Be careful, manufacturers, workshop hosts, company reps and people eager to get you hooked will give you a taste.. and and you'll be hooked..Originally Posted by Califmike33
that's why I'll have someone else print some things for me, I'll feed the monkey on their back I'm already addicted to go-juice... ...
Last edited by jnantz; 28-Nov-2022 at 06:24.
I've been using inkjet since the late 90s. Used to consult and all that jazz. I still print black and white in the darkroom though. For me it comes down to the dark tones. i just think they look better in a silver print. If your work is higher key though there won't be much difference. You'll get more control over the final image with inkjet but it is a big hole to crawl down. Every small increase in quality will require a lot of learning and testing. For color I use an inkjet. Just makes sense. I'd prefer to print that in the darkroom too just to simplify things but I'm too lazy to process the prints in drums. Inkjet is just simpler, but then again I've been doing it for 25 years now. Everything gets simpler after that much time. Whatever you choose to do just have fun with it.
Part of the beauty of all-darkroom printing is that you CAN'T just crank out multiples like a xerox machine. At least a certain amount of loving hands-on is required for each print, and the fact that there can be slight differences one from another might very well make each special, yet in a slightly different way.
Based on making a pile-O-prints over a lotta years, each B&W wet silver gelatin print is different in it's own way. Not just variations in print material from nano to maxi, chemistry changes, futzing with the printing process varies as does a very long list of items along the print process list.. This can be valued and viewed as positive or negative depending on the image creator and audience..
Digital data based prints can have some variability, but the bent data image file often remains mostly constant leaving the digital file output device being the variable.
Bernice
Yes!
I get this. Years ago and after collecting photographs for many years, I decided I wanted to purchase my favorite Ansel Adams print in a 16x20 size. I went to three galleries in California only to find that each available print was different. Not better. Different. Shadows were darker or lighter, highlights were more defined or separated. As a photographer and darkroom printer for 20+ years, I could see it, others could see it but most could not. The interesting thing here is that the prints were priced differently based on those specific attributes. More control would have made my choice much easier!
Thats a great point you made, done with hands of love.
In 1924 Stieglitz began printing with silver while stating:
"The quality of touch in its deepest living sense is inherent in my photographs. When that sense of touch is lost the heartbeat of the
photograph is extinct. In the reproduction it would become extinct --- dead. My interest is in the living."
Last edited by Merg Ross; 28-Nov-2022 at 08:42.
Merg that is perfect...thank you! (and a big "thank you" to Mr. Stieglitz!)
Perhaps we hobbyist get lucky
The 2 actual real Print exchanges I organized was excellent in the 'sameness' of all submitted prints
I was the only one with the 100's of prints, spread out on big folding tables
I know mine were very exact as I made 8X10 contact prints in a very stable Contact Printer with new lamps and a timer
So many LF experts wax ecstatic online, some never post any useful image
I write this in anger, as this group misleads far too often
There is a song The Mamas & The Papas - California Dreamin' (Official HD Video)
I love that song!
Tin Can
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