Digital B&W

[Bill Pierce]

In one of the more recent threads, I noticed a lot of folks saying they were disappointed in the black-and-white inkjet prints they were getting compared to silver. Any tips for the inkjet challenged shooting digital b&w or scanning silver negs?

Here are two from me that are rather obvious. (1) Use curves in Photoshop to compress shadow and highlight detail and expand the midrange. Take that straight line in curves and make it an "S" or Hogarth curve. (2) Make sure your scan or digital file has lots of highlight information. Remember, digital files are sort of like transparencies in that you can turn highlights into the digital equivalent of blank cellophane where black-and-white negative can usually be printed with lots of highlight detail with the only drawback being the possible loss of shadow detail.

What other recommendations can you make for our inkjet challenged friends?

 

[Roger Hicks]

What other recommendations can you make for our inkjet challenged friends?

Dear Bill,

Three additions to your excellent suggestions, in decreasing order of difficulty/expense.

1 Make sure your work appears only in reproduction or on the web, so no-one gets a chance to look at original prints.

2 Try Cone Editions Piezography which is nothing like a wet silver gelatine print but still very beautiful -- a sort of 'Altermative Process' ink-jet.

3 Stick with silver halide.

Cheers,

R.

 

[mh2000]

Other than needing the scanning/PP skills to get a good full tone image you need a good dedicated b&w printer (the right Epsons and all HP photo printers that take the gray cartridges can be made to spit out supperb b&w prints) and understand your paper choices (don't get something cheap to save a few bucks).

 

[mfogiel]

Well, I have tried various options on my Epson R2400, and finally this is what works for me:

- I have settled on printing in advanced B&W mode - if you restrict the choice of paper to just a few types, you can pretty much "profile" the brightness and curve response for each paper you use, so that what you print looks like what you see on your screen. The advanced B&W mode has two advantages over printing through Photoshop: unless you decide to tone your prints, they will only be in pure shades of grey, and, more importantly, you get better shadow detail this way.
- I have settled on two basic types of paper: semigloss or luster type for an appearance similar to air dried silver prints. I use the Ilford Gallery Smooth pearl as a proofing paper, and the Ilford Gold Fiber Silk, as the basic high quality paper ( it is truly remarkable, also when printing in warm or sepia tone), I set the paper choice to "glossy", and print at 360dpi whenever possible. The other type of paper is Hahnemuehle Photo Rag 308g/sm, which I use with the mattè settings.

I have eliminated glossy paper from B&W printing, because it exhibits a not very pleasant sheen on the surface, and makes it too apparent that the print lacks depth.

Framed prints from both these papers, look really well, and especially at sizes of A3 or bigger, can confidently challenge the traditional silver output.

BTW, I recommend to everybody this site:
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm

 

[35mmdelux]

My HP 8750 printer produces remarkably great BW images on glossy paper. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the great tonality without much work on my part. Scanning w/ Epson V750.

My backup is a Saunders 670 LPL enlarger for my 11x14 fibre prints. I mix and match, depending on my end goal.

Best -- P.

 

[tmfabian]

i too have used an epson 2400 with advanced b&w printing controls. I got truly superb results from the epson exhibition paper with some minor adjustments to the color cast controls in the advanced printing section.

the bad news is that the prints have to be proofed and tailored to whatever light source they are going to be displayed under. proofing under incandescent bulbs yields prints with a blue tint under daylight balanced sources and so on and so on. Inkjet b&w printing is without a doubt the most annoying process ever created, and while I have managed to get decent results from it, I would much much much rather produce stander silver based prints when possible.

I personally find inkjet printing to be a dead technology, I can get traditional chemical color prints from digital files from costco that are cheaper, cleaner, and are not prone to color shifts based on viewing lights. The problem there is that b&w prints are rarely neutral and impossible to predict the color cast they will exhibit during that particular day. There truly needs to be more r&d invested into creating better technology for producing quality b&w prints.

If I have b&w negs, you can bet your sweet booty i'm not scanning them to print them, traditional printing for me is still cheaper and yields much better results than inkjet (my last batch of prints from inkjet cost me $500.00 for 15 prints after paper and ink were factored in not to mention the 12 hours of continuous printing time). The only time I print on an inkjet printer is when I have b&w images shot digitally and control the histogram so that there's no clipping of highlights...there is nothing worse than seeing an inkjet print where areas of the image are lacking ink on the paper causing the paper to show though...it's just sloppy and distracting.

 

[Bill Pierce]

I use the Ilford Gallery Smooth pearl as a proofing paper, and the Ilford Gold Fiber Silk, as the basic high quality paper ( it is truly remarkable, also when printing in warm or sepia tone), I set the paper choice to "glossy", and print at 360dpi whenever possible.

BTW, I recommend to everybody this site:

http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm

For some time now, some fellow photographers looking at my prints, and even a few museum curators, have asked me if they were silver or inkjet. To me it was pretty obvious because of the difference in the paper surface. A couple of the new baryta papers really reduce that problem. The Ilford Gold Fibre Silk does it at a reasonable price. (And I've got to agree on "warm" as the Epson tone setting.)

 

[charjohncarter]

Here is one that is a little off beat, but I find that my files done at Costco which are laser exposed on Fuji Crystal Achieve paper and chemically developed are, so far, better than images that are printed. I know that a very expensive printer probably narrow this gap, but I find the Costco prints have more 'life.'

 

[Peter Klein]

I print B&W with Paul Roark's "3-MK" workflow. I use a refurbished Epson R1800, with pure carbon MIS "Eboni" ink in the two black cartridges and also in the GLOP (gloss optimizer) cartridge. Basically you prepare a black and white file however you like, then apply a curve to it, then print with the shareware QuadTone RIP program ($50 to register). There are profiles for many common papers. The workflow only works with matte paper, not glossy. I'm fine with that.

I'm very happy with the results. The printer's dither pattern produces a very slight grain effect (similar to that of slow B&W film). This actually makes things look better with ultra-smooth digital files at low ISO. You can see it with a magnifying glass, but it's at the very edge of perception at 8x10 and larger. The upside is that you get the full white of the paper between the dots, which gives prints that look more luminous than mixed color ink methods. It's also dirt cheap compared to OEM inks.

The prints are not identical to silver prints, but they are as beautiful in their own way. They are slightly warm-toned, which I like. Paul has methods for adding a bit of blue pigment ink to the workflow to tone them cooler if you want that.

One can get into a bottomless pit of paper, software and ink alchemy with some of the "roll-your-own" B&W methods. I found that the 3MK method was simple, cheap and worked well, so I've adopted it and stuck with it.

If you're interested in this workflow, start here:
http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/

Lots of information, and a bottomless pit of techie alchemy here:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/...=1&t=search&ch=web&pub=groups&sec=group&slk=1

--Peter

 

[Matt(1pt4)]

the bad news is that the prints have to be proofed and tailored to whatever light source they are going to be displayed under. proofing under incandescent bulbs yields prints with a blue tint under daylight balanced sources and so on and so on.

Don't you notice the same thing with silver prints as well? If you are sensitive to the color cast of the light, there's no way to get around noticing the way it changes your perception of the paper base color, silver or digital.

FWIW, I print the same way that mfogiel does and have traded prints with him. If the scan is good, the print can be just as nice as any silver based process.

 

[tmfabian]

Don't you notice the same thing with silver prints as well? If you are sensitive to the color cast of the light, there's no way to get around noticing the way it changes your perception of the paper base color, silver or digital.

Silver prints of course can appear warm under tungsten or cool under daylight, but the blacks are always black, inkjet blacks can be purple, green, or blue depending on light source. It's not the color cast of the light on the paper it's the way the light interacts with the pigments in the ink that causes the color casts I'm talking about.

 

[Peter Klein]

Silver prints of course can appear warm under tungsten or cool under daylight, but the blacks are always black, inkjet blacks can be purple, green, or blue depending on light source. It's not the color cast of the light on the paper it's the way the light interacts with the pigments in the ink that causes the color casts I'm talking about.

This is exactly why I use the pure carbon ink. No color pigments to shift, no metamerism.

-Peter

 

[Henryah]

To start with it is about exposure and processing of the film. After some frustrating scans when thinking "enlarger". I had to sit back and think (painful). I was simply out of range.After adjusting highligth exposure below the scanners D max and processing to get shadows to about 0,2 above base level tings improved. Just remember that the given figures are logaritmic not linear.
All the best Henry

 

[Bill Pierce]

Silver prints of course can appear warm under tungsten or cool under daylight, but the blacks are always black, inkjet blacks can be purple, green, or blue depending on light source. It's not the color cast of the light on the paper it's the way the light interacts with the pigments in the ink that causes the color casts I'm talking about.

The latest pigment inksets from Epson have, for all practical purposes, eliminated metamerism.

 

[Roger Hicks]

The prints are not identical to silver prints, but they are as beautiful in their own way.
--Peter

Dear Peter,

Exactly! That's the point, as far as I'm concerned. Find a process you like (Piezography for me); accept that it is unlikely to look like a wet print; and stick with it.

Cheers,

R.

 

[jaap]

Digital B&W is so plastic and always wil be.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I can't seem to get images with much bite to them and supect that Neopan 400 with it's deep blacks and fairly strong contrast will give a much better base for digital printing of black and whites!

Dear Keith,

No. At least, not in my experience. I find that minimal exposure and minimal development scans best: it's much easier to turn contrast UP than to turn it DOWN, and many scanners can't handle high Dmax. Minimal exposure also equates to more sharpness and finer grain. The latter can be especially important when scanning 35mm.

Cheers,

R.

 

[mh2000]

while I do like the look of Cone or Epson pigments on rag paper, I really find that the HP dye based yields the most stable, neutral (no color shifts at all), deepest and richest b&w prints that can easily be passed off as tradtional silver prints... and on HP paper they are expected to last as long as traditional prints (Wilhelm).

 

[amateriat]

My HP 8750 printer produces remarkably great BW images on glossy paper. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the great tonality without much work on my part. Scanning w/ Epson V750.

I'll second this choice. This printer has been the mainstay of my work for several years now (my current exhibit was printed with it). The results with color are as good as any printer I've come across, but black-and-white has essentially surpassed any I've seen , especially with HP's own glossy and satin papers. No bronzing, gloss differential, or metamerism, and, in spite of the system's dye-based inks (one secret behind the lack of typical inkjet artefacts), archivally stable. And no need for a pricey RIP to get things right, either (got decent results with third-party inks and a RIP on an Epson 1160 once upon a time, but got tired of that combo's temperamental nature). That experiment was fun, and educational in a way, but as soon as I'd found a true turn-key alternative I couldn't switch fast enough, and I'd printed with nothing but Epson up to that point.

I won't comment–much–on the inkjet-vs.-silver-print debate. I've seen beautiful and lousy examples of both. I suppose the out-and-out best silver prints can still edge out the best inkjets by a nose or so, but you'd literally have to put them up side-by-side. And a great inkjet print has virtues all its own. But, like most things in photography, it takes more than random keyclicks and mousing around to get there.


- Barrett

 

[sojournerphoto]

I've been using Iflord Gold Fibre Silk or Hahnemuhle Photo rag Bright White (gloss and Matte respectively) for printing black and white on a Canon IPF5000. I'm about to start working with an HP Z3100, which is also supposed to be good for B&W work. I often print in 'colour', using good homemade profiles, but sometimes black and white mode for absolute purity. Agree that Ilford smooth pearl is a good proofing paper for GFS.

I also recently tried some sample sheets of Hahnemuhle's new Baryta paper and liked it very much.

Workflow is variable, bu typically, levels, curves with masks (usually brushed on), local contrast etc

Mike