Digital BW, The Print

Robert writes:

> Output is done with a variety of epson printers
> (7000, 1280, 1160 dedicated for BW; 2200 and 1270
> for color) using imageprint or inkjet control.

Do you use printers because the image is better, or for some other reason?

The key question I've been asking myself is:  Can ink-jet produce B&W prints
that are incontestably superior to chemical prints?  Some of the B&W ink-jet
prints are very impressive, but since I rarely see professional B&W wet
prints these days, it's hard to compare.  What do you think?

I'd love to be able to produce deep, rich B&W large prints with an ink-jet.
Going through a lab or doing wet darkroom work myself just isn't an option,
for both practical and money reasons.  So if I could get really nice results
from an ink-jet, I'd be very happy.  Yes, I've tried it with my 2000P in
various modes, but it doesn't please me, and I'm thinking that only a
dedicated solution with B&W-only inks would really work.  True?

I know that color ink-jet cannot equaly laser-printed wet color prints.
However, I don't know if that is true for black and white.  In theory, black
and white should be a lot easier to get right with an ink-jet; indeed, the
only question would be resolution, but resolution can be very high when you
don't have to mix six different colors.

> I've used all the exotic enlargement, upsizing and
> sharpening techniques...but the images just loose
> it beyond the small size. They lack fine detail.

That's the price of using a color digital for B&W work, I think.

A dedicated B&W digital camera should give excellent results, but finding
one at all, much less at an affordable price, is problematic.  The
resolution would still be less than film, but the tonal qualities and detail
would be a lot better for a given resolution of CCD.  But is there enough
demand for such cameras?

Indeed, dedicated B&W digitals have another advantage (also shared by true
B&W film): they can have adjustable, continuous spectral sensitivities.
This provides tremendous flexibility compared to the conversions from RGB
that are used with color image sources.  There is no way to simulate a given
type of B&W film with a color image from a digicam--but conceivably, with
exactly the right filtering (in front of the CCD), you could do it with a
monochrome digital, although it might be more trouble than it is worth.

CCDs do have a problem matching the range of film for B&W at any kind of
affordable price, but in theory they can meet or exceed film range.  It's
just that you have to make them big, keep them cold, and so on.

At 03:39 PM 5/20/2003, Anthony Atkielski wrote:
>I'd love to be able to produce deep, rich B&W large prints with an ink-jet.
>Going through a lab or doing wet darkroom work myself just isn't an option,
>for both practical and money reasons.  So if I could get really nice results
>from an ink-jet, I'd be very happy.  Yes, I've tried it with my 2000P in
>various modes, but it doesn't please me, and I'm thinking that only a
>dedicated solution with B&W-only inks would really work.  True?

I have one Epson printer (a 1280) dedicated for color and another (a 1270) 
dedicated to black and white (loaded with hextone gray inks) for just that 
reason. It was nigh impossible to produce a black and white print from the 
color printer that did not have an obnoxious color cast or look green in 
sunlight and magenta in fluorescent. The hextone gray inks (MIS VM inkset 
from www.inksupply.com ) did the trick for me. I don't know whether you 
would call them "deep, rich" or not, but they have been good enough to 
satisfy judges of several competitions (only locally, so far, but I'm 
branching out).

Stan

================================
Photography by Stan McQueen
http://www.smcqueen.com