home to him by the result. Other commercial considerations also come to mind. If I thought I'd sell quite a few prints and wanted the most return for my labors I'd sure try to sell digital prints that could be reproduced my machine. Especially if my pictures could not be easily (if at all) made in a wet darkroom. Photographers have many ways to print today that did not exist in the past and if we are to expect new work that looks like old work we will be dissappointed. And who is to say that the work must be done in one way or another?

It seems to me that Tom recieved different messages from the show prints and the book prints and that might be a slight problem for Tom but certainly a problem for the photographer in question. If people don't buy his prints then in that one way he has failed.

On the other hand we do have to open our eyes to new ways so we don't fail to see something worthwhile. Perhaps the question is, when we get a taste of a new flavor (lets say strawberry lasagna) do we spit it out or do we relish it?

bob carnie
8-Jan-2005, 09:42
Hello Folks

Some of the comments here have raised a nagging question in the back of my mind. I would like to address this question to those who have experience with multiple printing , ink jet , or platinum.

I have been forturnate enough to be involved with a few books over the last couple of years. ie I made the fibre prints and then books were published.
I have always noticed that in printed books that are done well a beautiful range of tones from brilliant white to deep deep inky black. Now I understand that the printers are using a varnish, second hits , bla bla bla to do this. there fore creating the image jumping off the page.. For example if you look at Anton Corbins book Star Trak , the images are kick ass . His original printer used the lith process, oriental grade 4.
I started lith printing when I saw this book and it has taken quite a while to get my prints looking as impactful.

So back to my point I believe there is a nice *jump* that happens with well printed books , that is hard to match with a straight silver print. I saw this *jump*after my prints were scanned and printed for these books.

Now I am thinking that multiple hits are the way to go, For example Platinum is a contact process under UV light source. I used a NU arc plate burner and have used large strosser pin systems in past work. Could one not make skelatin black exposing masks and highlight exposing masks to multiple print in register with the main negative. In effect layering density on the print.

Ink jet. can a epson printer be made to operate to do multiple hits on the same sheet of paper, Allowing the operator to build up layers of ink , that may not be possible with the one hit method .

My prime area of interrest is silver , and there fore I am hoping to coat my own emulsions in the future and apply this multiple hit method to build up the layers in a print.

My good friend John Bently just came by to press out some of his colour carbon paper prints and this is exactly how he is doing his prints.. they are by far , the best colour prints I have ever seen and as well they are permanent.

So what do you think, Is this a method some of you are applying with your work? Do you ever think of this *jump* and what causes it??

Jorge Gasteazoro
8-Jan-2005, 10:04
Could one not make skelatin black exposing masks and highlight exposing masks to multiple print in register with the main negative. In effect layering density on the print.

Yes you can, I am not sure that it will increase the the Dmax of the print all that much, but certainly some people do 2 or 3 coatings on paper. This is the same principle for Gum over platinum, print a platinum image then print a gum image over it with the same neg.

I have an old Condit punch and I have been thinking for a while to do this. Just remember, if you are going to try it, you gotta shrink the paper first.

bob carnie
8-Jan-2005, 10:27
Jorge

I was thinking that the multiple hits would happen at the first exposing stage rather than multiple coatings as you suggest.
I do this with split silver printing and I find that by lowering the initial exposre grade and hitting the black in with the higher filter , I am able to get good highlight midtone , as well a very good black.

so could you not make a lower contrast coating for platinum to handle good highlight and midtone , and build up the blacks with multiple hits??

Jorge Gasteazoro
8-Jan-2005, 11:42
You would have to change the emulsion contrast. I cannot see a way to do that unless you recoat. Certainly you can use a low contrast coating for the highlights, expose, recoat for the shadows and expose, but I dont see a way to do it with one coating, unless you are willing to do glycerin development and use the contrasting agent in the developer. Pt/pd does not lend itself to many of the tricks we use in the DR. This is one thing I envy about those doing ink jet negatives. PS is a powerful tool in the sense that you can adjust minute parts of the negative.

bob carnie
8-Jan-2005, 12:25
Jorge

I am in the process of installing a lambda in my shop here, I am certain that I will be able to run film through this unit and process in large drums on my Lambda. I have asked another user of alternative printing to submit a file to produce a ps file exposed directly onto film for alternative applications. Would you be interested in trying this experiment?? There would be no timing issues at my end or pressure on your end. I do indeed plan to get back into platinum but not for a year or two. I need an experienced printer in this process to try this with me . If so send me an email and I can discuss it with you further.

Michael A.Smith
8-Jan-2005, 21:07
Frank Petronio: Weston's photographs have been reproduced with the richness in the blacks of his original prints. In the book Edward Weston: Life Work.

Bob Carnie: Platinum prints are being printed with multiple negatives (one a skeleton black) by Salto, in Belgium. They are the finest and richest platinum prints I have ever seen.

And in an earlier time, Irving Pebb's platinum prints had a real richness--and very deep blacks.

tim atherton
11-Jan-2005, 11:12
Just got an email that sumarizes (better than I did) exactly what I was attempting to say above:

"Among other examples, I can
easily print a 21 step wedge digitally that shows all 21 distinct steps. In
the darkroom the best that I could generally do using silver paper was about 10 or
so steps (i.e. about five stops). With film and silver paper you lost
separation at one end or the other or both. The only darkroom process I
ever used that could equal digital in showing all 21 steps distinctly was
van dyke brown."

Of we may disagree about exactly how many steps any of us can manage to wring out of silver gelatin paper etc

Ken Lee
11-Jan-2005, 13:40
Tim - Perhaps I misunderstand, but you may be confusing apples and oranges.



With Photoshop, one can divide up the brightness range (from 0 to 100%) by many small increments. For example, by dividing 0 to 100 by 100, one can make a stepwedge with 100 steps. A well-profiled printer can print out that stepwedge, and faithfully represent each shade. Given an 8-bit image, 256 shades of grey can be deliniated. Each step is not, however, twice the brightness of the previous step.



With film or paper, once can also make a stepwedge with many steps. Again, each step will not represent twice the exposure of the previous step. For example, if you went into the darkroom and made a test strip where you gave each step a 1/2 second exposure from a weak light source, at a very small f-stop, at a great distance, you could easily make a step wedge with many steps. In fact, since paper and film are analog, you could theoretically make more steps than any instrument could detect.