Digital BW, The Print

Peter:

I haven't closely followed this thread, but I gather from the number 
of posts that you've hit a nerve.  With more than a little 
trepidation, therefore, I offer the following:

Simple, reliable, black and white printing is here today.  Or to put 
it a little differently, I think my digital prints are as 
aesthetically pleasing, and as simply and reliably produced, as 
anything I ever did in a darkroom.

Just for the record:  I shoot 35mm Tri-X, Leica (mostly) or Nikon 
(sometimes).  I develop it myself or send it out.  I scan the negs 
with a Nikon 4000 using either Vuescan or Nikon software, depending 
on whether the particular negative will tolerate the Nikon software's 
tonal compression.  I edit the image in Photoshop 6 on a PC running 
Windows 2000.  I print using the Cone driver, Selenium Piezotone ink, 
and Photo Rag 308.  And I truly like the result.

Now, granted, I didn't arrive at this happy state over night.  In 
fact, it was definitely a hassle finding the process and products 
that work for me.  But it didn't take that long, and was certainly 
worth it.  And these aren't the only products or processes that work; 
I know there are lots of people on this list who achieve good results 
in other ways.

Therefore, if you can afford to just jump right in, I'd encourage you 
to leave your wet darkroom as it is, and give digital printing a 
serious try.

Good luck.

Chuck Schaible






--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, peter nelson 
<peter@s...> wrote:
> At 06:34 AM 2/11/2003 +0000, 
DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com 
> wrote:
> >There's an awful lot of complicated discussion going on in this
> >thread. The simple answer to the question posed by the title of the
> >thread is this:
> >
> >"Around April, 2008."
> 
> So you've heard some rumors about the 2008 PMA show?
> 
> Actually your answer is the CLOSEST one I've heard since
> starting this thread!!  As I said originally, I need to decide
> whether to make a major upgrade to my darkroom, which I
> only use for black and white.   But I was kinda hoping
> that digital black and white would soon be far enough along
> that I could get comparable results with comparable consistency
> and comparable hassle and learning curve, digitally.
> 
> I want to know when that's going to happen.