Digital BW, The Print

Martin,

Why do you think a 1270 could do it and an 1160 would not be up to it?

-mh

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Martin Wesley" <
mwesley250@e...> wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ken Carney" <kcarney1@c...>
> To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Monday, March 03, 2003 5:52 PM
> Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Digital Negatives with 1160
> >
> > > 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.
> 
> Ken,
> 
> I would agree with you on the results with silver fiber but I have seen
> palladium prints up to about 12X17 made from negatives done on a 1270 with
> Epson dye inks. I find them indistinguishable from direct in-camera neg
> prints. I doubt if an 1160 would be up to it though. Beautiful way to work
> and none of the carbon ink sets really matches the hues. Interestingly the
> Dmax on these prints is around 1.3 to 1.4 suggesting a much smaller tonal
> range than current inkjet prints. I have only tested a couple of samples
> though and these may not be representative of the Dmax the medium can
> achieve.
> 
> I have a couple of silver prints from Lensworks done with imagesetter negs
> that you would not be able to pick out from prints made by traditionally
> enlargement. Really high quality but as you say 3,600 or higher dpi is a
> must.
> 
> >  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.
> 
> Chris, if you deal with a service bureau by all means use one that has done
> this kind of work before. Otherwise you can waste a lot of money while they
> try and figure out what you want.
> 
> Martin Wesley
> 
> (snip)