Digital BW, The Print

On Wednesday, February 12, 2003, at 06:51  AM, peter nelson wrote:

> the hood.   I've read tons of posts from people who tried it
> really hard and never got good results.   I quoted one poster
> who said he tried quads for a YEAR and didn't get as good a
> result as his first print out of the box with his 2200.

You are reading and quoting from people who are on these forums 
primarily because they are having problems, there are many happily 
printing away with these inks and workflows who are not here.

usually this is the place people come for help or guidance, not to rave 
about how well they are doing.

Someone who printed quad's for a year without getting results better 
than his 2200 may have been doing something wrong, using old methods, 
going backwards, who knows... how do you trust what one person says 
about that when you aren't aware of the skill of the operator. I'm not 
ragging on this person,  I don't know who it is... perhaps he had bad 
luck with his quads, I don't know. Do you?.


>
> I can teach anyone to make decent black and white prints
> in the darkroom in a day.  Not necessarily Ansel Adams,
> but black blacks, white whites, continuous tones (assuming
> they exist in the negative, properly developed, fixed, etc.
> It's a simple, predictable, straightforward process.  If you
> can follow simple directions it's easy.  I'm looking for a
> digital printing process that's similarly straightforward and
> reliable.

why would you want to limit yourself to what you could have achieved in 
the dark room, when you can achieve so much more within that continuous 
range between black and white, find more detail before black and do so 
many wonderful tricks easier and with more precision within 
Photoshop... yup, you have to learn it, it's a very intense deep 
wonderful program and only part of the flow... Best part is, you can 
take it only as far as you need for your particular image desires.

You want to learn this in a day?  well, when the book comes out let me 
know.  I've been at it for 8 years, color for 8, monotone from color 
for 7, quads for 2.5, still learning, as things progress and technology 
changes, as you are well aware, you can't package a digital workflow up 
and use it without upgrading it, like you seem to have done with your 
traditional one. It's always in flux, moving forward. good bloody thing.

I get beautiful results, haven't had to repair a printer, had a few 
clogs, switched a few inks and work flows, spent a whack of money, so 
what. I like to change my furniture around sometimes too. Sure wouldn't 
want to be doing things the same way I did when I was 13.

>
> Some people here tell me we already have it; others say it will
> never exist, so there seems to be some divergence on that
> point!

it's called human nature, opinion, speculation... and skill, materials, 
willingness to learn all the intricacies of the process. You are in a 
forum that has a very huge gap between new user and experienced quad 
hand... a lot of misinfo gets passed around, excitement over new toys, 
problems that arise from user error passed on with certainty as failure 
of the system... that's the nature of forums. Of course a lot of good 
info, help, workflows, sharing and the like takes place too... but you 
have to accept the other with it... I prefer to find out for myself, 
and have done so.
Carolyn