Digital BW, The Print

Hi Jack,

I have been printing selenium toned silverprints all of my life and I still like them.
But I also use an Epson 2100.
Love it for color. Black & White is not bad either but both of them are different stories compared to a silverprint or Cibachrome.
The Epson prints have there own charm but make me think of gravure prints (which I like too) instead of photographs.

I think both processus have there own charm and apllication.

I have been collecting photographs since the seventies and all my silverprints (some from early 1900) and Cibachromes still look perfect after all those years.
Of course there will be some photographers who do not produce their silverprints in the best possible way but with all these different types of inkjet inks and papers out there I do not trust these systems yet as much as I do silverprints made by a professional photographer.

Possibly the real serious inkjet printers should supply a kind of certificate with the print specifying the edition, the paper and ink used and the expected (or guaranteed?) lifetime.

As said,I love the Epson to produce my holiday albums but the digital silverprint I had made in Germany made me think:
What a nice system...no dots, no bronzing, no metamerism.....and still being able to manipulate the file in Photoshop.

Best regards,

Jo Brunenberg
www.jobrunenberg

 
DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com,Internet writes:
> Hi Group,
>In 1981 I had my first art exhibition of my images.\ufffd They were of course 
>silver emulsion,
>fiber based prints printed to archival (?!) specifications.\ufffd Since then 
>I had a few shows,
>to which I printed myself the wet-darkroom prints.\ufffd I loved them - but 
>even though I was
>and I still am pretty good in chemical printing I never liked being 
>locked up for several hours
>in the darkroom.\ufffd Smell of chemicals made me sick....
>So, now we can print (I use 1280 and MIS UT CIS) BW prints which with 
>the small limitation
>to the matte paper are (let's not be afraid of this)\ufffd BETTER or at least 
>NOT WORSE than
>chemical prints and I constantly hear the people nostalgically 
>expressing desire to go
>BACKWARDS.
>Where is the catch?\ufffd With the evolution of digital technology SOON (I am 
>sure of it)\ufffd we will
>print archival BW prints on thick glossy or semi glossy fiber paper. 
>Why getting back to the
>wet darkroom.
>ANOTHER QUESTION:
>How many of you, who print themselves, or give it to the lab are 100% 
>certain that your
>(or lab's) prints are in fact archival and will last unchanged for 100 
>years? I would be very
>reluctant to acknowledge that about my own prints EVEN THOUGH I WAS ANAL 
>about
>all the washing, removing traces of the fixer, washing, using only 
>archival (again)\ufffd mats and so.
>
>So, what part of the concept am I missing?
>
>Thanks,
>Jack