-----Original Message-----
From: mwesley250@... [mailto:mwesley250@...]
Sent: Monday, July 30, 2001 3:18 PM
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint] Re: Alternatives to Inkjet Prints
Olaf,
I do indeed want to see discussion and information in this area but
as you can see the membership and database is still small. The group
is not yet 72 hours old. I am continuing to put out invitations when
and where I can in hopes of pulling in more people who are doing
something other than inkjet.
For what its worth I have some limited experience with the film
recorder approach and Dan Burkholder's method to make half-tone
contact negatives.
Using a film recorder to produce a negative from a Photoshop file to
take back into the darkroom can be done. To make it work I think that
you need to either own the recorder yourself (I believe that the
Polaroid 8000 series which records in all formats up to 4X5 costs in
the neighborhood of $12,000) or find a very knowledgeable and helpful
service bureau to work with.
In either case you need to go through a system calibration from the
image on your monitor to the film recorder to the finished print. I
tried this with a local service bureau about 3 years ago and while I
saw the possibilities in the system I ran into a number of issues.
The typical one was that the service bureau was used to working with
color and had no feel for black and white. They wouldn't recognize a
good B&W neg if it jumped up and bit them. The front desk wouldn't
let me work directly with the person operating the recorder. (I
should have walked away then and there but they were the only ones in
my area with a recorder.)Their B&W film development was poor. I
should have asked for the undeveloped film and processed it myself.
Without knowing the recorder and what settings were possible (or used
to make the negatives I received) I didn't see anyway to go through
the necessary feedback loops to optimize the process. Ultimately the
cost per cycle started getting too much for me.
Now this is not a very positive experience and should not be a
reflection on the capability of the process. I hope that some of the
people on this list may have had more experience than I in this area.
The I got farther with Dan Burkholder's method but once again I had
to work through a service bureau, a much better one, but I still felt
removed from the system and frustrated in trying to communicate my
needs to the equipment operators.
At this point I would like to try the half-tone contact neg process
again. I have my own scanners so that I can control that portion of
the process and I have picked up one or two references about using
inkjets to print contact negatives on clear film.
I would also direct you to Lens Work Quarterly magazine that also
markets silver gelatin prints made using this process.
http://www.lenswork.com/lwg.htm <http://www.lenswork.com/lwg.htm>
They are lacking in specifics but essentially print from a 425 line
half-tone negative. These have gotten very good reviews as to their
quality and if you want to see what can be achieved with this
technique I suggest you buy a couple as they are very reasonably
priced. This may be the best route to a traditional silver print from
a digital file at this time.
Another approach is a hybrid. Masking is a traditional technique in
conventional enlargement. I read an interesting article about using
tissue paper sandwiched above the negative in a diffusion enlarger.
You can use a pencil to create dodges on the tissue. This was being
used with 4X5. The thought that occurred to me and probably others is
why not make masks on clear and/or frosted film using an inkjet
printer. You could even print on the masks with color ink to vary
contrast across the image if you at printing on variable contrast
silver paper.
I realize that I may not be telling you anything you don't already
know but I hope that this may prompt additional information from
people already in this group.
If you already have resources or information in these or other areas,
please post them. I don't know when others working in this area will
join us but if you put something up for them perhaps we can get some
threads going.
Thanks,
Martin Wesley
--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Olaf Ringdahl"
<o.ringdahl@a...> wrote:
> In his message to the members of the Digital Silver list,
announcing this
> new list, Martin Wesley said, near the end, "I would love to hear
from
> people who are outputting to film recorders and how that is working
for
> them. People printing B&W to the high-end printers such as Iris,
Durst, etc.
> Using digital to produce contact negatives for traditional B&W print
> emulsions."
> I agree and that is why I joined this list the instant I heard of
it.
> Unfortunately, so far I have seen no discussion at all of anything
in these
> areas. At this point the only the areas covered seem to be those
already
> covered very well by the Digital Silver and the Epson Inkjet lists.
I use an
> Epson 1280, myself, and am considering Jon Cone's system so the
inkjet
> printer postings are of interest to me but I'm hoping that this
list will
> cover something beyond inkjet.
>
> My particular interest right now is in finding ways to go from film
> negatives, through computer processing, to final, archivally
processed
> silver prints. There are several ways to accomplish this and I
would like to
> explore the possibilities Others have done this, I'm sure, and I
would very
> much like to hear of their experiences, good and bad. I hope I'm
not the
> only one interested in such a discussion.
>
>
> Hopingly,
>
>
> Olaf Ringdahl
Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
ADVERTISEMENT
<http://rd.yahoo.com/M=210574.1511967.3081913.1261774/D=egroupweb/S=17050191
82:HM/A=725668/R=0/*http://ads.track-star.com/adspace.ts?ts=1;2;217;107_132_
105_304%20> Lose 20 lbs by September 24th!
<http://us.adserver.yahoo.com/l?M=210574.1511967.3081913.1261774/D=egroupmai
l/S=1705019182:HM/A=725668/rand=315827819>
If you do not wish to belong to Digital B&W, The Print, you may
unsubscribe by sending an email to:
DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo!
<http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/> Terms of Service.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]