Digital BW, The Print

Chris,

Just a few things you should consider when making your negs for prints in
the way that you want, on your printer.

Sorry these are so long.

1. any problems that you have making ink prints on your printer will also
hold true for making a neg off the same device. It will be no better than
the prints you make. Anything that can and does happen to your prints will
happen to the negative plus the time you will spend in the darkroom finding
out if the negative is any good.

2. Making a negative in a printer is an additive process to a substrate. It
is not an exposure process to a coated material and then applying a
subtractive process that is both chemical and physical.

3. The image on the negative produced by the image setter is controlled by a
high end laser that is calibrated and tested every day for accuracy and
consistency

4. The dots or random spot of the image setter can be much finer in its
resolution than anything that a printer will be capable of producing. The
spot it produces can be the equivalent of a 600 line per inch screen value.
That is a spot smaller than the size of the silver crystals in the film you
use in your camera.

5. Control and consistency on the negative is a standard operating procedure
of the process when the image bureau creates a film that is readable with a
target chart and densiotometer.

6. There will be no blocking of values at either end of the scale of the
image setter neg. It will have more information than your printing paper
will be able to record.

7. You will be less at the mercy of inconsistent neg. because of density
problems and clogged heads of a print device with an image setter.

8. If you inkjet prints are lacking in the snap that you want, then the
negative you create on it will more than likely lack something also. The
fact that you are printing to a silver print paper will not solve all that
you are looking for in the print. If the print is flat the negative will
also be flat produced in the same way.

I for one have never been a fan of any additive process. It has never proven
to be as consistent and accurate as a subtractive system in reproduction. In
the graphic arts industry, system after system of additive processes has
been dropped or revised always in favor of the easier to control subtractive
and exposure systems.

I am not saying the negative from a printer will not work or will not be
usable, but it will depend on the investment of your time and testing you
put into it. The shorter way will be the image setter if you are a
perfectionist for technical detail.

I would be pleased to see how your efforts turn out. If you have a
densitometer to read both reflective and transmission values of the print
and negatives you will make your life a lot easier when making adjustments
to your finished work.
  Charlie Dennis
   -----Original Message-----
  From: Chris Hargens [mailto:chargens@...]
  Sent: Sunday, May 30, 2004 10:06 AM
  To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@...m
  Subject: [Digital BW] Re: Digital Negatives


  Thanks, Randy and Charles, for your advice. If I go the digital
  negative route, I'll be using my 2200 to make them. According to
  Burkholder the 2200, along with the 7600/9600, "gives the best negs
  on the desktop yet." I've read that for silver printing, as opposed
  to platinum, imagesetter negatives are superior to those from inkjet
  printers, but I haven't heard anything to suggest that inkjet
  negatives noticeably lower in quality.

  Chris Hargens



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