Digital BW, The Print

Tyler Boley said:

>No doubt they have lower dmax, but >they look rich and by
>no means weak next to Carl's beautiful >print.

Glad to hear someone say this. With every third message here seemingly 
worried about inadequate dMax I was beginning to think there must be 
something wrong with me because I've been happy  with the blacks I get on my 
matte papers.

I've spent a lot of time printing in a darkroom (a little color, mostly 
monochrome) from 4x5 and 8x10 negatives. I switched to scanning the 
negatives and printing digitally about 3 years ago (a little color, mostly 
monochrome). I have enlargements printed on variable contrast fiber base 
papers, contact prints from 8x10 negatives on  Azo paper (a graded contact 
printing paper noted for it's beautiful tonal separation from blacks to 
highlights), and digital prints hanging together on my walls. The blackest 
blacks in the digital prints look just fine and to my eyes don't look weak 
or washed out in comparison to the silver prints.

IIRC glossy fiber base papers typically have a dMax in the  2.0 - 2.1 range, 
which isn't all that much greater than dMax from digital prints on matte 
paper.  More importantly, many silver prints don't display the highest dMax 
that could possibly be achieved(because of the problems doing so can present 
in other areas of the image).  So to me the real life differences between 
the measured dMax from digital prints on matte paper and the measured dMax 
theoretically attainable from silver paper isn't all that important, an idea 
that seems to be borne out by your comparison.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tyler Boley" <tyler@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2005 2:45 PM
Subject: [Digital BW] the black thing


For reasons I won't go into there is a silver fine art print by Carl
Chiarenza in my studio right now.
http://homepage.mac.com/chiarenza/Menu2.html
Like all, I am probably more biased than I realize, but none of the
quad prints here on good art papers that utilize much black suffer by
comparison. No doubt they have lower dmax, but they look rich and by
no means weak next to Carl's beautiful print.
You gotta pick the medium to make the particular image sing, instead
holding biases about particular materials. Or the reverse, pick
materials you love and make the images work on them, or some mix of
both...
I say this now because Carl is universally known as someone utilizing
a lot of black as part of his visual vocabulary, and also as one who
goes for as much dmax as possible. I could claim all day that the
quads here are as good as my silver, but it wouldn't mean anything
since you don't know if I had my silver together, we all know Carl does.
I'm positive I could not make Carl's image more impressive or even as
good with a pigment inkjet on matte. It wouldn't say what he intended.
On the other hand I venture to add that he could possibly not make a
silver print of one of my images as nice as my quad print.

At risk of angering people, I'd say that when someone says matte
prints suck, it really means their matte prints of their images suck,
or they've never seen a good one.
I could state my opinion, that there are no "photo" surface inkjet
papers that do not look artificial and cheap, and therefore inkjet
photo surface prints suck. But they probably actually don't, I just
lack user knowledge of them and an affinity for them, and such a
statement really provides nothing useful to anyone anywhere, does it?

Tyler






Please visit the Group Homepage to check the Files, and other resources as 
they are often being updated.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint

If you wish to receive no emails or just a daily digest, or you wish to 
unsubscribe, please edit your Membership preferences by visiting this same 
page.

Please follow these basic guidelines:
- As threads develop, trim off excess portions of earlier messages to keep 
them short.
- Good manners are required at all time. No personal attacks or flames. 
Hostile, aggressive or argumentative users may be removed from the 
membership without notice.
- Keep your posts and threads related to the group topic of digital B&W 
printing. Users who persistently make off-topic posts may be removed from 
the membership.
- By posting on this forum you agree to abide by the group rules and 
guidelines, and to abide by the actions and decisions of the group Owner and 
Moderators. See "Group Topic, Rules and Guidelines" in the Files section:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint/files/

BY PARTICIPATING IN AND/OR POSTING MESSAGES TO THE DIGITAL BW, THE PRINT 
YAHOO! GROUP YOU EXPRESSLY UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT THE "OWNER" AND 
"MODERATORS" OF DIGITAL BW, THE PRINT YAHOO GROUP SHALL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU 
FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR EXEMPLARY 
DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, 
GOODWILL, USE, DATA OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSSES (EVEN IF THE  "OWNER" AND 
"MODERATORS" OF DIGITAL BW, THE PRINT YAHOO GROUP HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE 
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES), RESULTING FROM: (i) THE USE OR THE INABILITY 
TO USE THE DIGITAL BW, THE PRINT YAHOO GROUP; (ii) UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO OR 
ALTERATION OF YOUR TRANSMISSIONS OR DATA; (iii) STATEMENTS OR CONDUCT OF ANY 
THIRD PARTY ON THE DIGITAL BW, THE PRINT YAHOO GROUP; OR (iv) ANY OTHER 
MATTER RELATING TO THE DIGITAL BW, THE PRINT YAHOO GROUP.

Yahoo! Groups Links