Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., shashinka@a... wrote:
I believe that the big boys will be clammering for 
> the privelige to show the carbon pigment/archival 
inkjet/pigmented 
> inkjet(that's the one I use) prints. 


My thinking on this is that we must overcome serveral issues:

a) the perception that the prints are "less than" because they 
came out of a computer printer.

b) the perception that you could just crank out a zillion of them, 
and they'd all match, ie. none would be unique.

c) the perception of lack-of-permanence, fading, shifting,etc.

d) the issue of metamerism, (although they probably don't even 
know what it is exactly; they've just heard the word, and seen 
people crinkle up their noses after they say the word.)

I am going to forge ahead. My first approach is going to be to 
varnish on, or draw on, or handcoat, or something, each print, to 
make each one unique and individual. It might be a very small 
difference between each one, but it will be there and noticeable.

I don't know about the metamerism for bw images. I've not come 
up with a solution for that yet. For me, quadtones are too limiting 
in gamut, and variables MIS have a funky workflow.

I ran into my friend Jack Spencer, who's the hot guy right now, 
and I showed him my Cuba stuff, and we talked about printing. I 
mentioned that I was completely new to all this gallery world, and 
that I was printing on the 24" Epson, and he gave me that look. 
That look of "Oh, that'll never fly with these people." Or, "That's 
certainly going to be an uphill battle". 

I acknowledge all these things to be true. We are just where we 
are in this stage of the game. It will get better. I'm sure as hell not 
going back to a wet darkroom though. People were showing 
CPrints up there, and there was murmuring about them fading 
as well. So it's not just inkjet.

I don't know how much of the market is made up of people who 
are wanting to do fine art with these printers. Probably VERY 
small. But we've got to keep giving feedback to Epson to keep 
pushing.

Just my two cents.

MTucker, http://marktucker.com/