Digital BW, The Print

>Piezo or inkjet printing simply isn't a substitute for silver but it
>is an excellent medium for making B&W prints. I look at what I am
>doing now as a new body of work, seperate from my silver printing.
>Someday I will have more time, or the technology will advance, and I
>will be making silver prints again. But if I had unlimited time right
>now, I would be doing both and more besides.

Martin -

I'm not planning on giving up the darkroom just yet. But I agree that
inkjet output is qualitatively different: last night I scanned and printed
a negative of which I already had RC and fiber prints, and the amount of
detail and tonal differentiation that can be pulled out using even a 2820
ppi scanner is quite amazing. Having figured out (finally) how to match the
monitor image to the printed output, I was then able to make a print (using
the black cartridge only) that revealed aspects of the negative I had been
completely unable to deal with in the darkroom. This indicates mostly that
I have a lot to learn about gelatine silver printing!

>I would also strongly recommend that you look at the dye based
>Spectratone Quad inks from Lincoln Inks. If you are working on RC
>paper you might be very pleased with their inks on the Ilford RC
>inkjet paper.

I printed on RC because it was relatively fast and convenient. I don't
actually like the look of it; and the MIS VM black (of which I now have a
nice big bottle) actually seems to work fine now that the monitor is set up
correctly. I also have a bottle of MIS double-density black, and a
cartridge of Generations enhanced beta is on its way; in due course I will
try out all of them, although I suspect the differences will be minor. My
next task is to see whether any other paper besides Epson HWM is worth
keeping in stock...

Given the number of electrons expended on this whole MIS VM vs. black-only
business, I'd be happy to send you a sample print done with the black
cartridge, so you can see what _I_ consider good-looking inkjet output.
You're entirely at liberty to think it's nasty, of course...

Best regards,

-- Nick

NICHOLAS HARTMANN                                +1 (414) 271-4890
611 N. Broadway, Suite 509                  fax: +1 (414) 271-4892
Milwaukee, WI 53202, USA                       polyglot@...

Technical and scientific translator:  German and French -> English