Do your best BW inkjets matched or surpass your best BW wet prints?

[Larry Gebhardt]

I'd say my glossy FB inkjet prints satisfy me about 90% as much as my glossy FB silver prints when all goes well for both prints. Digital is certainly easier to make tonal adjustments with and in many cases that makes a significant difference. But even the best (that I've seen) FB inkjet prints have some gloss differential. That has the ability to ruin some images to my eye.

You didn't ask about color, but I like my color inkjet work much better than RA-4 prints.

[Peter De Smidt]

With matte papers, I greatly prefer my current inkjet system to my darkroom. I use a modified Eboni-6 inkset, Quad-toned Rip with a custom profile, and Epson Hot Press Natural. With glossy prints I still prefer silver gelatin prints. I haven't seen any of Paul Roark's Claria dye prints on silver metallic paper, though. http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/4000-Noritsu-2K.pdf

[invisibleflash]

I have a large body of work that I've printed both ways. I worked on the silver prints for about ten years, and then learned the Piezography process in order to make a hand-bound artist's book. The book project became so difficult I abandoned it, but, I continued with the Piezography printing, partly because my favorite silver materials were discontinued.

And also because the piezo prints were among the best black and white prints of any kind I've ever made. Or ever seen, for that matter.

I was using a version of piezography called piezo-tone, now long-discontinued, which uses 4 monochrome carbon inks, and can only print on matte-finish papers. I haven't printed with the current 6 and 7 ink version that can also print on gloss baryta-finished papers. When I wanted a gloss finish I had to varnish with an air-brush. Those results were incredible, but tedious and really easy to mess up.

Using the old versions of the inks, at least half the time I preferred the ink print to my original silver print. In the remaining cases, sometimes I preferred the silver print, other times it was a toss-up ... the prints were just different and I liked them in different ways. A lot of this is about surface, and some of it is about d-max. My prints on Fortezo had much deeper blacks than my ink prints on Hahnemuhle Photo-rag. Unless I varnished the print—a process that I didn't perfect enough to use in a final edition.

I suspect my silver prints would have a very hard time competing with the newer inks on gloss papers. I'm currently working in color, and don't have a piezo setup. My color inkjet prints on papers like Harman/Hahnemuhle gloss baryta and Canson Infinity Baryta look better than any wet darkroom print I've seen (I used to work in a custom lab, so I've seen a few). But that's not as tough a challenge ... I've never loved the look of c-prints or ciba.

Piezography...everybody raves about it. I will have to study it up. I worry about changing the inks in my 3880 and ruining it. Someone should come out with a dedicated BW printer. Have you put the Piezography out in the sun for 6 months? How do they fade test?

Books? I make lots and lots of hand bound artists' books. But they are not Smythsewn, they are spiral bound. Here are just 2 of them. I made 3 in 2013 and am doing 4 in 2014 / 15. (Also samples of my inkjet printing with R2000 for color and 3880 for BW)

(nsfw)

http://portfolioartistsbook.tumblr.com/

http://twentysixroadkills.tumblr.com/

Spiral binding has a benefit to it. you can always unbind it to make a gallery show out of the original prints. Then re bind it in 5 - 10 minutes. Just don't go beyond 1 inch in thickness. After 30mm the spiral coils are thinner and they flop around.

If you are just making one book, then it may be worth it to pay $150 to get it Smythsewn. I produce many books, so spiral binding is the best I can keep up with. I am photog 1st, printer 2nd, book producer 3rd. If you decide to try spiral binding let me know I'd be glad to offer free help.



Edit...sadly the suppliers keep changing the book materials. I am having a hard time getting plastic cover and plastic inter leaf. They went from USA material to Chinese. Now the plastic is all curled up and texture is poor. Luckily I have enough USA material for the next 2 years of production.

[invisibleflash]

With matte papers, I greatly prefer my current inkjet system to my darkroom. I use a modified Eboni-6 inkset, Quad-toned Rip with a custom profile, and Epson Hot Press Natural. With glossy prints I still prefer silver gelatin prints. I haven't seen any of Paul Roark's Claria dye prints on silver metallic paper, though. http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/4000-Noritsu-2K.pdf

What is the RIP for? From what I understand a RIP produces a screened image with halftone dots? if I am correct, what is the purpose of adding the halftone screening.

[invisibleflash]

I'd say my glossy FB inkjet prints satisfy me about 90% as much as my glossy FB silver prints when all goes well for both prints. Digital is certainly easier to make tonal adjustments with and in many cases that makes a significant difference. But even the best (that I've seen) FB inkjet prints have some gloss differential. That has the ability to ruin some images to my eye.

You didn't ask about color, but I like my color inkjet work much better than RA-4 prints.

Yes, color inkjet can be very good. I am very happy with it.

[invisibleflash]

I printed silver exclusively for decades. I started printing digitally to help make some decent prints out of some problem negs that didn't print well with silver. When I started printing digitally my target was my best silver prints. It took me a few years of dedicated effort to achieve this but I did. Now I print primarily in digital and make a silver print if some collector requests it or I just feel like getting my fingers wet. It is hard to make a traditional enlarged silver print to match the digital. I can make a great silver print but it will not match a great ink print. They are very different beasts. I just don't have the same level of control printing optically. So I think the future of my silver printing will be headed largely to creating digital negatives or contact printing on silver-best of both worlds.

FWIW.....Why does anyone care if their finished prints are waterproof? What are you doing with your prints that they need that? I have never had a need for a waterproof finished print of any kind, ink or silver.

I don't know. I did a lot of testing with dye transfers a few years ago. I had lost 2 decades of work in a flood. (water resistance would not have helped me.) At the time I thought about water testing a dye transfer and an inkjet.

[Doug Howk]

I think it just depends on what you want or are satisfied with. From an appropriate viewing distance based on size of print, then B&W prints are nearly equal. If, however, you are into sharpness and detail, it is currently physically impossible for an inkjet print to equal a silver gelatin print. We're comparing technologies of photons & silver molecules vs the best in squirt technology. It would take a major investment in nano-technology by inkjet manufacturers to approach equality; and there probably isn't enough demand for that investment. So, if you are satisfied with Cone or Epson pigment inks on whatever paper you like, consider yourself fortunate. And have pity on us traditional printers as we worry about continuing availability of our favorite papers, etc..

[Peter De Smidt]

Quad-toned Rip is used to control each of the inks. It doesn't involve half-tone screening. My system currently uses 6 shades of gray in an Epson 7600.

[ROL]

I'm not coming down on either side, but the question presumes some ability to make or recognize good wet prints in which to compare machine prints. I haven't seen a lot of evidence that is true. For many, one of the great assets of machine printing is that they were always lousy at making wet prints. Then again, maybe I'm all wet.

[tgtaylor]

Hi Daniel,


In your linked-to examples (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi..._Teoli_Jr..jpg ) you can easily get the image to look like the image on the right by simply increasing (in this case) the contrast grade to match the higher contrast. There's a lot of white in the image so it would respond well to the split grade printing technique where you first print a work print with a #00 or #0 filter to determine the exposure with that filter for the highlights, and then with a #5 filter for the darker areas, and combine the two exposures for the final print. Alternatively you can determine the correct exposure density on grade 2 and then go up (or down) until you see what you like.

Last night I contact printed an image of Three Brothers from the Merced that I took in Yosemite over Memorial Day Weekend. Since there weren't a lot of white (actually just a large cloud with mostly grays and only a little white here and there) so I chose the Fred Picker method. A 12 second exposure at grade 2 with a 3 second dodge on the far left hand side of the river and immediate shore to balance gave the best exposure but increasing the contrast to grade 2.5 made the water look more “wet” and gave a better sparkle from the reflections in it without effecting most of the image. However, going to grade 2.5 overall lightened just a tad the trees lining the opposite bank of the river. So the “best “ result would seem to come with a 12-second grade 2 exposure dodging the river during the last few seconds (easy to do because it was almost a straight line) and finishing the river at grade 2.5. But it was too late to continue – after midnight and I had to clean-up and wash the prints – so I made two prints at grade 2.5 which look good. Anyway, if took that negative back to the wet darkroom I'm sure that you can print it with the higher contrast of the digital print.

Great image by the way!

Thomas