Digital BW, The Print

> With the hope of combining the strengths (while avoiding the
> weaknesses) of the digital and wet darkrooms, I've been exploring the
> possibility of creating digital negatives with my 1160. I've read
> that this can be done --
> http://www.danburkholder.com/Pages/misc_pages/digital_neg_faq.htm --
> however, I'm not sure just how much work, problems, troubleshooting,
> etc. it would involve. If anyone on this list has gone down this
> path, I'd be interesting in hearing about your experiences.

I have.  As you no doubt know, this is a contact printing technique.  I
think success will depend on what printing method you use.  If you print
silver prints, I would give it up and use a tried and true darkroom method,
i.e., an enlarger.  Silver paper, e.g., air-dried glossy fiber paper, is
pretty unforgiving.  OTOH, if you print "alt", such as palladium, it may
work out for you.  These prints are made on essentially watercolor paper and
hide a lot of faults.  OTOH again, a pt/pd print will have a much greater
tonal range than a silver print.  A digital 8x10 neg is just not going to
give the same range and impact as an 8x10 in-camera negative.  If I were
you, to try it out without a lot of cost, I would use the service bureau
that Dan recommends and have negs made on at least a 3,600 dpi imagesetter.
The 2,400 dpi imagesetter you commonly see won't cut it.   If you don't like
the results, the desktop solution (inkjet neg) sure isn't going to work.

For my own part, the darkroom  (silver and pt/pd) is closed and I print
everything on an Epson converted to b&w.

Regards,

  --Ken Carney
    www.kencarney.com