Digital BW, The Print

Your comments about the 2400 seem to expand on and corroborate those
who've had the 2400 for a awhile.  I'm curious if you had any previous
experience with the UT inks or some other deducated b&w system, and
could draw some comparions.

Robert Ades

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "wwodets"
<odets@c...> wrote:
> Hey--
> 
> I'm really knocked out by the quality of the discussion here, and I 
> wanted to thank Clayton, particularly, and all others for their 
> responses to my post of last night.
> 
> So, I have some other thoughts and observations on the 2400, BW 
> printing and print evaluation.
> 
> Over the past month I have printed on the 2400 30 or 40 negatives I 
> am familiar with and compared them to gelatin prints of the same 
> negatives made 20-40 years ago.  The 2400 prints *are* different.  
> Part of this is the scanning of the negatives and 
> the "Photoshopping," both of which which introduce a number of tonal 
> scale differences.  The comparison of matte prints to matte-dried 
> glossy prints also makes a difference because the surface gives a 
> different impression.
> 
> So, here are my thoughts on the issue from someone who has looked at 
> and evaluated thousands of traditional (wet process) prints:
> 
> 1.  I don't actually *see* color problems in the 2400 prints.  I 
> should add that I am so critical of color issues (though never a 
> color printer) that I have my optician obtain a special "pilot gray" 
> dye (specified by the U.S. Air Force) to tint my sunglass lenses to 
> avoid color casts.  These look like BW prints to me.
> 
> 2.  As Paul suggests, I am bothered by the *idea* of color inks in 
> the print.  I am also bothered by the possibility that the color 
> components will affect the stability of the print, though I have no 
> idea if this is the case.
> 
> 3.  I am, for the first time in my printing career only evaluating 
> prints under controlled luminance:  400-500 LUX.  I do find the 2400 
> prints more variable in appearance (depending on luminance, without 
> regard to viewing temperature) than traditional prints.  The 
> variation is not about color, but about density and apparent 
> contrast.  Why this is the case I do not know.  Variance in viewing 
> illumination can "wash out" the print or make it murky to an extent 
> that I do not find with traditional prints.
> 
> 4.  The #3 issue (above) is my biggest concern about these prints.  
> My response, to date, has been to keep the prints on the dark side 
> because I'd almost always prefer a dark print to a "weak" one. 
> 
> 5.  On the whole, I find the 2400 prints preferable to the best 
> traditional prints from the same negatives.  I find the 2400 prints 
> more elegant in tonality, richer, more tonally complex and more 
> immediate.  They look more like life than like photographs compared 
> to the traditional prints.  I can now see--horrors!--that the way 
> silver was embedded in gelatin gave a certain "veiled," remote, 
> abstract quality to traditional prints that the inkjet prints do not 
> have.  These 2400 prints have the "immediacy" of an etching or ink 
> drawing that traditional prints seem to lack.  This veiling was my 
> immediate objection to RC papers, which I never used (though they 
> weren't bad for contacts!) because they badly exacerbated the veiling.
> 
> 6.  Number 5 raises the question of adjusting to a slightly different 
> medium in viewing "photographs."  In thinking about this adjustment 
> it has finally occurred to me that silver gelatin prints were not the 
> product of an ideal medium but of the technology available to the 
> time.  And we had a long time to get used to that.  (Comparably, 
> acrylic paints never looked like oil paint, but were different.  
> People got used to that too, though I can remember the similar 
> arguments when they were first introduced.)
> 
> 7.  I find the D-max issue, so much discussed, a relatively minor 
> issue with the 2400.  The blacks are extremely deep (almost lush) and 
> except in direct comparison with a "standard" glossy black swatch are 
> plenty deep enough.  The 2400 matte blacks seem to me well within a 
> range that allows the tonal scale of the print itself to visually 
> establish a very convincing black point.  And, as I said last night, 
> these blacks are at least as good as *anyting* we did on wet-process 
> matte papers, almost certainly better.  If I actually measured 2400 
> matte blacks against a glossy print (of any type) I might be 
> disappointed, but in looking at them I am not at all.  
> 
> 8.  Finally, many, many of the observations I've made here seem 
> almost moot once the print is under glass.  The differences don't 
> disappear, but I'd say 60 or 70 or 80 percent of them do.  This 
> leaves some very tiny differences, often, I think, differences much 
> smaller than the optical, color and clarity problems introduced by 
> any framing glass I've seen.  For me, glass veils a print and makes 
> in difficult to see.  The only thing worse than framing glass in anti-
> reflective framing glass.  That's life, as is the huge range of 
> illumination under which prints are actually viewed.  What we really 
> need in an optically correct, $500 piece of glass for our prints. 
> 
> So, I'm not sure what to make of the whole issue but thought I'd 
> throw in my most recent four cents (I think 2+2 still equals four but 
> I'm not sure of that either).  Any thoughts on this mess much 
> appreciated.
> 
> Walt