Wet or dry?

Bill Pierce

Bill Pierce

Well-known
Local time
4:43 PM
Joined
Sep 26, 2007
Messages
1,407
View My Gallery
It's pretty obvious from comments in several of these threads that the wet darkroom is rather rapidly losing to the dry, digital darkroom for printing images even among those of us that love the wet darkroom.

It's pretty obvious why most digital photographers are turning to the dry darkroom for prints - not too many other simple choices. But I wonder why film photographers are turning to it for prints.

I shoot both film and digital. It's easier for me to maintain a single printing system for both. And I do believe we have more controls in digital to produce the print we want. While the life expectancy of inkjet prints has been a worry, the right inks and the right paper, especially in black-and-white, look like they are going to give us long lasting prints if we display and store them properly.

Every day I promise myself that I'm going to go back into my wet darkroom and make some prints. But I end up cleaning the sink, dusting the enlarger and going back to my computer and inkjet printer.

I wondered which way you folks are going. Wet or dry? It might benefit all of us to learn from each other the way our world is going. And why. Then we can let the conversation sink to the bottom and discuss workflows.

Bill
 
Dry.
Since I got my first Digital in 1998 the Wet went down the tubes, literally.
The smell of rotten vegetables is not allowed in the house any more!
Planning to get the HP B9180 near future for those B&W on Ilford paper.
 
Dry now...and for some time actually.
My Leica enlarger sleeps gently in the dark. The only time I go wet is if I have to do a Platinum print. Digital is still to costly for my Deardorff.

The dangerous thing that happened to me as far as printing goes...was and is...repeatability....in the wet room, making an edition of prints is very difficult and there is always a certain amount of variation that becomes acceptable between prints. In digital...just hit how many prints you want and there's very little difference between any prints...

I always dreamed of working like Bresson...just go out and make images and just edit what my assistant prints...I had that for some time with college students but now...I work....process the files and send them online to my lab...in a few days...I edit and have prints......damn hard to beat brother.........

at night, I still dream the smell of fixer in the air.....all my chemicals are bottled tight and maybe someday.....somebody will find a use for them...but probably not me......later...shooter
 
Hmm, well, I've been doing only scanning and inkjet printing for quite some time now, but for b&w it's just not the same (not even with fancy greyscale inks), so I'm inching slowly back towards setting up a wet darkroom again - my first concrete step a few weeks ago was to buy an enlarger lens from eBay.
 
wet or dry

wet or dry

Bill - I've gone dry and despite having a great wet darkroom. I still shoot some film and scan it in either with a Nikon coolscan for 35 or a flatbed for 2 1/4 and 4x5.
Why? - a few reasons. 1) Although I was very happy with my B&W prints (I've always had my own darkroom and printed for over 50 years) I find like you, greater control over what I am after (now that I use Quadtones in CS2) and greater repeatability. 2) I seem to be able to develop more creativity in my printing. 3) Last but not least, I enjoy dry printing over wet printing.

I need to upgrade my printer - but that's a way off for now.

Cheers
David

PS thanks for all your great photo-writings (& images) which I hve enjoyed and continue to enjoy
 
I run a wet darkroom for color and monochome. I prefer the results. While digital printing gives more control, I find wet handles shadows and highlights better. Both produce excellent prints. I don't think there is a great mystery about workflow.
 
wet.
I'm currently trying to make a wet darkroom. I have been able to pick up most of the equipment used and in great shape for dirt cheap. Next up is a sink and temp regulator, some lights and then just building the thing. (in the meantime, I rent)
I spend all day at the computer for my job. I dont want to go home and do my hobby on this damn machine too. I like the enviroment, the feel, movement, physically creating my photo. This has a lot of appeal to me and since it is my hobby, I'm in no hurry, nor am I trying to produce in mass.
If I could produce several solid prints that could go up on my wall a year or that I could exhibit at small local art shows / gallerys - I would be happy 🙂

Cheers.

Jason
 
Last edited:
Bill, I have recently started up a small wet darkroom because I love to do the work the process entails. In this age of instant information, I find that more options are easily at hand for experimenting with different materials, different effects and the mutual support online is a terrific motivator. Where as in the past I was locked into the selection of Kodak and Ilford products, today I am compounding my own chemistries as needed, such as Ansco 130, D-76 and Parodinal and I love the control/freedom this allows me.

Having said that, if I had the means to buy a top quality b&w digital printer and a first quality color printer, together with film scanners, I would. These would not be for replacing the wet darkroom, rather I think I would want them for the dog work, stuff for family, digital contact prints, and one-offs that I felt did not merit the labor that a good fiber-based wet print entails. I think that I would take the position that digital printing is a good replacement for rc printing.

I doubt I would want to bother much with digital tweaking of images from film. Perhaps if I at some point invested in a good digital camera, I might want to do more than play some with the Apple, but I doubt it.

Eli
 
Both. I photograph for my own personal expression and enjoyment so a high volume workflow and output is not too important. I use the final print ("fine print") as the endpoint to guide the choice of methods I might use.

I like to use small camera over large ones and like to carry as little as I can when traveling. A few rolls of film usually take up less room than cards, batteries, chargers, image vaults/computers, etc.

I use B&W film and film cameras for short trips, trips that are not primarily photographic, trips not likely to require miltiple security checks and for a lot of local, walk around photography.

I use digital cameras when I think the images will be ones I would want in color, on longer trips that in the past would require me to carry a lot of film, on most long distance travel and almost any time I would use flash.

I have a home darkroom and develop my own B&W film and make traditional proofsheets. It is faster to make a dozen proof sheets the traditional way than scanning (with my current flatbed scanner). Currently, based on the proof sheet images will then scan negatives for printing via the computer.

I have the option of printing traditionally but find the quality I can currently get on the computer to be better than I am able to do in the darkroom for many negatives. I can also print to a larger size via the computer (my archival washer is an 11 x 14 size and is the functional print size limiter in the darkroom).

I find it harder to spend the time printing in the traditional darkroom given my feeling that I can make a better print with the computer. If I truley felt that my traditional prints were better most of the time I would have no problem investing the time in the tradional darkroom.

It has taken me quite a bit of work over the years to get ink jet B&W printing to be at the very acceptable level that it currently is. Overall I like the look of scanned B&W film and inkjet prints better than almost anything else I can produce.

I like digital color capture and ink jet color printing better than any previous color printing method I had done previously. I am currently working to get the ink jet prints made from digital captures converted to B&W looking as good to me as the scanned film does.

I have spend a good deal of time over many years learning traditional photography and have spen a lot of time and effort in the last few years learning digital imaging. I had anticipated working totally with digital capture/printing at this point but still found very valid, for me , reasons to keep at least B&W film as part of my "tool kit". Perhaps this will change in the future.
 
Bill Pierce said:
I wondered which way you folks are going. Wet or dry?
Click to expand...
Dry for the moment, but only because it's more compatible with a full-time job as a biomedical engineer. Am slowly putting together a full-fledged darkroom, with the aim of re-printing all these negs "the proper way" when I have more free time...

Vincent
 
Me too!

Me too!

migtex said:
Dry.
Since I got my first Digital in 1998 the Wet went down the tubes, literally.
The smell of rotten vegetables is not allowed in the house any more!
Click to expand...

Having been literally raised under a ruby red in my father's darkroom as a child, spent a good part of my childood in the dark for an annual, paper, pursued two degrees in the arts and missed way too many nice sunny spring and summer days in a gawdawful stinky dark room all I can say is 'Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty I'm free at last!'

However, I still shoot primarily film. My hell has taught me to see the difference between wet vs dry, and I'm stuborn and vain enough to hold on to what I can see is best. For years I was locked into a black and white world. I DREAMED I could shoot color with the same freedom and cost as black and white and the computer has provide that for me.

If I had all the money I've blown on 'state of the art' scanners and computers from 1998 I could have one hell of a wet lab right now, but I have no regrets!
 
I'm both wet and dry. Prints from silver negs from my M6/M2/CLE are wet from my V35 and Nova processor. Images from film for the web are scanned on my minolta 5400. Images from my R9/DMR are of necessity dry. I'm afaraid dry prints from silver hegs just don't do it for me.

Charlie
 
For black and white: wet. By a long shot.

Frankly I don't think there is enough appreciation among some new photographers for how versatile b&w wet printing is. We now have wonderful tools like digital negs, LVT etc. that have opened up a whole new world of possibilities in wet printing.

Why finish wet, even if you shoot digitally?

(1) Highly individual output- the printer leaves an individual process "stamp" on each and every print and it isn't just a signature. No two wet prints are alike;

(2) Alt processing: from cyanotypes to tintypes to Pt/Pd or just plain old toned silver gelatin, monochrome has a vast versatility;

(3) archival-ness: I do not bother to argue that wet prints are more archival than pigment ink, they are similar. But the simple fact is that there are very, very old silver gelatin prints that are worth a fortune. I keep asking people to tell me what is the best price anyone ever got on a pigment ink print and as yet I have gotten no answer. The answer for silver gelatin is in the millions of dollars. Unfortunately, pigment ink prints will never be worth as much because a digital file can be 'ripped' and reprinted in a [virtually] indistinguishably identical way, in an unlimited quantity... even if the photographer didn't authorize it. A digital file is a very volatile thing, and now that we have inexpensive and great flatbed scanners, a print can be duped very easily as well. Can you tell the difference between an original print and a flatbed duped one? The answer is no. So don't be surprised to see your prized dry print for sale on ebay! In the case of a traditional wet print there are ways to date the print and authenticate it and show that it was made via a particular process; these kinds of things are part and parcel of the medium. And these things add up to make each wet print much more individual and therefore more collectible....

(3b) ...and moreover, the "demise" of wet printing is actually making it more valuable and more collectible- think about how much a decent daguerreotype is worth now, even if the composition is crap!!! Seriously, I think more digital shooters should consider wet output for the reason that the output is more individual from print to print;

(4) The "look": This is indeed hard to quantify. But I have been given high end pigment ink prints that I thought showed metamerism and the image appeared plasticky. I personally like matte fiber- I like the way the image seems to reside in the paper not on it, and that there is no plasticky sheen. Yes I know about Hahnemuehle. I'll still take my matte fiber because I can tone it before my eyes. It's not all about Dmax, if that were the sole determining factor then I would use pigment ink on glossy. But there is a lot more to a print than Dmax.

I could go on and on but those are the main reasons. I now really enjoy hybrid processing. I just very recently discovered LVT and what it can do for me and feel like I am getting the best of both worlds... but I definitely prefer to finish wet.

Ultimately, I always offer the same bottom line / caveat: photographers should pick the camera/film/sensor/process that makes them feel creatively productive. That is an individual thing. There is no right or wrong answer, so don't flame me! For me the choice is wet, by a long shot. And yes I do have a pigment ink epson; I use it to make digital negs for traditional wet printing.
 
Last edited:
Dry here-develop my B&W, and do all my own scans now, and print what I want to hang. I'm doing it all for my own fun, and never did much wet printing anyway.

But I don't use a digital camera anymore.
 
Love the look of wet prints, mainly because I like glossy fiber paper.

The main problem is that I don't have the room for a permanent darkroom.
Set up and tear down is a... pain.

The second problem is that I do not have the time to become a serious printer. I can make a good straight print, but forget about split printing etc.

Soooo, I need an altenative:

1) ILFORD GALERIE FB DIGITAL
(http://tinyurl.com/h4tgh)

Real glossy, fiber paper that you can run through something like a Fuji Lightjet. Workflow is as follows:

a) Flilm capture
b) High quality scan
c) Digital manipulation in Photoshop or similar package
d) Output via Lightjet.

This solution should deliver the equvalent of a traditional silver print.

I gave up on black and white prints on Fuji Crystal Archive RC.
Looks like black and white printed on color RC stock. Yeach!


2) NEW NEGATIVE

a) film capture
b) high quality scan (Imacon,Nikon 9000ED, drumscan)
c) Digital manipulation (dodge, burn etc) in Photoshop or NUKE.
d) Digital file is sent to a Kodak Rhino LVT to generate a new negative on TMAX100 (up to 8x10 in size).
e) Traditional wet print on silver fiber paper from new negative.


3) INKJET PRINTS.

The new 7 carbon ink system for GLOSSY paper from Jon Cone. Appears to deliver prints with a dmax as good or better than a traditional fiber print.
 
I do both, and why wouldn't you! both wet and dry have benefits. I prefer the look of analogue prints, but digital printing makes super larger size prints much more accesible. When people say to me that an inkjet print looks as good as a silver gelatin print, I tell them to take both outside or put them under a really bright light then tell me 🙂 The fact that two prints are rarely the same is also a positive, I'll take randomness over push button repeatability any day, and I belive buyers of photography feel the same way!

But the best thing about the darkroom to me, apart from any aesthetic reason, is that its far more enjoyable than sitting here, I like the physical nature of darkroom printing, and the solitude of the darkroom.
 
Repeatability and much less physical infrastructure (though not necessarily cost).

Having said that...

...there is something quite magic, literally, about looking at a piece of paper in a tray and "seeing what develops."

There isn't any magic about an inkjet.
 
I'm all dry, but I don't especially like it. All my wet-darkroom stuff is still out in the garage just in case I come to my senses (and suddenly acquire a lot of spare time.)

The main reason I went dry was that I was shooting most of my photos with a digital camera anyway. A significant secondary reason was that after Agfa discontinued Portriga-Rapid, I was never quite as satisfied with my wet prints as I had been.

The sharpness and tonal range of a black-and-white dry print (on my HP B9180) aren't up to what I could get with a wet print, but I'm able to come up with something that approximates the Portriga-Rapid "look" (and without those nasty greasy spots I'd sometimes get when the prints dried!)
 
I have studiously NOT ready any replies to the OP ...

WET for me, when I can reconstitute my darkroom. Why ...???

So far my hands (the Zen of working with tangible photo stuff ... negs, chemicals, paper, washers, drying racks, etc.,) are much more capable than a mouse and a screen. I concede that using PS (or other post tool) can yield a file that is reproducible, but somehow it lacks soul to me. I know the end result of a mostly (if not all) digital workflow can be wonderful, but I just don't connect with it, at least yet.

Given the years (days?) I have left on this blue marble, I just feel like sticking with what I truly know how to do. The only barrier is what materials are available to me. Once I have the space again available, I'll have to replace what is no longer available. Let's see ...

Film for originals? Check, still available.
Film chems? Check, still available.
Zone VI Brilliant paper? Oops, not available, I'll need a substitute.
Amidol paper developer? Check, still available if a bit difficult to acquire. Other formulae available, not to worry TOO much. (PT/PD still going strong if I so desire ...)
Stop bath, fixer, hypo eliminator, water? Check, still available.
Time? Same amount of time available for "analog" as well as digital. Whether a final print takes 1 hour or 4 ... who cares?

Earl
Neo-pagan Buddhist in the darkroom, developing light.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom