Scanning 4x5"

[Frank Petronio]

Take or send your color or B&W film to the photo lab for processing and keep it simple so you don't get overwhelmed. Color film is much more challenging to home process, B&W is easy once you've done a few times. Trays work fine, keep it CHEAP and SIMPLE.

Negative film can be any size, 35mm or larger, color or B&W. Same with 35mm positive slides although with larger sizes people call them "chromes".

Just use the Epson 700 as-is to start and just make smaller prints until you learn more.

Yes you can make large prints from a good Epson scan but if -- after you've gained some experience -- you send your film off to be drum scanned by a good operator, you will be impressed enough by the quality difference that the Epson wont look so good.

[Santo Roman]

I've got the V700 and it works great but when you want that true quality...use the trays on the darkroom. I'm with Frank on this, for MUCH better quality scans, try the drum scans. They will bring out detail that the Epson just does not pick up. Again, I use the V700 for my 4x5 BW work and it comes out great but I also drum scan thing that I want to put up for people. Either way have fun and enjoy it.

santo

[Anonomatos]

Take or send your color or B&W film to the photo lab for processing and keep it simple so you don't get overwhelmed. Color film is much more challenging to home process, B&W is easy once you've done a few times. Trays work fine, keep it CHEAP and SIMPLE.

Negative film can be any size, 35mm or larger, color or B&W. Same with 35mm positive slides although with larger sizes people call them "chromes".

Just use the Epson 700 as-is to start and just make smaller prints until you learn more.

Yes you can make large prints from a good Epson scan but if -- after you've gained some experience -- you send your film off to be drum scanned by a good operator, you will be impressed enough by the quality difference that the Epson wont look so good.

Thanks, I think you've got a good point. I am eventually going for big prints. A friend of mine studies Graphic Design & Photography and I guess he can try to drum scan one for me when I feel I'm ready for it... :-) I'm quite experienced with large prints made from digital camera's, but the quality and detail was always good but not too fantastic. Hope to go another step in quality and detail within the Large Format!

And I'll be working on color photos, not B&W, unfortenately for the processing.

Anyways, thanks a bunch! Hold your socks for more silly question on other parts of this forum

[BetterSense]

C'mon, isn't this argument over already. Digital technology is every bit as capable, the prints can be just as beautiful, it's a matter of taste at this point

You are right that it is a matter of taste. It's always a matter of taste. Photographic prints have different qualities and the importance of those qualities is itself a matter of taste. One of the qualities of a print that happens to matter to me is that it be a genuine analog photographically-processed print. I value that quality. It doesn't matter to me how good of an imitation a digital print is, because it's still a digital print, so in this matter a traditional optical print will always be better than a digital print. Other people don't value the distinction at all, and I have no problem with that. Some people deny that there is a distinction worth making in the first place, and with that I certainly differ.

People have different values, and value different things. If someone likes optical prints, it's probably either not possible or not profitable to try to convince them not to.

[Lenny Eiger]

One of the qualities of a print that happens to matter to me is that it be a genuine analog photographically-processed print. I value that quality. It doesn't matter to me how good of an imitation a digital print is, because it's still a digital print, so in this matter a traditional optical print will always be better than a digital print. Other people don't value the distinction at all, and I have no problem with that.

I'm going to be in this group. I don't value the distinction at all. If I did, I would insist that all photographic art be handmade, as in gum, albumen, gravure, platinum, etc. All lenses should be hand-ground. Whatever. Where does one draw the line?

In the old days, photography wasn't an art because any "monkey with a camera" could produce a great image. Finally, someone outlined the distinctions between good photography, amateur, beginner, etc. and it was accepted. Now we're being told "any monkey with a computer and a $50 printer" can make prints. It's just as ludicrous. (And they can't.)

A tool is just a tool. I print with digital because I like the results better. I could still make platinum prints if I wanted to. I am not trying to imitate a traditional optical print. I'm not going to diss anyone that wants to print in a darkroom, have at it. But I don't think its right to call prints made with an inkjet simply an attempt to imitate what can happen in a darkroom. We ought to be beyond that already.

Lenny

[sanking]

A tool is just a tool. I print with digital because I like the results better. I could still make platinum prints if I wanted to. I am not trying to imitate a traditional optical print. I'm not going to diss anyone that wants to print in a darkroom, have at it. But I don't think its right to call prints made with an inkjet simply an attempt to imitate what can happen in a darkroom. We ought to be beyond that already.

Lenny

Can you make a platinum print with the same control of tonal values as your digital inkjet prints?

If you could, I think most collectors would pay more for the pt/pd print, same image from same photographer of course.

Sandy

[Bruce Watson]

Can you make a platinum print with the same control of tonal values as your digital inkjet prints?

If you could, I think most collectors would pay more for the pt/pd print.

Sandy

I suspect that Lenny could. The better question is... would he want to?

One's integrity as an artist demands that one use the tools required to best reach one's vision. Lenny clearly thinks he does his best work expressing his vision using inkjet printing. That's his chosen medium. It's his choice, not a collector's choice. I can't imagine many of us letting collectors determine our tools.

One of the reasons I love photography is that it's one of the realms where people still do things for reasons other than profit.

[sanking]

I suspect that Lenny could. The better question is... would he want to?

One's integrity as an artist demands that one use the tools required to best reach one's vision. Lenny clearly thinks he does his best work expressing his vision using inkjet printing. That's his chosen medium. It's his choice, not a collector's choice. I can't imagine many of us letting collectors determine our tools.

One of the reasons I love photography is that it's one of the realms where people still do things for reasons other than profit.

That is fine. We work as we want to work, and for whatever reason. But I think that Lenny is also a professional and works for profit so let's not discard that concept.

But I am just saying, if I had the choice of buying two prints from the same artist that wre virtually identical in terms of tonal values, one an inkjet print, the other a hand coated pt/pd print, there is no question but that I would pay more for the latter.

Sandy King

[Lenny Eiger]

But I am just saying, if I had the choice of buying two prints from the same artist that wre virtually identical in terms of tonal values, one an inkjet print, the other a hand coated pt/pd print, there is no question but that I would pay more for the latter.
Sandy King

I agree that this is the way things are - for the moment. I also have an appreciation for anything hand-made. The argument with non-silver is often duplicitous, given that the negs are often made on an inkjet. I did have a pretty good handle on the platinum, and the negs required for different results, and you are correct, once done, the neg is done and there is little control. All that said, I don't think the distinction will last. There was a time when few knew what a platinum print was, and they didn't want to pay anything for it. If everyone, or more specifically, collectors, understood the difficulty in making a master print, in whatever media, I think they would pay the same price for all of them. At the moment, there is a cache to platinum prints that has more to do with the metal and its place in the precious metals market than anything else. My guess is that a huge platinum deposit could be found in South Dakota, plunging the price of platinum down to the price of some inexpensive metal and this cache would disappear - after some time.

I could be right or wrong about this. I don't know. I do know that trends are transitory. I think almost any alternative process that has survived is capable of making, in the right hands, very exquisite things. Silver prints can be beautiful, but they have their pluses and minuses, just like everything else. The light sensitive stuff is encased in goop, which I find useless, making the surface too shiny for my taste. OTOH, they can also be quite something when describing highlight tones. I say if one doesn't like fighting with PhotoShop, don't. There are lots of good choices. Getting a great result in any of them is just as difficult.

I am considerably disturbed by post-modernism and the insistence by the museums that traditional photography is "over". They suggest that you wouldn't photograph with a soft-focus lens after the move from the Photo-Secession to the Modern period, and question why anyone would photograph anything in a representational way. They say things like "Landscape is over." "If a photograph looks like a photograph, it's completely invalid." They lump seasoned professional artists in with the amateur nature photography crowd. They don't, or can't, distinguish between O'Sullivan or Weston and Galen Rowell, or Rodney Lough. I think that they have some valid arguments, but they throw the baby out with the proverbial bath water.

This is the danger we face. This is the challenge we must answer. I don't want to hijack this thread, but post-modernism looms large. Bickering over what type of print one make seems silly, at best.

Lenny


Lenny

[Tyler Boley]

I think at some point things turned around without that many people noticing. The assumption is that it would be a challenge to make an ink print as good as a platinum. But in many areas, a platinum will not be as good as the best mono ink print now available. It's just that most people still have not seen these prints.
I have a series in ink my previous platinum efforts of the same images look lame next to, that could say more about my previous platinum abilities than anything else I admit.
The problem now becomes defining what "as good as", or "better" means...
Tyler