Digital BW, The Print

My experience with making injet digital negatives for silver prints

Being somewhat frustrated by my lack of more precise control in the
traditional darkroom now that I have been exposed to Photoshop, I 
have experimented with Mark Nelson's Precision Digital Negative 
system to make black and white digital injet negatives and then 
contact print them on silver paper.

I have used my Epson R800 printer and Pictorico White film for the 
negative. I have used Ilford Multigrade IV fiber glossy paper and 
traditional processing with selenium toning. I feel that I have been 
completely sucessful and have been able to avoid the microbanding 
that others have complained about.

Here are more details:

The precision Digital Negative process uses these steps.

-Determine a standard silver printing time with a 21 step wedge
-determine a color density to use for printing the negative
-use this to fit the range of tones to the paper and process
-print a negative with a full range of tones using the above steps 
and make a contact print
-measure those contact printed tones with a densitometer or scanner.
-manufacture a correction Photoshop curve to linearize those tones.

What this gives you is a repeatable process that takes advantage of 
the full range of your paper and makes it possible to transfer what 
you see on the screen directly to your darkroom paper. No more 
manual dodging, burning, flashing, contrast filter manipulation, 
exposure determination,unsharp masking, waiting for drydown etc.
The Precision Digital Negative system gives you all the instructions 
and the software to do all the steps very precisely so that all of 
this is repeatable once you calibrate your working environment.

I noticed two main things as I worked my way through this prcess.

First, the system has you pick a color density of ink to use for 
making the negative because I believe most people who use this 
system are interested in platinum work where UV light is used and 
therefore using the different color inks can make a difference here. 
I found that for silver work, choosing just a color of ink did not 
supply enough density to fit a full range of tones on variable 
contrast paper without cranking the contrast filter of my enlarger
(used as a fancy contact printing light source) way up to level five 
and this did not look good at all. So I fell back on using the 
printer's full bore ink rendition of producing a black and white 
negative with all the color inks. Now it was possible to make a 
negative that worked with varible contrast paper set at the filter 
#1 level and the results looked great.

Secondly, I found that indeed I did get very faint microbanding when 
I printed the inkjet negative at the "best photo" setting of the 
R800 which corresponds to a dpi setting of 2880. It was very faint 
and only visible in the creamy highlights of skin tones. My friends 
didn't see it until I pointed it out and then they could. I was not 
satisfied with this and felt maybe this process couldn't be done 
well with silver paper. BUT, I tried again with the "RPM" setting on 
the Epson driver which corresponds to a dpi setting of 5760. Well, 
after recalibrating the process to this new dpi setting, the results 
were fabulous. Recalibrating the system was absolutely necessary in 
that it was clear that the ink was laid down with very different 
density at this higher setting. This step solved, in my system,
the microbanding issue that some have spoken of in forums. I believe 
now that this print is indistinguishable from my enlarger made print 
except that the control of the tones is so much better than I am 
amazed.

This was an 8x10 negative and print. My original plan was to upgrade 
to the R1800 printer so that I could make 11x14 negatives and 
prints. With the new Epson R2400 coming out, I will hold off to see 
what that printer will be like. However, both printers offer 
the "RPM" or 5760 dpi setting that appears to be crucial to getting 
rid of the light microbanding on exceptionally unforgiving silver 
gelatin paper. My suspicion is that this might not work with the 
2200 printer. For platinum work on art papers, this system will have 
no problems and if I did those processes, I would be all over this 
system in a heart beat!

So there you have it. After a month of experimenting, I feel that 
this sytem will truly work with the current newest Epson printers 
and may be an ideal hybridization between the control of Photoshop 
and the wonderful dmax and luster/feel of silver gelatin papers.

Please feel free to comment.