Digital BW, The Print

joshscapes wrote:

> hello,
>
> has anyone here used lightjets for b&w prints.  i hear they are really 
> good and actually
> printed on b&w photo paper.  anyone had a b&w print done with a 
> lightjet printer?  also,
> anyone know of any good labs that use this printer to print from 
> digital b&w files?
>
> thanks in advance,
>
> josh

You can do this, yes. I've had a print made on B&W paper on a lightjet. 
It looked pretty good actually. Nice Dmax, nice surface, feels just like 
the RC print that it is. It's not a silver gelatin print however. It's a 
dye print just like Fuji Crystal Archive. It's run through the same RA-4 
processing line as Fuji Crystal Archive and should have about the same 
longevity.

My local pro lab used to load B&W paper in their Lightjet twice a week. 
I forget which days, but if you time it right you get excellent 
turnaround from the lab (two hours?). You can find them here:

http://www.jwphotolabs.com/about.html

I found a lab somewhere (I've forgotten the name and location) that 
would run "normal" darkroom enlarging paper (not RC) through their 
machine (it wasn't a lightjet, but one of the competitors that put out 
enough energy to expose the slower enlarging paper) and ran that through 
a Dektol B&W line. But prints were ridiculously expensive. I seem to 
remember about 3x inkjet prices. Which is why I don't remember anything 
about them anymore;-)
--
Bruce Watson