Digital BW, The Print

* -----Original Message-----
* From: Paul Roark [mailto:paul.roark@verizon.net] 
* Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2003 5:16 PM
* To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
* Subject: RE: [Digital BW] The Holy Grail?
* 
* 
* >By making digital negatives with an inkjet printer, and taking them 
* >back into the traditional wet darkroom, I have made many 
* fine prints on 
* >air-dried, glossy fiber paper.
* 
* >With digital negatives, you have the best of both worlds. 
* You have all 
* >of the great silver papers that many have come to love, and you have 
* >the power to modify and manipulate your images in Photoshop in ways 
* >that even the old darkroom masters could not hope to achieve.
* 
* Or is it the worst of both worlds.  All the digital artifacts 
* with the darkroom smells, non-buffered paper, non-washable 
* gelatin coating, wavy paper from the water that needs dry 
* mounting, questionable archival quality without strong toning 
* that turns the print purple, ...
* 
* You get the picture.  ;)
* 
* Seriously, I went this route once and, aside from temporary 
* marketing advantages, I think the silver print is or should 
* be considered an "alternative" process in the same category 
* as the platinum print.

Paul,

I have to disagree with you on this one. I have silver fiber prints of Bruce
Barnbaum and Jay Dussard made by Lenswork from contract prints printed by
high resolution (3600+ dpi) image setters. There are no digital artifacts in
these prints at all and they were made a couple of years ago. I have seen a
version of the Barnbaum print hand done in a traditional manner and I can't
see any difference in quality. (The prints were dead flat too. No wave at
all just like an inkjet print. I would like to know how they did that
myself.<G>)

I tried Dan Burkholder's methods back in about 1996 and had poor results
myself but at this point in time it is obvious to me that the problems I had
can be overcome.

The only drawback I see in this method is that you have to rely on someone
else to provide the image setter output. For me this is a real stopper as I
am compulsive/obsessive and need to have full control of every step of the
process. The key is probably in finding a good service bureau to work with.
Ideally whoever Lens Work is using in Portland.

For platinum/palladium printing you really can do just fine with Epson dye
inks on Pictorico film. I have three incredible palladium prints from Mike
Kravit that he did using this method. I would challenge anyone to spot them
from palladium prints made from analog negatives.

I guess what I want to say is that if silver fiber is what turns someone on
that is the road they should follow and it can be a digital one. People
should not accept a compromise unless they absolutely have no choice.

Beyond digitally produced contact negatives there is the entire subject of
using inkjet printers to produce diffused masks for burning and dodging as
well as contrast adjustment with a traditional enlarger approach.

Like you I have committed to inkjet but I feel the silver/digital path is
very viable and not yet fully explored.

Martin