Digital BW, The Print

Mike,

Thanks for the feedback. From comments to my post, I think that 
digital really does offer the opportunity to get more detail off of 
our negatives and onto the B&W print.

This really isn't the attitude you hear though. There is still get 
the impression that people fell that going digital in B&W it is to 
accept a step down in quality. Hopefully this attitude is starting to 
change.

It does sound like one exception would be very large prints from 
grainy negatives. Here at traditional optical enlarger's softness 
would put some tone between the grains. But then again you could 
probably take care of this in Photoshop.

Your assessment of the critical link between print quality and 
scanning is very true. It took me quite awhile to realize that the 
problems with my inkjet prints were in the scans I was working with.

Martin


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Michael J. Kravit" 
<kravit@b...> wrote:
> Martin,
> 
> To answer your question, I find that a print on my 7000 from a 6x6 
> negative at 20x24 compared to a print of the same negative on 
silver 
> paper is sharper and shows less grain and more detail.
> 
> Of course I drum scan on my Howtek D4000 at 4000dpi. My 4x5 
negatives 
> have been printed up to 24x36 and are amazing. I have also printed 
> 35mm negs to 20x24, but grain becomes an issue as well as loss of 
> smooth continuous tone gradations.
> 
> Most of my work is shot at 6x9 or 4x5 and I must say that on my 
7000 
> with Cones Piezo RIP the resulting 20x24 and 24x36 prints are as 
good 
> as if not better than my traditional silver prints. 
> 
> I believe that the scan is the key to great prints. High quality 
drum 
> scans can't be beat for large format prints.
> 
> Mike