Should I just get a high-end ink-jet printer already?

amateriat said:
For me, HP's 8750 (recently discontinued, I believe) has been the ticket for the past three years, giving me dead-neutral b/w prints as well as excellent color, with a lack of many of the artifacts too many people take for granted in certain inkjet prints, in particular gloss differential and bronzing on glossy- or satin-finish paper...


- Barrett
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The Epson R1800 solved these problems for me. If this is what you are seeing in your B&W ink jet prints, you definitely need to upgrade. The R1800 has not even a trace of these bugaboos.

/T
 
I'm getting good results from the 2400. But it will never replace (in terms of enjoyment) the experience of working with a wet darkroom, particularly with fiber papers.
Watching the image appear on the paper never ceased to be magical for me, even after more than 20 years of darkroom work. If I had the space, I would not hesitate to build a darkroom.
I know that I can print better in the darkroom than i can the desktop. But the results are close enough that I can't complain.
 
Tuolumne said:
...Now I can print anything I want at home with far superior results, color or B&W...
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If the prints work for you that's great. Just don't rule out the wet darkroom so quickly for the rest of us. I get far superior results in color or B&W from my wet darkroom.

As to the thrill of seeing the print come up in the developer tray I'm sure there is an equivalent for digital printing...
 
Inkjet with good scans will resolve more detail than anything from an enlarger...a 4000ppi scan will pull more from the negatives than will an enlarger.

Don't worry about "color managed workflow" if you're skilled in color wet darkrooms. If you're totally unskilled (eg can't tell 5C from 5B or 5G instantly), get skilled.

Darkrooms, even the most cramped, are more fun since they're less like whatever you do at work (assuming you sit at a swivel chair at work).
 
Getting a good inkjet print may be enough for most people, but IMHO, it's not as satisfying as crafting your own darkroom print. 🙂

I recently started printing in the darkroom, and I find it much easier to understand and predict (and enjoy) than fiddling with endless settings and profile files in Photoshop.

Now, having said that, I do think a good inkjet printer have its usage. The high-resolution is very useful for making big, clean, negatives to use for contact printing in the darkroom 😀
 
Sepiareverb,
I don't rule out glass negatives and dark tents set up in Yosemite Valley if that turns your crank. But for the OP who wants to set up a jury-rigged wet dark room in his bathroom? Why? If you relish that experience then go for it. And who cares if it can be leveled, absolutely vibration-free, etc. etc. It's the experience you want.

But if what you want to do is make reasonably good photos, wet dark rooms are as obsolete as, well, glass negatives developed in a dark tent in Yosemite Valley. I think the OP was looking for advice from a bit of a different perspective than that, but if not, I stand corrected.

/T
 
I guess the thing to to is to take a representative sample of negatives (varying tonality, etc.), have good prints made by both methods, compare it all side-by-side and decide for myself whether the difference(s) is/are significant.
 
A darkroom for RC printing in an apartment is doable. I have one. Here are my present requirements.

* A walk-in closet, preferably 4'by8'. Mine is adjacent to a windowless bathroom.
* A home-built cart for the enlarger. Mine has storage for 1 enlarger & a paper drawer.
* Nova slot processors whichs upon a different cart, with room for storage underneath.

The bad news is that I prefer not work in a closet even with the wimpy exhaust fan that I installed - which is light tight. The good news is the bathroom is adjacent to the walk-in closet and is a two room design with a longish counter next to the sink. I had to install my own faucet in the smallish sink. My lighting is a combination of red and orange LED lights. The orange safe-lites are from Jobo. The red with frosted panels in front are my own design and these are much brighter than the units from Jobo.

My darkroom when set up the way I like it blocks access to rear most room with a toilet and a shower stall. The carts allow me to move my enlarger out of the way or into the closet when not in use. I have two Nova set ups one for 8x10 and a second for 11x14. My print washer is a vertical tank as well. As a suggestion, do update your wall outlet to GFI - I had to install my own outlet, so the GFI upgrade was a no brainer.
 
Tuolumne said:
Sepiareverb,
And who cares if it can be leveled, absolutely vibration-free, etc. etc. It's the experience you want.
/T
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My sentiments exactly with regards to the second sentence.

Most amateur enlargers do come mounted to a large board to which you mount your easels. Once the enlarger head is properly aligned - it should stay that way with careful handling.
 
"The R1800 (and, presumably, the new R1900) uses a gloss optimizer in one ink channel to neutralize gloss differential and bronzing, and seems to do a great job. I've heard mixed stuff about matte prints from this printer, but since I haven't seen matte prints from the printer, I can't say. My 8750 works quite nicely on glossy, satin/luster and matte without artifacts, but satin at the moment is my favorite."

I don't know about matte prints, but watercolor paper comes out awesome on the R1800.

/T
 
The other thing to consider here is how big you want to print. Shirt-pocket-sized darkrooms usually can mange printing up to 8x10", perhaps 11x14 with extra care (and a rigid floor to minimize vibration). Bigger than that, and you're talking a regular-sized room IMO. My printing setup can go to 13x19", and color as well as b/w (ask how many wet-darkroom practicioners here have a setup for color printing; I'll bet you'll see few hands being raised).


- Barertt
 
amateriat said:
(ask how many wet-darkroom practicioners here have a setup for color printing; I'll bet you'll see few hands being raised).
- Barertt
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Barret I gave up on at home R4 color printing back in 2002 - B/W printing by comparison is much easier, less toxic and much less temperature sensitive.

He or she who prints a lot of 13x19 prints has much more wall space than I.
 
I reckon I'll leave color for the lab. I'll do up an image in PS and have the lab print it for me. I want to print BW at home.

As for my set up, it'll have to involve my enlarger on a home-made cart, which will have to be very sturdily built. My enlarger's a Focomat IIc, which weighs about 88lbs.
 
When I was on a research fellowship in Poland in the late 1980s, I was amazed at the work people were doing in makeshift darkrooms in apartments that were too small for comfort even without a darkroom and in times of incredible shortages. Since then, I've never thought that I didn't have enough space for a darkroom, and I've managed to make the dark/bathroom more efficient as I've used it in two Manhattan apartments now. We're moving to a new place later this month with an extra bathroom, so I'll be able to have something a little more permanent, but the main issue is that if you want to make wet prints, you can do it, whatever your circumstances.

I also have an HP B9180, and it's a fine inkjet printer. I like some of the options it gives me for color--particularly choice of paper surfaces--but the best B&W inkjet prints I've seen just don't compare to fine silver prints. That doesn't mean that you'll necessarily make better prints in the darkroom than you will with a computer, but I think that darkroom prints are potentially better than the best you can do with an inkjet printer.

More important than the method you choose is that you go to galleries and museums and participate in print exchanges and spend a lot of time looking at fine original prints, not reproductions in books or on the internet, so that you know what the possibilities are and what can be achieved, if you work at it.
 
David Goldfarb said:
More important than the method you choose is that you go to galleries and museums and participate in print exchanges and spend a lot of time looking at fine original prints, not reproductions in books or on the internet, so that you know what the possibilities are and what can be achieved, if you work at it.
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Good advice which I shall have to follow.
 
The very best wet prints will blow away best inkjet prints, but once you know what you are doing with scanning, PS and printing your average prints will all be way better than your average prints from a traditional darkroom... at least that is how it worked out for me... I guess even with 20+ years experience I was never a "master photographer in the darkroom."

>>As nice as inkjets can be, it isn't the same as wet printing.
 
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