Digital BW, The Print

Phil,

The results so far are very impressive. While I see the difference 
between the prints from 2nd digital neg and the original, the gap 
seems pretty narrow given the huge amount of enlargement.

Aside from the small detail area, how do you feel about the quality 
of the image as whole comparing the original silver print, the 
digital to silver print and the Piezo print? Have you tried a contact 
print of the negative? If you have I would be curious as to your 
impressions of the result.

The lack of contrast is of more concern than the sharpness 
difference. I think you are correct that going to an 8x10 neg should 
resolve or greatly improve the sharpness issues. Is A&I pushing the 
film in development to build contrast or are they just working with 
the Photoshop and LightJet settings?

One thing I find very fascinating is that the image on your web page 
from the original scan is the sharpest and has the most detail. This 
is not really surprising since all the others have gone through a 
second scanning and additional steps as well. But it makes me think 
that there is a real need for $100, 5 pound, ½" thick, 24x30 flat-
panel displays (archival of course) in which we could imbed our image 
file (or files?) for sale to the customer. In the meantime, what 
silver paper are you printing on?

I really appreciate your sharing this information. The amount of work 
and effort involved in calibrating a new workflow like this is very 
large.

Thanks,

Martin Wesley



--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Phil Bard" <phil@p...> 
wrote:
> Hello everyone,
> 
> On my website I have posted the results of the second round of 
Lightjet 
> negs I recently received from A&I Digital (link at bottom). For 
those 
> of you unfamiliar with this test it involves making 4x5 B&W 
negatives 
> from scans (from 4x5 originals) using a Lightjet digital enlarger. 
Once 
> again I made 24x30 enlargements from 4x5 negs.  The new negs show 
an 
> increase in sharpness and some gain in the grain area, but are 
> promising depending on what your particular needs for this process 
> might be. They are still lower in contrast by about a grade or so 
than 
> the original. Still unclear is how an image will print back to 
negative 
> after my tweaking it in PhotoShop, since all of these negs were 
> produced without my intermediate involvement there.  I have yet to 
> produce full crop 24x30's yet to get a sense of the overall impact 
of 
> the Lightjet negs, but will try to find time to do that soon.  Note 
> that for these negs, A&I went back and did a 16 bit scan of my 
> original.  First negs were from 8 bit scans.
> 
> Conclusions so far are that at 24x30 there is a moderate loss of 
detail 
> and tonal smoothness.  If printed at less magnification, something 
I 
> will also do shortly, this may not be much of a sacrifice.  And for 
> problem negs, ie. difficult or impossible to obtain satisfactory 
silver 
> prints of, it may be worth the tradeoff.  Again, that is each 
person's 
> own decision.  I will try to provide as much information about the 
> results of these tests ongoing as possible (posts to the site, 
> qualitative remarks), but those of you who are serious about this 
> process will have to perform their own trials in order to determine 
its 
> feasibility.  At some point down the line I might be able to mail 
out 
> samples of the actual prints I've made to folks who are interested, 
as 
> long as I'm not overwhelmed with requests.  Off list for that 
please.
> 
> I'm contemplating having 8x10 negs output. It could increase 
overall 
> sharpness and reduce grain.  Additionally I will continue to work 
for 
> increased film contrast and test the results of contrast 
control/burn/
> dodge in PhotoShop on the scan before sending it to the Lightjet.
> 
> Hope these are informative, sorry for the double post.
> 
> Here's the link:  http://philbard.com/tests.html
> 
> Cheers,
> Phil
> http://philbard.com