Digital BW, The Print

Hello Matt,

Thanks for the report.

>-wavy prints--many didn't appear to have anything to stiffen them on 
>the back;
>-dirty glass!
>-banding! A photo of Anh Duong had visibile banding (my wife didn't 
>notice at first, but did when i pointed it out).
>-green or magenta prints. A group of B+W prints had very visible 
>color casts. To me these were not warm or cool tones, but it might 
>simply have been the placement of "cooler" prints near "warmer" 
>prints.

Reading this, I had a thought that perhaps we are now in the early
stages of ink prints going mainstream and finally becoming accepted by
galleries, museums, shows, etc, but that the operators of these venues
may not know enough about the technology yet (like we do who are using
it) to have established standards of what is acceptable, or what the
difference is between a good and a poor print (in terms of dither
banding, micro banding, coloration, posterization, etc - the things
that we deal with on a regular basis).

In this case, I wonder if the operator of the venue was aware of the
banding, and if so did he/she see it as a defect and decide to show
the work anyway, or maybe accepted it as something normal for this
type of print?  As for the artist, I wonder if he/she made the prints
or farmed them out, and was he/she aware of the banding, and if so,
what sort of thought processes went into giving a passing grade to them.

Is there a need for some sort of ISO-type industry standards group to
define and publish technical standards?


Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm