Smartest Person

Bill Pierce

Bill Pierce

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Well, it took some time, but we have power and the internet back.

I’ve been spending a lot of pandemic home time doing my equivalent of printing albums. My equivalent is small archival portfolio boxes holding 8 1/2 x 11 inch prints with big borders that make them easy to handle, usually around a 6 x9 image for the common 2x3 format. While they may have a common subject, these prints are often a hodge-podge of film and digital, black-and-whte and color. Just to have a uniform presentation, I’ll often make boxes that are all color or all black-and-white. Mixing color prints from digital files and scans of color negatives and slides will produce an acceptably uniform result. Not so with the black-and-white, scans of film negatives from a variety of scanners and digital files converted to black-and-white. Unless I am very careful, there is a different look to the inkjet prints from scanned film and digital files. Having grown up with film and having gotten pretty good at making my inkjet prints look like silver prints, I’m pretty happy with the results from scanned film and can get what I want in a fairly quick and efficient way. Digital, not so much…. I start by setting up an image with the total range of tones visible and then with the controls of Lightroom or Photoshop (and occasionally Capture One) move sliders and tweak curves until it satisfies me that first the screen image and then a small proof print “look like film.” To say this is inefficient is an understatement - an extreme understatement.

And so I turn to the wise members of the Rangefinder Forum. How do you make black-and-white inkjet prints from digital files look like silver prints from film? Clearly, if anybody knows how they will get the Rangefinder Forum Smartest Person of the Week award.
 
Well,

I was never in the running.........

Very interested in hearing the results from winners and runners up.

I'll be the last finisher, though on a Cross Country team the 7th member can be very important to team placement.....

B2 (;->
 
I will be reading and learning - watching from the stands :)
 
For me it's all in the prep - making sure you've gotten the image to look as good as you can get it, from the exposure to the 'processing'. Adams said that the negative is the score and the print the performance - for me the digital file is the score and the digital post-production and subsequent print is the performance. People ask me "Did you do any PhotoShop to that image?" Well of course I did - I can count on one hand the number of negs that have laid down on Grade 2 paper without any burning, dodging or anything done to it (and really I can only think of one neg at the moment that did that, miraculously). Same with digital files - they all need 'interpretation' in one form or another, at least they do in my case.

I print using an Epson 3880, and the one thing I find affects final image quality (and whether it can potentially have that 'darkroom-like' quality, or at least a quality that I like) is the type of paper I print on. For the longest time I was using Epson Exhibition Fiber, but I recently switched to Epson Legacy Platine - can definitely see the difference. It's a beautiful, thick rag paper that has a soft gloss, much like the 'F' type darkroom papers.

This shot prints beautifully - once you've got all the adjustments where you want them, then it's just a case of loading the paper in the printer and hitting the 'print' button.


Raimundo by Vince Lupo, on Flickr
 
Vince Lupo said:
For me it's all in the prep - making sure you've gotten the image to look as good as you can get it, from the exposure to the 'processing'. Adams said that the negative is the score and the print the performance - for me the digital file is the score and the digital post-production and subsequent print is the performance. People ask me "Did you do any PhotoShop to that image?" Well of course I did - I can count on one hand the number of negs that have laid down on Grade 2 paper without any burning, dodging or anything done to it (and really I can only think of one neg at the moment that did that, miraculously). Same with digital files - they all need 'interpretation' in one form or another, at least they do in my case.

I print using an Epson 3880, and the one thing I find affects final image quality (and whether it can potentially have that 'darkroom-like' quality, or at least a quality that I like) is the type of paper I print on. For the longest time I was using Epson Exhibition Fiber, but I recently switched to Epson Legacy Platine - can definitely see the difference. It's a beautiful, thick rag paper that has a soft gloss, much like the 'F' type darkroom papers.

This shot prints beautifully - once you've got all the adjustments where you want them, then it's just a case of loading the paper in the printer and hitting the 'print' button.


Raimundo by Vince Lupo, on Flickr
Click to expand...

Beautiful Vince. Is that from the series you did with the Leica Monochrom?

Best,
-Tim
 
I don't think that, a digital capture will ever look like a film product, scanned and printed digitally or, a silver based digital print (Fujimoto).

It's why, i still work with film.
 
Bill Pierce said:
..... How do you make black-and-white inkjet prints from digital files look like silver prints from film? .....
Click to expand...

I have never tried to make digital prints look like silver prints, just really good looking. I have been outputting digital prints from scanned negs for about 18 years. I have always thought I have been successful in my goal of making really good prints. I was a reasonably good wet darkroom printer for years before that. But never felt any need to have my digital prints match my wet darkroom prints, just make them look really good

I have used Hawk Mountain Condor Brite White paper for exhibition prints for a long time. It was discontinued about 4-5 years ago but I stocked up on 16x20.
 
I think Lupo does a good job with this process. I like many of his digital to B&W conversion. But I choose not to participate until Lupo tells me his secret: view his rodeo series. Although, I didn't understand anything of his above statement.
 
charjohncarter said:
I think Lupo does a good job with this process. I like many of his digital to B&W conversion. But I choose not to participate until Lupo tells me his secret: view his rodeo series. Although, I didn't understand anything of his above statement.
Click to expand...

Many thanks - not sure exactly what the ‘secret’ is, I don’t think there really is one. Just like in the darkroom, I’ve almost never printed anything ‘straight’, as they call it. There’s always a little bit of pushing and pulling and coaxing of the elements here and there to get everything to fit the way you want it to fit. Emphasizing one thing while subduing something else. For me the picture doesn’t end the second after I pressed the button to take it - that’s just the beginning. But getting the exposure right is an important first step, particularly when shooting digital. If you overexpose those highlights, for example, there’s no getting them back.
 
PKR said:
I don't think that, a digital capture will ever look like a film product, scanned and printed digitally or, a silver based digital print (Fujimoto).

It's why, i still work with film.
Click to expand...

I wanted all my work to be presentable together, film and digital. So I built a profile from a film step wedge that I apply to digital files, then print those on transparency film with an inkjet printer, and contact print them on silver B&W printing paper - either silver chloride or normal enlarging paper. You can tell the difference with a microscope, but not otherwise, and I’ve done controlled tests. Most educated viewers guess exactly the wrong way around - i.e. that the digitally sourced files are film, and the film prints are digital. I’m not sure why.

Marty
 
Freakscene said:
I wanted all my work to be presentable together, film and digital. So I built a profile from a film step wedge that I apply to digital files, then print those on transparency film with an inkjet printer, and contact print them on silver B&W printing paper - either silver chloride or normal enlarging paper. You can tell the difference with a microscope, but not otherwise, and I’ve done controlled tests. Most educated viewers guess exactly the wrong way around - i.e. that the digitally sourced files are film, and the film prints are digital. I’m not sure why.

Marty
Click to expand...

I've wondered if that were possible. Could you post a scan of one of your prints?

I may give this a try if my enlarged prints look crappy, once I get my 'darkroom' set up. All I'm lacking is a pigment ink printer and transparency film.
 
"Look like film"... is the rainbow unicorn for adultery.

Now, what OP wants? It looks like OP wants to be as satisfied with digital only as with film via digital.

And here is where OP search might become the search of rainbow unicorn.
It would become if OP want digital on ink to be same look as film via digital on the ink.
Not going to happen. You could follow self-illusion of the rest, but here will be always that boy to tell "no king, just naked".

You just have to accept what digital is not film, relax and live with it.
I did and I like my digital on ink just as film via digital on ink or direct wet prints.

Digital is not forgiving for the lack of the content. Film helps with it by its look.
 
For me it is sometimes to have prints from film and from digital in the same body of work.

This is why for B&W I shoot Delta (100 or 400) which in my opinion is the film most similar to digital.

It works for me but I'm in the content before look camp :)
 
Bob Michaels said:
I have never tried to make digital prints look like silver prints, just really good looking. I have been outputting digital prints from scanned negs for about 18 years. I have always thought I have been successful in my goal of making really good prints. I was a reasonably good wet darkroom printer for years before that. But never felt any need to have my digital prints match my wet darkroom prints, just make them look really good

I have used Hawk Mountain Condor Brite White paper for exhibition prints for a long time. It was discontinued about 4-5 years ago but I stocked up on 16x20.
Click to expand...

Hi Bob;

I think, that's the best any of us can expect. I have pigment prints from film scans that look really good but, they don't look like a darkroom product. A digital capture is a further step away.

I've had some Fujimoto exhibition prints made. It's a digital to analog, silver based print product. They have their own look, and look great.. but not like a darkroom or digital pigment product.

I used digital cameras at work. I've made many thousands of images. They are digital and have that "look". I like the look of film for my stuff. It's pigment printed from scans. The prints are nice, but look different from a darkroom product.
 
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