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Thread: Serious Digital Printing DPI

  1. #1

    Serious Digital Printing DPI

    I am finally finishing grad school next semester and have decided to produce a 1 off book for my thesis show. I considered making a book with real silver prints but the cost is out of reach for me at the moment and the process of dry mounting them is a bit too complicated at this time. A good friend/mentor has suggested making the book through digital printing which will reduce the costs significantly. He has also mentioned how good hahnemule paper products have gotten and that with proper preparation the prints should look up to snuff.

    The book will contain a health mix of 4x5, medium formats, and 35mm. I have decided on the 17" wide rolls of paper so the pages will be 17"x20". A pretty big book. I am just now trying to figure out what that means as far as actual print size. For 35mm I think they would be 15"x10" (actual image size). I think I can get away with a 4800 DPI scan for the 35mm prints but is there anything gained from going to 9800?

    I could also use some paper recommendations besides hahnemule. Is the Ilford paper comparable or is hahnemule the absolute king here? I need a paper stock that will be substantial for such a large book but that is also double sided to keep my layouts flexible.

  2. #2
    chassis's Avatar
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    Re: Serious Digital Printing DPI

    4800dpi scanning resolution with a 24mmx36mm film image will print something around 24" on the long side at 300dpi. Your target of 15" is, in principle, manageable with 4800dpi scanning resolution. 9800dpi scanning resolution is more than the minimum needed, but offers the potential for downsampling. There are experts here on this topic.

    The 300dpi print output resolution is in the ball park, but also something of a judgment call and depends on the printing hardware, ink and paper. Bob Carnie here is one of the resident experts on this topic.

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    Peter De Smidt's Avatar
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    Re: Serious Digital Printing DPI

    Chassis is right. All of this depends on a lot of things, especially the printing process. Are you going to print on matte or glossy paper? If matte, then print resolution will be limited by the paper surface. Epson printers can operate optimally at 720 dpi in the input file. The other most used resolution is 360 dpi. (Canon printers are 600 and 300, respectively). Will you see the difference on glossy paper using the highest settings on the printer? Maybe. Ctein, if I remember rightly, claimed to see a difference going up to 480 dpi, but that was awhile ago, and some printers might be better. If it is going to make a difference, everything, from the original negative quality, the scanner, post production, printing....would all have to be extremely good. Now you have a pk paper in a book. What's more important, absolute detail, or hand feel, resistance to finger prints, ..... Personally, I'd go with an MK paper. The paper search is more important than many of the other questions. It has to be thin enough to work in a book..... In my opinion, decide on all of the other issues first, such as paper type..... Now scan/process/... one frame. Test the output before scanning all of the frames. Do you see a valuable enough difference between the various methods to justify the added work? That way, you'll be making all of the decisions yourself, instead of listening to people who you have no idea of whether you'd agree with their perceptual judgments of the actual prints.
    “You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
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  4. #4

    Re: Serious Digital Printing DPI

    I am very new to digital workflow so this is already a very big undertaking. I am giving myself a big head start, the book needs to be completed by the second week of April. I hope to have a paper selected by the end of December. I am not sure what is meant by PK vs MK paper. Can anyone clarify please?

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    Peter De Smidt's Avatar
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    Re: Serious Digital Printing DPI

    I Pk= photo , i.e glossy ink. Mk=matte ink. If you’re new, just go for 360 dpi at final print size if using Epson. 300dpi if Canon or HP.
    “You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
    ― Alexander Den Heijer, Nothing You Don't Already Know

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    Re: Serious Digital Printing DPI

    Quote Originally Posted by RodinalDuchamp View Post
    I am finally finishing grad school next semester and have decided to produce a 1 off book for my thesis show. I considered making a book with real silver prints but the cost is out of reach for me at the moment and the process of dry mounting them is a bit too complicated at this time....
    Have you compared the actual cost of materials for inkjet printing to that of materials for silver printing, taking into account necessary auxiliaries like chemicals for silver and ink cartridges for inkjet, and assuming like-for-like comparisons (e.g., FB vs FB paper)? You may find that they're a lot closer than you think.

    If you are experienced and comfortable printing in silver then I'm going to be a contrarian and suggest that you print your book in silver, on RC paper. Inkjet has a steep learning curve to get high-quality results and is an expensive medium just like silver is. Scanning, too, is a demanding craft with many traps for the inexperienced. It seems that you are only just getting started in both. If your goal is to be sure of having a high-quality thesis presentation with a minimum of grief, now is not the time to be learning two new, demanding processes from scratch. If scanning-plus-inkjet is to be your path, then November is not a "big head start" for a product needed in April.

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    Jac@stafford.net's Avatar
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    Re: Serious Digital Printing DPI

    Quote Originally Posted by chassis View Post
    4800dpi scanning resolution with a 24mmx36mm film image
    Help me here. Is there really a 4800dpi (or ppi) resolution available via scanning, is it any good, and regardless how does a printer handle it? I would think a printer would re-sample (destructive?) to its own capability.

    Math is not adequate to describe the whole problem.

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    Re: Serious Digital Printing DPI

    I'm going with Oren here...digital printing is not inexpensive and requires a very steep learning curve to achieve first-class results. IMO, in order to achieve the best results you will need to have your film drum scanned. Have you looked at the cost for doing this? Hint: it's not cheap! Good quality printer paper is really no cheaper than silver paper for the darkroom. I'm assuming that since you mentioned "silver prints" that your thesis work is B&W; you don't mention any specific "color" (warm/neutral/cold) you're looking for, but, if warm tone, IMO you'd be hard pressed to beat Ilford MGWT RC with a slight bit of selenium toning just for archival purposes. The pages will lay nice and flat in the book and will look beautiful, if processed correctly.

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    Peter De Smidt's Avatar
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    Re: Serious Digital Printing DPI

    Quote Originally Posted by Jac@stafford.net View Post
    Help me here. Is there really a 4800dpi (or ppi) resolution available via scanning, is it any good, and regardless how does a printer handle it? I would think a printer would re-sample (destructive?) to its own capability.

    Math is not adequate to describe the whole problem.
    Yes, yes, and it depends on the output size and the type of printer. As I said, Epson printers, in the highest quality mode, can accept a file up to 720 ppi at output size. (This is not to be confused with the dpi output specification of the printer! There is not a 1 to 1 mapping of input file values to dots of ink.) Other sizes are converted to that size by the printer. So, scanning at 1440 will give a 2x enlargement, 2160 a 3x enlargement, 2880 a 4x enlargement....without require the printer to do an re-sizing.

    I scan 35mm at 6000 spi on a scanner that can really reach that level. I do so because that gives the best rendition of photo grain with my scanner.
    “You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
    ― Alexander Den Heijer, Nothing You Don't Already Know

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    Re: Serious Digital Printing DPI

    What film scanners do you have available?

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