View Camera article - platinum on digital prints.

[mark blackman]

I got the latest addition on Monday (I'm in London). The new Copy Editor is clearly doing their job - well done!
I was intriged by the article about Jim Collum use of Platinum over digital prints. This may seem like a very simple question & I do not want to be rude to Jim, but I don't get what he felt he was getting by doing the platiunum print on top of the CYM print? does the platinum layer give blacker blacks than can be achieved with laser/light jet methods?

[Jack Flesher]

Having been lucky enough to see some of Jim's Platinum/Pigment work in person, including many of the images from his trip to Cambodia, I can tell you they contain awesome blacks, tremendous detail and the colors -- while not highly saturated -- do contain a fantastic range of subtle hues. I suspect these "soft" qualities are difficult to replicate with traditional magazine printing processes, and even as high a quality publication as VC is, the images in the article did not really represent the originals very well.

He has posted a few of these images online at www.collum.omniblog.com (Scroll down a bit). While they still don't do full justice to the Pigment/Platinum originals, they do get closer and you can better understand the effect.

Cheers,

[Jim collum]

Good question (and not rude at all). There's a difference in depth of an image done with just platinum and an inkjet quad tone. The platinum image seems to come from beneath the paper's surface (which it does). Not all images work in this process, one of the images in the article is a scan of an inkjet image. For this image, the color needs to be bolder, blacks, blacker, for it to work. The other images are about subtlies, and the muted color of inkjet on watercolor paper, and platinum works for them.

I'm always torn about the display of images. I'm a print person. Most of my images are about detail, texture, and because I shoot in very low contrast light, subtlties in tone. These come across in a physical print. There's a tactile interaction between the viewer and the print that doesn't come across on the web, and even magazine publications. This interaction defines part of the quality of some images.

jim

[robert_4927]

Jim, Is your process a develope out process with pt/pd and then you are printing over it with an inkjet? What I mean is, are you actually making a Pt/Pd print to finish and then printing it again by adding ink over top of the already printed image?

[Jim collum]

I use the Ziatype process, which is a printing out process. I print the color layer onto the paper first, using an inkjet. Because it's uncoated and the colors have been stripped of the K layer (CMYK conversion), the colors end up being very subdued.

[Jim collum]

i added an entry at collum.omniblog.com (http://collum.omniblog.com) that shows what the two parts look like for one of the images in the article

[mark blackman]

Thank you for replying Jim. I supose the nub of my question is: you must have tried purely digital printing before making the decision to use this process. Which one's did you try & why did you dismiss them?

[Jim collum]

I still do print inkjet monochrome and color images. It all really depends on the image itself. Imageprint by Colorbyte is an excellent program (need to use the newer 2200/2400/7600/7800/9600/9800 Epson prints to really get monochrome from it). A less expensive, but excellent quality RIP is Roy Harrington's Quad tone rip harrington.com/QuadToneRIP.html (http://harrington.com/QuadToneRIP.html) .

Dedicated quad tones from Cone Editions are also excellent, if you don't want to use the Epson inks.

[Pete Watkins]

How do you get View Camera magazine in the U.K.? PETE

[steve simmons]

To get View Camera in the UK contact

sales@robertwhite.co.uk

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Dan Burkholder has been doing pt/pd over pigment for a few years already. Although I have not seen the work mentioned here, I have seen many of Dan's prints and IMO you have to have a special "eye" to pull it off. Dan has a very particular style which compliments his printing very well. It is not only about greater blacks, but very subtle tonalities in color which enhance the color of a pt/pd print. Not to mention the fact that additional colors add (in some cases) interest to the print.

You might want to check Dan's web site and see more of this type of work.

[sanking]

I don't mean to divert attention from Jim's work, which I find very interesting, but I would like to mention that if one is primarily intested in getting more Dmax from the Pt./Pd. process they might also want to consider Pt./Pd. over cyanotype. The color of the combination is very neutral, and Dmax is bumped considerably. Also, cyanotype is one of the most permanent of all processes so the combination would be very archival.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

The color of the combination is very neutral, and Dmax is bumped considerably

You got any to show? I would like to see even a scan..... :-)

[sanking]

"You got any to show? I would like to see even a scan..... :-"

I have not printed this way and don't have anything to show . My remarks were based on the work I saw of a friend who had great success with the combination. I will check to see if he might be willing to scan one of his prints for you to see.

It would be easy enough for you too fool around with this yourself since you already know Pt./Pd. printing and cyanotype is very simple, and the process requirements as to paper pH and such are very similar. Just be sure to pre-shrink the paper before the first printing or it will be impossible to get good registration on the second printing.

[Struan Gray]

Jim's photographs are a wonderful use of tone and subtle colouring. I find them much more satisfying than Dan Burkholder's work using the same technique, which to me seems to rely too much on a simplistic splash of colour in a monochrome world. Jim's images are less insistently clever.

FWIW, one advantage of this sort of technique is that you don't have to use the black channel from the straight CMYK seperation. You can create a seperate black channel using the channel mixer and/or dodging and burning any spatially aligned monochrome image and then insert it into the seperation file. It's a technique I used to use a lot with my wholly spectroscopic microscope images, which are essentially black and white images colourised according to a result of a seperate measurement. With flatbed scans of my film I run into noise issues too much to use this technique very often, but with drum or Imacon scans - or digital originals - that shouldn't be an issue.

[Kirk Gittings]

Just a personal point of view. I think the images are interesting and the technique has alot of potential, but those particular images would be stronger as straight platinum prints. I find the color distracting and unecessary.

One of the best issues of VC I have seen in a long time. I think VC is on the upswing.

[William Mortensen]

Though I can only see the reproductions in VC and on the web, Jim's process does seem quite subtle, beautiful, and unique. It's well-suited to his vision and subject matter, which I also admire. Still, there's this little nagging voice in my mind, saying "platinum over digital? That's like ketsup over chocolate ice cream..."

My compliments to Jim, and to Steve for a very fine issue!