Digital BW, The Print

HI,

Thanks for the invite.  Although I am not a technical writer I think
that I might be able to bring some info to the table.

I looked today and you seem to be on a subject that would be out of my
range.  I have seen a few other messages that Phil
had posted and wanted to give some info on that subject:

He mentioned the Light Jet did up to 4x10 foot prints.  This is true of
the L/J 430,  but the L/J 5900 only goes up to 4x8 feet.
I only mention this because we have both.  Also, both of these use
photographic paper, not film.  This has become quite the
hot machine as people start to see that you can get a perfect print from
a digital file on real (chemical) photographic paper.
We have even made enlarged negs (16x20, 20x24) for platinum printing (on
Ilford clear material).  Right now, because the
market is flooded with so many digital ink jet printers that it has
become difficult to explain what "real" means to A&I.

His film test is actually being done on a Light Jet 2080 film recorder.
This machine is similar to the LVT, but uses some
different technology.  Other differences would be that you can not run
paper through it, only 8x10 or 11x14 film.  The neg is
exposed digitally and then processed conventionally in a Refrema dip and
dunk film processor using Extol developer and a
stop bath (I mention that because most labs don't use stop bath, for us
it improves consistency).

Some other fun info:

The 2080 was not designed to run B&W film at all, Chip had to make up
his own LUT and work through some handling
issues.

Previous to Chips doing this R&D, we had never seen a truly killer
digital B&W neg.  We had seen many negs from all over
the country, but we could always find flaws.

Just like the L/J printers, its really all about the scan, good scan
means good neg / trans, bad scan means bad neg.

So, let me know when I can be of assistance. I will be happy to help
with anything that I have info on.


Thanks again for the invitation.

Brian Greenberg
A&I Color
General Manager