Digital BW, The Print

Here is a short review from my 1-day workshop yesterday at Color 
Folio, here in northern California (Sonoma), held at Color Folio. 
For those who are not familiar with Color Folio, you can visit their 
web page at www.colorfolio.com. I am in no way affiliated with Color 
Folio in any way, and I am writing this review for the benefit of 
others in the group.

The workshop was held yesterday, April 20th at the studio of Bob 
Cornelis, Color Folio's founder and main guru. His studio is located 
in a separate building next to his home in the beautiful 
surroundings of the Sonoma wine country. Prior to the workshop, we 
were requested to send in 1 or 2 samples of our work for Bob to scan 
on his Tango drum scanner. Although he has the ability to scan and 
work in 16-bit, this workshop was not directed towards the workflow 
of 16-bit images. So, I sent in 2 4x5 Tri-X negatives that have been 
tricky to work with in the darkroom of my past.

When I arrived, Bob had coffee and munchies waiting. Good for me, 
since I drove from Silicon Valley, a 1.5 hour drive, and no 
breakfast before I left home. After a brief introduction of the 4 
students (yes, only 4), and Bob and his assistant, we jumped right 
in to the meat of the day.

We all sat down and walked through Bob's sample workflow on an image 
of his own. He took control of a workstation, while we 4 students 
watched and took notes. Bob took the image from right after the 
scan, through the end result on paper. There were ample 
opportunities to ask questions throughout the process. Since I am a 
Photoshop-literate person, this process hit home with me. I wasn't 
learning the individual tools in the process, but I was being shown 
a workflow, and how to apply those tools to fine art b&w printing. I 
think the other 3 attendees felt the same.

We also went through another image of Bob's, in which we were shown 
his different techniques on converting color images to black and 
white. For this area, I was familiar with most of these techniques, 
and have been discussed many times on this and other forums.

Lunch arrived, and we all enjoyed sandwiches on Bob's back porch, 
overlooking the beautiful Sonoma country side. We somehow got off 
subject and started to discuss the similarities between the audio 
world and photographic world. Kind of funny, given the rambling of 
similar subject material on this forum (Austin, please don't start 
back again).

After lunch, we all sat down at our own workstations, with Bob and 
Rick at our sides to help out. They were all Macintoshes, and had 
plenty of horsepower for the tasks at hand. After following his 
suggested workflow, I could quickly see my images in a better light. 
We were using his Piezo-equipped Epson 7000 with Cone inks. It was 
my first time to use a 7000, and I fell in love with it. I want one! 
Anyway, I went through about 3 versions of my image, until I was 
blown away with what I had tried at home, with no knowledge of 
advanced workflow techniques. We could also print on a Roland 
printer, but this option was not the popular choice from our group. 
Bob also has a Fujix 4000, in case we were interested. For LightJet 
work, Bob uses Calypso Imaging in Santa Clara, and he has a great 
relationship with them.

Our workshop ended around 5:00, and I know I wasn't the only person 
pleased with what I had learned. I didn't go into detail regarding 
what the workflow consisted of, because my post would become quite 
long. I plan on posting an overview later this week.

If you have any questions, please email me. I hope this was helpful!