Digital BW, The Print

Hello everyone,

I've read so many things on this group (also on the ones about 
piezography, ImagePrint)... 

And still believing that one day I would obtain what I want from the 
begining : an easy solution to print on various papers (including 
semi gloss and glossy) decades of B&W TriX and later TMax negs with 
the prodigious enhancements obtained through Photoshop.

So, based on your experience and advice, I bought an 1160, Piezo 
driver, piezo inks then MIS FS Neutral with CIS, Spyder calibrating 
tool, densitometer (to deal with the dot gain procedure)... 

And for which results : few beautiful pics, a lot of mess with the 
tubes, the cloggs, the banding issues, and how many hours to 
understand why the printer decides one day to print it with micro 
banding, the second day to fix it with a huge clogg ... 

Compared to my past prints made in the darkroom a couple years ago 
(on pearl paper, in French "barrytés" something between gloss and 
matte which needs a lot of washing and drying), I still prefer the 
first ones (but at which price! and without the hudge remodeling and 
enhancing capacities of PS.

I've seen during the last months a lot of new things on the B&W print 
market (ImagePrint, Epson 2200, Epson 4000, a HP printer with 3 
different kinds of grey,...).

What I would like : to print fine arts B&W photos (as an amateur 
photographer with a reasonable budget and not as a postgraduate in 
calibrating or in colors printing processes) with a printer with no 
banding, no clogging, no shifting, only a great 100% B&W picture 
which looks like a B&W photo. I prefer to spend more time on 
retouching a picture with Photoshop rather than in sucking ink from a 
clogged tube!

Is that still a dream and then shall I subscribe to Mike Johnston's 
theory about B&W printers' future (see http://www.luminous-
landscape.com/columns/sm-03-07-27.shtml ), or is there now something 
which could allow me to reach what I've been looking for many years 
(and after so many disapointments and expenses).

Please help me to find THE solution!

Thanks

JM Humbert
Paris, France

On Tue, 2004-01-13 at 18:11, Jean-Marc Humbert wrote:

<snip>


> What I would like : to print fine arts B&W photos (as an amateur 
> photographer with a reasonable budget and not as a postgraduate in 
> calibrating or in colors printing processes) with a printer with no 
> banding, no clogging, no shifting, only a great 100% B&W picture 
> which looks like a B&W photo. I prefer to spend more time on 
> retouching a picture with Photoshop rather than in sucking ink from a 
> clogged tube!


<snip>


> Please help me to find THE solution!
> 
> Thanks
> 
> JM Humbert
> Paris, France


It sounds like what you want is archival quad-tone dyes. AFAIK, there's
not a product like that on the market. It sure would be nice to have
that alternative available though.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Jean-Marc  -
 
Like you, I have years of negs and slides I wanted to print.  For me the solution was Imageprint and the Epson 9600.  Costly, yes.  Trouble free, yes.  Great results, yes.  Costly, yes.  A joy to use, yes.  No clogs, no clogs.  Costly, yes.  So,  you can see there is only on real downside to the IP/Epson combination.  Many people are very happy with the combination of IP and Epson 2200/7600/9600.  There's no reason to think the trend won't continue with the Epson 4000.  Maybe even better with the 4000's operational enhancements.  But, cheap it ain't.  
 
I gave away my entire large format darkroom last year to a high school.  I've not looked back, and not regretted it in the least.
 
Tom Baker
 


Jean-Marc Humbert <humbertjm@...> wrote:
 


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

-----Original Message-----

From: Jean-Marc Humbert [mailto:humbertjm@...] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 5:12 PM
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Digital BW] Still waiting for THE solution?!

>>only a great 100% B&W picture which looks like a B&W photo. 

If a "B&W photo" means an inkjet print which looks like real double-weight
fiber-base photo paper, like Oriental G or even the Ilford fiber papers, I
don't think that's going to happen.  You can purchase resin coated inkjet
papers.  However, I've never seen them used for exhibition prints in the wet
darkroom and don't know why it would be different with inkjet.  Basically,
you have to be satisfied with matte papers such as Inkjetart hot-press
museum, PhotoRag, etc.  That's what I do and I'm at peace with it.  Once the
prints get behind glass, a lot of the "differences" go away, and only
photographers tend to see them anyway.

A suggestion: buy an Epson 2200 (or 7600 if you need larger prints) with
Epson color inks, and have a custom profile made for the paper you like the
most.  Or, ImagePrint RIP should be good.  I tried the dedicated b&w inks
with a CFS and it didn't work -- too much repair time because of clogs, plus
limited "toning" ability for the papers.  But, if the goal is a great silver
print, that means back in the darkroom.  One possible variation: I got in a
disk the other day on making digital negatives for contact printing on
silver paper (www.danburkholder.com).  No experience with it yet...it's in
the pile of things to work on someday.  I tried it with platinum/palladium
prints with some success, but not with silver paper.

Regards,

  --Ken Carney
    www.kencarney.com 

P.s. I'm not going back in the darkroom on a regular basis either.  It's
dark and cold and stinks.  I can turn on the PC and have a neat Scotch,
waiting for inspiration, without the worry of mixing it up with Dektol or
something.

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Jean-Marc 
Humbert" <humbertjm@y...> wrote:

Bonjour Jean-Marc,

> So, based on your experience and advice, I bought an 1160, Piezo 
> driver, piezo inks then MIS FS Neutral with CIS, Spyder calibrating 
> tool, densitometer (to deal with the dot gain procedure)... 

Je possède également une imprimante Epson 1160. J'ai débuté avec le 
systeme Piezo de Inkjetmall et le CIS de NoMoreCarts en 2001, puis 
lorsque l'encre Piezo a tourné au vert, j'ai fait l'acquisition des 
encres MIS FS-N, que j'ai utilisé avec le logiciel Piezo.

Depuis l'été passée j'utilise les encres MIS Ultra-Tone (UT) avec les 
courbes d'ajustement de Paul Roark, ces encres offrant une meilleure 
longévité que le FS-N. Cependant, le choix de papier que je peux 
utiliser avec ces encres est assez limité.

Et surprise agréable, meme si je n'utilise pas l'imprimante a chaque 
semaine, les jets ne sont plus jamais bouchés et j'obtient de bien 
meilleur "nozzle check" qu'avec les encres MIS FS-N. 

Cependant, il y a longtemps que je ne cherche plus a reproduire ce 
que j'obtenais en chambre noire. D'ailleurs je ne considere plus 
l'impression digitale n&b comme un remplacement direct des tirages 
argentiques mais plutôt comme un procedé alternatif avec ses forces 
et ses nombreuses faiblesses.

Un peu comme l'aquarelliste face à la peinture a l'huile!

Salutations distinguées,
Andre Moreau
Rock Forest, Quebec

I suggest that apart from the restriction on A 4 the HP Printers with the 59 
black and grey cartridge (HP 7960) are the solution.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, AWStolzing@a... 
wrote:
> I suggest that apart from the restriction on A 4 the HP Printers 
with the 59 
> black and grey cartridge (HP 7960) are the solution.
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]


Any input about this new HP printer? Has anyone on the group tried it 
(with the #59 cartridge)? Any comparison with the other solutions?

JM Humbert
Paris, France

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jean-Marc Humbert [mailto:humbertjm@...] 
> Any input about this new HP printer? Has anyone on the group tried it 
> (with the #59 cartridge)? Any comparison with the other solutions? 

     I love mine, although there are some drawbacks that people on this
group might find unacceptable:

1.  There is a little metamerism.
2.  Ink is very expensive.
3.  You must stick with HP Premium Plus (RC type) paper for best
results.
4.  The prints are not waterproof until you spray them with something

     Other than that, the tonal range is teriffic and it's the closest
thing to a darkroom print I've seen yet.  Actually, I've been thrilled,
and it is what I've been looking for.  But, I was specifically looking
for what this printer offers me, and I would expect more fine-art type
people might prefer to stick with the Epson printer and various ink and
paper choices.
     If you're interested, there has been quite a bit of discussion
about it at the printing forum at DP Review.  Lot's of good reading
there.

http://forums.dpreview.com//forums/forum.asp?forum=1003

Thanks,
Ed
http://lightandsilver.com