B&W Prints in the Digital Age

[Trius]

Bill: Since you are new and (we won't laugh!) aren't yet schooled in how to start a new thread, I thought I'd take the liberty of doing so, on the subject of silver prints on fibre "vs" inkjet prints. Actually, I had started a post to Tom based on his post about printing in the opening thread "Who the hell is Bill Pierce Anyway". Below is that reply; hope this gets this thread off to a good start, but anyone feel free to steer this into the right direction.

<snip>
I suspect that one of the problems with companies like Epson/HP etc is that most of the development guys have never seen a really good fibre based print. They should all be forced to go to Tucson and see the Gene Smith archive, particularly the Pittsburgh sets of prints. Then they would now what to aim for!

OT, but exactly ... whether one choose to work in an all "analog" workflow, blended, or all digital, the importance of silver (and platinum, palladium, carbro, whatever) is that they serve as points of reference for new technologies.

When I attended the Weston exhibit at GEH last year, I was very disappointed with both the prints and the lighting/mounting. I was especially disappointed with the platinum prints. I knew they were not up to par, even though I am by no means an expert on platinum & palladium prints. I discussed this with a photographer friend of mine, who also stated that the prints displayed were not the best of Weston.

So how did we know that? Quite simply, we have seen (and made) much better prints ourselves. Without trying to sound too immodest, I know I am a decent to very good silver printer. If I can make prints that are technically good enough to be something of a reference point, then I think it stands to reason that being familiar with prints from "old technology" can at least inform our vision and sensibilities, if not point us in the direction of "good" results from digital printing.

Earl

 

[Bill Pierce]

Earl -

Thanks. I've copied my old reply to Tom A., who really started the ideas in this thread and who is not pleased with the b&w prints that inkjet printers off the shelf are giving him.

Pierce, I have been trying to convince Epson to make a a 4-5 cartridge dedicated
black/white printer since last photokina (2006).

Tom -

I think this is an incredibly important subject, one that deserves it's own thread. But I'm a newby to this site. All you folks can laugh. But I'm not quite sure how to start a new thread.

Anyway, there are printers and there are other printers. The Epson printers like the 1800 produce incredible color and the gloss enhancer pretty much eliminates the gloss differential in the highlights. But I think they make awful b&w prints.

The 2400, 3800 on up have three black-and-white inks and add a little of the color to give you a choice of "tones" (the straight carbon blacks tend to warm). The colors are a little less saturated and both b&w and color prints can show a change in surface texture on glossy papers in the highlights (no gloss enhancer). But the results, especially with some of the new papers that have a bartya coating and really mimic silver paper do an amazing job. I was showing a mix of silver and inkjet prints to a museum, one of the biggies. They lean towards silver. When the meeting was breaking up, I asked some of the curators if they realized some of the prints were inkjet. They didn't; they hadn't. The folks who make paper for Ilford have an inkjet paper with the bartya coating, e.t.c., that's even better than what I was using.

And in the end, I just want a good print. Initially, I felt exactly as you do about the b&w inadequacy in off-the-shelf inkjets. Felt that way for a long time and I think I was correct. But things are changing. And as a bonus, some of these new inkjet papers hold a D-max you wouldn't believe.

Pierce

 

[JNewell]

This is timely, because I am on the verge of buying a new printer and have been leaning heavily toward the Epson 2400. Bill, or anyone else, is it your sense that there is some quantum leap coming soon (with technology products today, there is always a leap coming - the question is how soon, how significant, and at what cash cost)? Should I stay, or should I jump? Where do you see these products going in the near future?

 

[Peter Klein]

Like some others on here, I grew up photographically in the 70s reading Bill Pierce's columns in the old Camera 35. So Bill, welcome, it's really a kick to have you here!

I miss fiber-based Polycontrast F and Agfa Gevagam, too. But while you and Tom are right that "off the shelf" B&W printing on inkjets is not really ready for prime time, there are ways to get very good B&W prints out of current inkjets. It requires third-party inks and sometimes RIP (Raster Image Printing) software.

I have been using MIS quad and hextone grayscale inks for years. Others have used the Piezography inks by Jon Cone.

A recent trend is to dispense with the grayscale inks and use the same pure carbon ink in several jets. I currently use a refurbed Epson R1800, MIS Eboni ink and a $50 shareware RIP called QuadToneRIP. I'm getting beautiful prints on Moab Entrada paper. They are not exactly like silver prints, but they are getting as beautiful in their own way. And they are orders of magnitude better than current off-the-shelf methods.

These processes are described on Paul Roark's website,
http://www.paulroark.com/
Specifically here:
http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/

Clayton Jones also has useful information.
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm

The price you pay is some research into the arcane to get started, and a bit of fuss with third-party inks and cartridges. It's probably no worse than the developer alchemists of yore, like Bill with his Rodinal and sodium sulfite, or the guys in the 1930s who were supersensitizing Super-XX film so they could take available light photos with their Summars and Sonnars.

Fortunately, there are people like Paul and Clayton who are willing to do a lot of the base technical work and share the results. Many of these pioneers hang out on the Yahoo group:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalblackandwhitetheprint/

Note that there are people there who have densiometers and spectrophotometers and are not afraid to use them! The good news is that because they do, you don't have to.

--Peter

 

[Bill Pierce]

http://www.paulroark.com/[/url]
Specifically here:
http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/

Clayton Jones also has useful information.
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm

Peter -

When I started ink jet printing, Paul Roark and Clayton Jones' info was somewhere between the Bible and the Photo Lab Index for me. They were the people who showed you could actually get good prints out of these machines. But what amazes me is how good some of the off the shelf stuff is now. The Epson printers that use three black/grey inks (not the 1800) keep on getting better. Just as important, the papers that emulate that "photographic" look keep getting better.

I think there was a time when you couldn't work without RIPs. I think now you may benefit, but not to the degree you did in the past.

That's not to say it doesn't take practice, a little tweaking and a sense of what you, not the machine, want in the print. When Edward Weston printed on Azo, a commercial paper, all the "artists" were using Furry Gevalux that actually had peach fuzz in it. Gene Smith did amazing stuff on High Speed Varigam; he didn't even use regular Varigam. I think inkjet printing is getting more like silver printing in the sense that it's not what you use, but how you use it. I think more and more it's reaching the point where good printers (the people, not the machine) make good prints and bad printers make bad prints.

It's not there yet and there will always be a difference between a $200 printer and an rc style paper and a $3000 printer and Harman Gloss FB AL or Hahnemuhle Fine Art Baryta. What disturbs me most is that when you can work with almost any decent printer and inkset, the work folks like Roark and Clayton Jones put into this process maybe forgotten. Let's hope not.

 

[Bill Pierce]

This is timely, because I am on the verge of buying a new printer and have been leaning heavily toward the Epson 2400. Bill, or anyone else, is it your sense that there is some quantum leap coming soon (with technology products today, there is always a leap coming - the question is how soon, how significant, and at what cash cost)? Should I stay, or should I jump? Where do you see these products going in the near future?

My advice (and be sure to get lots of other advice) would be to jump. My son, who at times in his life has made his money as a silver printer, has a used 2400 and gets really good results out of it. Guess who owned it first.

 

[hofrench@mac.co]

I've been getting fantastic results for the last six months with an HP B9180.
Crane Museo Silver Rag, and for some types of images, Kodak's Premium Photo paper, produce absolutely gorgeous prints on this machine.
It took me a little while to get the profiling just right, but once the kinks were worked out, WOW.

 

[amateriat]

Ever since I made the leap to post-shoot digital imaging in 1998, the whole printing issue has been a moving target: I've had pretty good luck with color (my very first printer was an Epson SP 1200 I almost had to fight to the death to find and purchase), but black-and-white has always been a bit of a mess. Everybody had – and still has – their own pet "formula", but I got tired of chasing RIPs, inks and hard-to-track-down papers. As a still-dedicated film-shooter who has that end of the formula pretty much "down", I don't want the digital end to be all over the place, with the next "solution" being a mere $2000 or so away (maybe). Some might call this laziness in old age; I call it knowing what my standards are, and simply refusing to let them dip below a certain threshold.

When I came across HP's Photosmart 8750 about two years ago, I wasn't sure whether to dismiss it out of hand or take a desperate flier on it: it had three black/grey inks – IMO, the bare minimum for proper b/w output, regardless of what those who allegedly have forgotten more about the process than I've ever learned say to the contrary – but I took a chance on it, and am awfully glad I did. I'm continually impressed with the results from this printer, or, perhaps more to the point, the lack of typical inkjet articfacts I've chalked up to being par for the course in terms of compromise, especially regarding glossy/semi-gloss prints. As far as I'm concerned, the main reason matte inkjet prints are so lionized is that matte is generally the only surface that prints via inkjet without the nasties of gloss differential or bronzing; taking a limitation and burnishing it into a virtue. I can't deal with that, at least not in this instance. And now, for the most part, I don't have to.

And I do expect things to improve. They have to. We have to insist upon it. Much as I still reject digital cameras for a number of reasons (absolute image quality not necessarily at the top of the list), I've long fully embraced post-shoot digital production, and I want to see it improve. A lot. This is the place where that ornery push for "better" begins. I think,


- Barrett

 

[40oz]

"it's not what you use, but how you use it."

I've spent a great deal of time trying ot get decent B&W as well as color prints from my printer, and for a long time, saw only failure. But at some point, I stopped trying to use my injet as a substitute for an enlarger, and started using it to create prints within the boundaries of what the printer could do. Since then, I've been pleased.

For instance, my first forays using "black ink only" settings were disappointments. Likewise with using the full color inks, and especially "photo" carts. I've since found that using black only is a good way to get a B&W print, as lng as you accept that a few sheets will be used to tune the image to your printer. The idea that there is some one setting that wil render every image perfectly via your printer+paper is silly. A nice idea, but not practical. No different than the idea that one paper+filter+exposure will render all your negatives perfectly via an enlarger.

Using either photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, I've been able to generate rather nice color and B&W prints. Without RIPs or other panacea tools. Perhaps the secret is to stop judging every inkjet print to a wet print ideal. It's always going to lose, and that alone should tell you how you *should* be printing if that's your ideal.

I have found that matte papers are best for inkjets. There is nothing wrong with embracing the strength of a medium. Knowing you are working out of a hole is one thing. But expecting to see from the mountaintops by simply not acknowledging you are in a hole is quite another.

 

[amateriat]

Using either photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, I've been able to generate rather nice color and B&W prints. Without RIPs or other panacea tools. Perhaps the secret is to stop judging every inkjet print to a wet print ideal. It's always going to lose, and that alone should tell you how you *should* be printing if that's your ideal.

I have found that matte papers are best for inkjets. There is nothing wrong with embracing the strength of a medium. Knowing you are working out of a hole is one thing. But expecting to see from the mountaintops by simply not acknowledging you are in a hole is quite another.

On one level, I grok your meaning: the silver print doesn't necessarily have to be the rigid, de facto standard against which all other processes much be compared.

And yet...I've seen too many inkjet prints that simply fall apart in comparison, not because I expected them to go toe-to-toe against a finely-honed silver print, but because of sloppy inattention: color shifts (in a b/w print? There were there at PhotoExpo when the Epson 4000 had its debut, with magenta here, there, everywhere), banding, and gloss differentuial, to name just three. Like it or not, the silver print is the standard many hold the inkjet print up against, and not necessarily for reptilian knee-jerk reasons. There's no reason for the inkjet bar not to be raised, a lot.


- Barrett

 

[AusDLK]

I dunno what some folks may be doing wrong but I get awesome b&w prints using the ABW mode of my former Epson 2400 and my current 3800 using then OEM Ultrachrome inks.

I always use Qimage to make the prints with a custom ICC profile. (ICC profiles do improve the linearity of ABW prints.) I always print on Innova F-type gloss. And, I repeat, I use Qimage.

I'll put my prints up against anyone's. And they are helluva lot easier to make then messing around with all of the complicated methods that I have read others use.

 

[Tuolumne]

Should I feel embarassed to say I like the B&Ws I get straight from my R1800 using Epson inks? The sepia and warmed toned B&Ws looks best, but those look really good to me. Maybe it's been too long since I've looked at a silver print, but I actually like them BETTER than my memory of what silver prints look like.

 

[40oz]

On one level, I grok your meaning: the silver print doesn't necessarily have to be the rigid, de facto standard against which all other processes much be compared.

And yet...I've seen too many inkjet prints that simply fall apart in comparison, not because I expected them to go toe-to-toe against a finely-honed silver print, but because of sloppy inattention: color shifts (in a b/w print? There were there at PhotoExpo when the Epson 4000 had its debut, with magenta here, there, everywhere), banding, and gloss differentuial, to name just three. Like it or not, the silver print is the standard many hold the inkjet print up against, and not necessarily for reptilian knee-jerk reasons. There's no reason for the inkjet bar not to be raised, a lot.


- Barrett

My point was that if you stop trying to make inkjet prints look like silver prints, you stop producing sub-par prints.

IMHO, the bar isn't being raised, inkjet printers will just never reach that bar, because of the way they work. You can't put drops of ink on paper more precisely than a lens and a negative. There's more than location that comes into play - there is tone, the range of tones, the reflectivity of the paper, etc. B&W paper has refined this over many more years than we've had inkjet printers, so it's just silly to think inkjet printing will surpass silver prints, given the head start the wet process has.

***
Tuolumne -
As far as inkjet printing surpassing silver prints - good for you for finding a way to print that satisfies you.

I have two prints of the same frame on the wall in front of me right now, and the inkjet is the better one aesthetically, but only because the silver print version is too dark. The next time I print it, the inkjet will suffer That's more because I'm using the "look" of the inkjet print as the standard - the wet print has more detail and clearly looks better from a technical view. So much so that it's not even a contest - the inkjet might as well be crayon. But purely aesthetically, the inkjet is the better print. If I didn't have the wet print hanging next to it, I'd have no reason to not be satisfied.

 

[mrtoml]

I run a digital black and white print exchange in Europe and have been lucky to have seen many prints from a variety of digital processes on different media over the past couple of years. While in the old days there was little alternative other than to get involved with Cone's Piezography system and matte papers, and then the MIS/Roark workflows (I tried them all), nowadays things are thankfully much easier.

I find that the new Epsons with Advanced Black and White (ABW) mode are pretty good. Especially on the new Baryta and Fibre digital papers. I am pretty impressed with the new Harman FB AL paper and have also been using Innova Fiba semi-matte with some success. Even with the ABW setup which only uses 3 blacks I get prints that far outshine my older wet darkroom prints (which is partly a reflection of my poor ability in the darkroom admittedly).

For me there is little incentive to go any further than ABW or sometimes Quadtone RIP with an ABW inkset if I want split toning, say. Having seen prints side by side in the print exchanges from processes that use much more complex inksets, such as MIS and Piezotones, there is not so much to be gained any more. There is a small difference perhaps, but the much higher effort involved will not be noticed by the vast majority of viewers.

Just my view. Take with a large pinch of salt.

 

[Turtle]

I am not desperately concerned wit the quality issues, although I do not see inkjecs that compare with superb silver prints quite yet. I am more concerned with the process and what it means to me and people looking at a print. You make silver prints with you hands and that matters to me a LOT. A fibre print conveys somehow the tactile input, whether it be imaginary or not. If I get an FB print from someone, it came from them. An inkjet came from a machine. Silly I know, but it matters to me. An FB print is to me more singular and personal and achieves a far grater degree of preciousness because of that.

 

[Bill Pierce]

I run a digital black and white print exchange in Europe and have been lucky to have seen many prints from a variety of digital processes on different media over the past couple of years. While in the old days there was little alternative other than to get involved with Cone's Piezography system and matte papers, and then the MIS/Roark workflows (I tried them all), nowadays things are thankfully much easier.

I find that the new Epsons with Advanced Black and White (ABW) mode are pretty good. Especially on the new Baryta and Fibre digital papers. I am pretty impressed with the new Harman FB AL paper and have also been using Innova Fiba semi-matte with some success. Even with the ABW setup which only uses 3 blacks I get prints that far outshine my older wet darkroom prints (which is partly a reflection of my poor ability in the darkroom admittedly).

For me there is little incentive to go any further than ABW or sometimes Quadtone RIP with an ABW inkset if I want split toning, say. Having seen prints side by side in the print exchanges from processes that use much more complex inksets, such as MIS and Piezotones, there is not so much to be gained any more. There is a small difference perhaps, but the much higher effort involved will not be noticed by the vast majority of viewers.

Just my view. Take with a large pinch of salt.

I have to say, I am in total agreement with all that Mark says. Especially his remarks about ABW and the new papers. I suspect he is a little self demeaning when it comes to the quality of his own work.

Once again, for me it comes down to how good is the person doing the prints. On Doug Kirkland's living room wall there are prints of huge span of his work. That means silver and Ciba right up to inkjet from a big HP sitting in a corner of his studio. The digital prints are every bit as good as the earlier prints.

Good digital prints mean making test prints, not just looking at the monitor, tweaking those prints and, most of all, having a sense of what a good print is. It's every bit as complicated and personal as making a silver print. Right now, the digital prints I make from scanned negatives are, for the most part, better than the silver prints of the same negative because I have more creative controls.

My real concerns are the archival qualities of an inkjet print compared to the qualities of a well-washed, toned silver print

Bill

 

[Trius]

One thing that seems clear to me is that each medium needs to be judged (and used) on its own terms. Just as oil on canvas is not watercolour on paper, silver on FB is not platinum/palladium, etc. Hell, even silver/Dektol/RC is not silver/Amidol/Varigam (Galerie, Brilliant ... name your paper) ... That said, I share Bill's questions about the longevity of inkjet prints. I think it's important to consider that inkjet printing technology is very young in relative terms, so it's perhaps unfair to expect archival quality that equals silver prints.

And I do agree that the difference in the tactile qualities of the two media are important to me. It's not a good/bad judgment, it's just a preference.

I'll be looking for examples of good b&w inkjets so that I can make informed decisions.

One thing is for sure: inkjet printing won't give me purple Amidol stain on my fingers. So how will you know I'm a great artist?

 

[ed1k]

My only concern is that digital age kills the silver based paper. Of course, it's a matter of artist, not tools used, if prints are good or not, no matter ink or silver was used. And one artist may be good with ink, another with silver (rarely the same person can keep up equally good with both techniques). For me, final print is just like a fish for someone who loves fishing. Yes, they use their hands to show how big was fish they cought; but fishing as a hobby isn't about fish itself. It's about process of fishing. Photography, as a hobby, is about process. Of course, professional photography isn't about process, but about result, the simpler, predictable, cheaper, faster, the better. Digital process won, not many hobbists around to support old fashion but still high technological process of making good silver based paper. Many amateurs have never been b&w photo hobbists, so they prefer what is simpler for them (or look so). Well, there are people who consider fishing as a cheaper alternative to buying fish in a supermarket, that also has right to be.

 

[David Goldfarb]

One positive side effect of the new Harman baryta papers (and their Hahnamule and Oriental counterparts) is that it will support demand for baryta paper base, which is essential for continued production of gelatin silver paper as we know it. The Harman paper uses the same base as Ilford MGIV FB, but it's subbed for inkjet.

Ilford also makes a gelatin silver paper sensitized for Lambda/Lightjet/Chromira output for those who want real wet prints from scans or digital originals. Elevator Digital in Toronto is one of the labs that prints on this material (www.elevatordigital.ca).

I've also seen prints from the DeVere digital enlarger, which are fairly impressive up to about 20x24" (the limitation is that it uses an LCD screen in place of the negative in an otherwise traditional enlarger), and it can print to any traditional B&W or color material. There is a headshot lab in New York that owns two of these, and it seems perfect for that application--prints are 8x10" with text superimposed digitally and are usually printed in batches of 100, which can be done much more quickly with a roll paper easel and wet processing than by inkjet.

 

[jan normandale]

this is one of the best threads, I've read here in quite a while.