B&W Chromira prints

[David_Manning]

I'm still searching for the holy grail for digital B&W printing. Has anyone had one of their B&W scanned negatives printed on a Chromira?

I'm curious about your experiences, and what else you have tried to compare that Chromira print to.

Thanks.

David.

 

[David_Manning]

Still hoping somebody has tried Chromira B&W prints...

 

[lawrence]

Yes, I had some monochrome prints made via a Chromira on Fuji Crystal Archive paper. The negatives were scanned at very high resolution to give 100mb+ files and the largest prints were 25"x42". I used an Epson V750 scanner

These prints were for an exhibition and I did manage to sell a few, however the subject-matter was 'special interest' and consequently I couldn't say whether the quality would be acceptable to a museum, for example. One thing I wasn't crazy about was the print colour, which tended toward green, and another thing I didn't like was the rather plasticy look of the paper.

Perhaps these things could be improved upon by using a different paper (don't forget, the Fuji paper is intended for colour) so if I was to do it again, I would be inclined to try to find somewhere that prints on HARMAN GALERIE FB DIGITAL as this paper is designed for mono. I think you would need a Durst Lambda to print on this. And of course drum scans would also have improved the image quality though I'm not sure how much (the negs were quite grainy -- HP5 in Rodinal).

Hope this helps.

 

[mw_uio]

David,

here is the holy grail http://www.wilhelm-research.com/index.html It will probably take a few days to view everything. 😀

Enjoy! 😀

MArk
Quito, EC

 

[Steve M.]

I gave up on this line of working after seeing too many exhibitions of darkroom prints on fiber paper. It doesn't get any better than that, and now that I'm about to get started w/ a smaller and simpler enlarger (a very inexpensive Durst 606) it looks like the way to go. There was just something magical about turning on the enlarger for the 1st time w/ a 6x6 neg of Tri-X in it and seeing the image on the paper. B&W as it's supposed to look.

And let me tell you, getting rid of the scanner, printer and all that expensive ink and paper has been wonderful. I kept an ancient Epson 2450 for proofing the 35mm negs, but w/ 6x6 contact sheets I can clearly see what neg to print and which not to. The whole process has been much simpler and less expensive than I had ever dreamed it would be.

 

[David_Manning]

Lawrence, thanks for the info. I had one print made from Apple's print service (via Apple Aperture) and it looked really good.

Mark, too much information!!! I'll check it out when I can't get to sleep 🙂

Steve, agreed, totally...but logistics make setting up for printing a very big hassle...quite a bit more of a problem than just souping negatives. Plus...my printing skills are somewhat lacking these days.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to answer.

----David.