Digital BW, The Print

I don't know Tom, I go through print developer pretty fast!  (grin)

Best Regards,

David R. Spielman



-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Baker [mailto:tbaker1328@...]
Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2003 9:08 PM
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Digital BW] The Holy Grail?


David  -

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but:  at the rate which the digital
printing technologies are progressing, we may reach the easy/dependable
state before your latest batch of print developer goes bad.

Tom Baker

"David R. Spielman" <david@...> wrote:
Dear Paul,

Being one who has seen your own silver/gelatin AND digital prints shown
side-by-side at the Solvang, CA show, I might agree with you.

BUT, not everybody has the skill or the equipment that you posses. Many of
us 'mere mortals' are still content to stay in our wet darkrooms. Using a
digital negative is a nice way to bridge the gap between the analog
photography paradigm and the digital world of inkjet printing, a world still
filled with many landmines such as clogging print heads, paper material with
fragile surface coatings that flake off if you look at them funny, bronzing
and out gassing, and a whole litany of other issues that silver photography
does not have. Making inkjet prints that have the level of excellence that
you have achieved is by no means an easy task. I've told you before that I
think your 'carbon-on-cotton' prints are in many ways far superior to any
silver/gelatin print, but I also think that the process of making them, as a
whole, should be called very high maintenance! :-)
I'm sure that as inkjet technology continues to progress out of its infancy,
we will see fewer and fewer of these problems. But for now, I'm not quite
ready to give up my darkroom completely.

Best Regards,

David R. Spielman