Digital BW, The Print

> I was disappointed that I could not exactly reproduce the  look of my 
> silver prints fiber based gloss photographic paper.
>
> Over the past year I have learmed to appreciate what my 1280 and VM 
> inks can do on Photo Rag...No it will never reproduce the same images 
> as Brillance or Seagull, but I've learned to look beyond that to look 
> even more to the image. The highlights on this paper with the VM ink 
> are subtle and delicate. The highlights on Seagull can hit you in the 
> head. There is a difference and after a time I've have come to 
> appriciate the strengths of digital prints on matt paper.

I have also been thinking about the difference between prints on matte 
and glossy-type paper. Actually this is not a new issue: in his book, 
"The Print", Ansel Adams stated that he preferred using air dried 
glossy paper because of its much greater "reflective range", something 
like 1:400 vs a much smaller range (1:200?) for matte papers. (As I 
don't have the book here, I can't give you the exact figures.) It's 
clear from the physics of light and the composition of the papers that 
glossy papers will always produce deeper blacks and a longer tonal 
range as well as better gradation. To yearn for the same from matte 
papers is to wish for constant disappointment.

Here's an excerpt from a 2001 interview with Ralph Gibson:

> Question: Have you tried printing with the quad tone inks, like the 
> ones from MIS (www.InkSupply.com).
>
> Ralph: I have. And I�ve gone to InkjetMall.com (Cone Editions). I�m 
> pretty much abreast of what�s going on. And I have used those inks, 
> and they�re great. It�s just that they�re not better or worse than 
> photographs. They coexist. They�re not photographs. They�re another 
> kind of very beautiful print.

He is of course talking about prints on matte papers. These prints have 
their own aesthetic and many, in my view, are closer to platinum prints 
than to silver prints. For photographs that don't need deep blacks and 
that stress the mid-tones, these prints can be very beautiful. Most 
people also like the look and tactile feel of the matte papers although 
this disappears when prints are framed under glass.

But I like deep blacks and the greater dynamic range that glossy papers 
provide. I have before me the prints of the same photograph printed on 
the 7600 with the ImagePrint using Matte Black on EEM and using Photo 
Black on Epson Semi-Matte. For what I like, the latter is much better. 
Indeed, looking at the two prints side-by-side, there is really no 
comparison for this photograph:  the Photo Black/Semi-Matte print has 
deeper blacks, a longer tonal range, much better and smoother 
differentiation of tones -- in the shadows, in the mid-tones and in the 
high-lights: there is substantially better contrast in all these tonal 
areas. The only problem with the Semi-Matte print is the slight 
bronzing under changing angles of light. So the holy grail -- the look 
of the air dried look of a glossy silver print -- has not yet been 
grasped.

--Mitch/Bangkok

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