Digital BW, The Print

<The technology for making flawless contact negatives from digital files is=
 very well 
developed and the results are absolutely gorgeous.>

If you must have silver prints, another approach is to have a second genera=
tion film 
negative made via a device called a Film Recorder. In 1996 - 1998 I had abo=
ut 50 
negatives made in this manner by Photo Impact in Los Angeles. They used a K=
odak LVT 
and output a 3 inch negative on 4x5 Kodak Copy Film.

It's necessary that the operator work with you to produce a negative you li=
ke. Beware, 
from my experience at that time I think most labs that offer LVT work are u=
sed to 
working with color transparencies. Unfortunately, my contact at Photo Impac=
t has moved 
on to his own shop and now does color ink jet prints.

The cost? I paid $75 per negative and it was worth it. (Last I looked, they=
 had lowered it 
to $65.) I had been unable to find an Iris shop that could produce a good "=
gray scale' 
image; I think my problems then were probably similar to those producing gr=
ayscale pix 
with color ink jet printers today. The LVT negative allowed me to bring the=
 power of 
Photoshop to my work at that time.

Forward to 2002. For you RC fans, I've had some small prints of nudes and p=
ortraits 
made by Photoworks in San Francisco from digital files. These are color pri=
nts on RC 
paper, but with the instructions 'neutral or slightly warm' they've been fi=
ne for holiday 
cards. They use an Agfa machine, but I know there are other options. Their =
prices are 
very low, 50¢ for a 5x7 in quantities of 100 or more. A single 5x7 is $2.50=
. But we're not 
talking art here.

FWIW, I've moved on from GSP to piezo and agree with Martin that it's not r=
ealistic to 
expect the two to look the same.

Michael Rosen, LTL (long time lurker)