Digital BW, The Print

Fellow inkjetters,

Over the past few days we have been discussing the attributes of the different inks available for b/w printing and the tonalities they impose upon our art. (Good opening eh?)

So today I took several prints made over to a friends house. My friend owns several original Ansel Adams prints including Half Dome. What we found was quite a surprise. 

First let me say that the prints I brought were printed on H. Photo Rag 308. Two were made with the MIS FS Neutral set, two with the MIS FS set and two on the Epson 10000 black ink only.

The original Adams prints are truly amazing. The images glow with detail, tonal range, and show a very cool color with a bit of magenta cast in the highlights. (Perhaps magenta cast is the wrong term, but made sense to me at the time). I next placed the MIS FS Neutral prints next to the Adams prints. The MIS FS Neutrals were almost dead on but still a bit cooler than Half Dome. The biggest difference noted is that the paper old Ansel used is a creamy fiber base paper. Perhaps Agfa Brovira or some variant. The image color was slightly less cool than the MIS FS Neutral prints, but the paper was cream colored, So I believe that the paper is what is adding a bit of warmth to the overall visual effect.

I ran out of H. William Turner so I could not compare how this paper with the FS Neutrals would have compared, but I think they would have been very close. Let me say that I was extremely surprised to see the color of St. Adams' paper. My friend know Ansel personally and stated that they used to print on these lovely cool tone papers that were of a cream colored base quite often.  

Next I compared the black ink only Epson 10k print to Half Dome. The print looked warm, but still had a lovely neutral deep charcoal gray look.

The MIS FS standard inks were quite warm next to Half Dome. I next placed the MIS FS (Standard) print next to some of Tom's platinum images. The similarities were striking. Still not quite as warm as the platinum but very nice none the less.

I believe that the bottom line is we now have a number of lovely toned inks to work with that seem to be stable, have relatively low fade and color shift problems and are economically viable. As I was leaving Tom asked me when I was going to stop experimenting and playing with digital and get back to platinum printing. I smiled and told him to feel well.

Regards,

Michael J. Kravit
Architect/Photographer
Boca Raton, Florida
www.kravit.net


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