Digital BW, The Print

Mike,

>...
>Paul, your observations about hiding the origins of digital images 
>are very interesting. I guess I'm slowly coming to accept that I have 
>to work *with* the look of digital output a bit more, rather than 
>fighting against it constantly. As an amateur, the main audience I'm 
>trying to please is my own unaided eyes, but they are a fairly 
>critical audience.

Visible digital artifacts at normal viewing distance are unacceptable to
most of us, I would guess.  Under normal viewing conditions, I think people
will not see dots with any of the modern dedicated B&W solutions, at least
on matte papers.  My original criteria included the ability to hang a
display 16 x 20 inch digital print, framed and under glass, next to my 16 x
20 darkroom prints and have the quality be equal.  Even the old 3000 can do
this with, for example, Epson Enhanced Matte.

> For instance I've seen jaggies on an A4 colour 
>2100 print made from a full-size Minolta 5400 scan.

That does surprise me a bit.  However, one caveat to my statement above
about not seeing digital artifacts with current systems is that, to me, the
technology is still not at a point where I'm satisfied with the glossiest
print papers.  The pearl and semi-gloss surfaces look excellent, at least
when sprayed with something like Lyson Print Guard, but the high gloss
surfaces do still look less than perfect to me.

> I guess I'm the 
>type of guy who probably won't relax completely until the true on-
>paper resolution exceeds 1000ppi. ...

Some claim to be able to see the difference between 360 dpi and 720 dpi
printing.  Frankly, I cannot see it on the matte papers that I generally use
for serious display prints.  (I have not tested this on glossy papers.)

The machines are not perfect, and I expect them to get better.  However, I
clearly think they are good enough that, overall and on average, my digital
prints are better than my darkroom prints.  I guess for me, that was the
cross-over point.  I went with the approach that, for me, produced the most
satisfying final product.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com