Digital BW, The Print

I print to both matte and photo paper.  I have not done any traditional
silver prints and so don't judge my output with respect to that process.  I
do, however, find it interesting to learn more about what many people seem
to obsess over and to hopefully come to my own opinion as to the relative
strengths of where we are today in digital printing.  To date I have been
disappointed by digital "photo" paper prints.  I am very impressed with the
K3 inks.  For many prints - notably many colour prints - I prefer matte
papers such as Permajet Alpha and HPR.  For B&W that deep beautiful black
becomes much more important.  Matte and "photo" paper prints are very
different and each has its qualities for a particular image.  If you prefer,
I would like to SEE (forget about the numbers) a deeper black and greater
dynamic range in B&W matte prints.  Whether that's a NUMBER of 2.0 or 2.2 I
don't know.  It's certainly more than where we are today with 1.7.  Having
now printed a few images on both matte paper and on photo paper with the K3
inks the photo prints currently have a very good lead.  This was not the
case with the UC inks and all their bronzing and gloss differential issues.
Matte output has not really advanced with K3 - photo has in a big way.  To
someone saying that "inkjet prints don't do the trick" I would say make sure
you've seen the best that digital can do before you throw the process out
the window rather than learn it.


> From: Tyler Boley <tyler@...>
> Reply-To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 18:40:09 -0000
> To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: [Digital BW] Re: dont think inkjet prints do the trick
> 
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Steve Kale
> <stevekale@b...> wrote:
> 
> High dmax has never been one of the attributes of matte surface art,
> when strictly compared to glossy photo prints. "Beautiful" blacks, on
> the other hand, are and have been. We are currently surpassing
> platinum print dmax, one of the most beautiful photographic print
> processes by some standards. Some of these things are subjective, and
> a very old timer might say silver never rose to the level of platinum.
> Frederick Evans stopped printing when platinum paper was no longer
> available, claiming it was not possible to print to his satisfaction
> with newer materials (read silver).
> Stop looking at numbers and open your eyes and experience the prints
> for what they are.
> Many extraordinary artists (some of them darkroom masters) can see the
> beauty of these prints and are in full acceptance of them if it makes
> their particular imagery sing.
> If your imagery comes alive best on traditional silver paper prints,
> by all means stay in the darkroom.
> I for one am not looking for an equalizer, for me these are already
> better for many images, and have been for some time.
> 
> Tyler
> www.custom-digital.com
>