wet print or scan to digital print

[percepts]

Just curious how many people are still wet printing from film so I thought I'd do a poll.
You can select more than one option

Obviously digital capture is going to be printed digitally whether to inkjet or photographic paper so the poll is aimed at film users.

 

[Keith]

Is this poll purely aimed at film shooters?

I would have thought 'shoot digitally and print' digitally would have been a logical inclusion here allowing for the RD-1 and M8/M9 faction!

I'm a hybrid printer from scanned film ... colour and black and white ... but when I get a better handle on digital post processing I'll probably print from digital capture as well.

 

[percepts]

Is this poll purely aimed at film shooters?

I would have thought 'shoot digitally and print' digitally would have been a logical inclusion here allowing for the RD-1 and M8/M9 faction!

I'm a hybrid printer from scanned film ... colour and black and white ... but when I get a better handle on digital post processing I'll probably print from digital capture as well.

Really aimed at film users as digital capture can only be digitally printed regardless of whether its to inkjet or photographic paper via laser.

 

[MatthewThompson]

I'm on the fence, still not sure which way to go.

 

[coelacanth]

I print b/w in darkroom only. I don't shoot color, and don't have any equipments to develop or wet print in color.

I'm thinking of doing some inkjet prints for digital cameras shots both color and b/w, but I'll continue to do only wet print for b/w film.

 

[Kristopher]

same here, wet print only

 

[jmcd]

wet print b&w only 20 years now

 

[Spider67]

Have no darkroom anymore hence it's having the negs scanned and printed in the lab

 

[JohnTF]

Still have a color and b&w darkroom, but not the knees to work much in it. I started to convert to all digital years ago (10+), did not like the quality, so continued in the wet darkroom adding RA4. The Jobo slot processor with the Minolta/Beseler color head makes it as easy as can almost be, along with modern wet processing.

However, as of late, I am working on scanning fine prints (I'd like to think mine are fine, well a couple), and find another path to finished product.

Digital sometimes never seems to have a true end point, unless you make prints-- pure opinion, but photography for the masses seems to now be 500 images on flash cards, until the card/camera fails or is lost, then begin again?

If I can manage to get the prints I make, have made, or scanned from film, printed very well, via, perhaps, a lab with RA4, it would make me happy, for now.

I have gotten some decent color out put that way, the larger, and reasonably priced labs-- do not know if they use RA4 B&W paper, and do not know if I will be happy with B&W on a color paper.

If you do not print your own color film, output is digital regardless.

Regards, John

 

[sepiareverb]

I don't have an inkjet printer. I wet print from both B&W and color negatives.

B&W negs from 35mm to 11x14, color negs from 35mm to 8x10, though I rarely shoot color in sheet film anymore.

 

[monochromeimages]

I shoot nearly 100% B&W film and all my B&W prints are wet printed in my darkroom. Occasionally I shoot colour digitally and order prints online. I don't own an inkjet and have no interest in buying one. The digital colour prints ordered online are inexpensive and really excellent quality.

 

[aizan]

i print bw film in the darkroom, and i print color in both ra4 and inkjet. all digital photos are inkjet printed.

anybody do lightjet prints, aside from fuji frontier machine prints? do prints from film look the same, and do prints from digital look better?

 

[maddoc]

I rarely print anything, so for me it is 100% scanning and the occasional print using my ink-jet printer (Epson PX-5500). I still have an enlarger (Durst M601) but no darkroom and my few recent attempts of printing B&W did not result in prints that were any better than my ink-jet prints ....

 

[-doomed-]

I wet print in the darkroom and I scan as well. I typically wet print my Black and white stuff , but scan my color negs to print them via inkjet

 

[elude]

Wet print exclusively, I chose that process because I don't like spending hours on the computer. Time I gladly spend in my darkroom, alone in that calm area. mmmh ! Otherwise it's pretty much the same result I think (on R3880 etc you have real awesome possibilities).

 

[Haigh]

I do wet b&w's if it is for an exhibition, my lab does colour for me and I scan B&W and colour for the web.

 

[ChrisN]

Really aimed at film users as digital capture can only be digitally printed regardless of whether its to inkjet or photographic paper via laser.

Actually there are at least two technologies for producing a silver gelatin print from a digital image file.

One approach is to create a sufficiently large negative image on ink-jet film, and use this to contact-print to paper which is then developed in the darkroom. Obviously this allows you to do a lot of fine-tuning of the original digital image before printing the negative.

The second approach is to use a digital enlarger head, which (I assume) displays a negative image from a digital file on a transparent screen, in the enlarger head, where a negative would normally be placed.

But to answer the poll question, I print in the darkroom from negatives, scan negatives to digital image for printing, and also have digital images printed digitally. My flatbed scanner will scan a print, but a digital image produced from a good scan of the negative will be sharper and show a better range of tones.

 

[percepts]

Actually there are at least two technologies for producing a silver gelatin print from a digital image file.

One approach is to create a sufficiently large negative image on ink-jet film, and use this to contact-print to paper which is then developed in the darkroom. Obviously this allows you to do a lot of fine-tuning of the original digital image before printing the negative.

The second approach is to use a digital enlarger head, which (I assume) displays a negative image from a digital file on a transparent screen, in the enlarger head, where a negative would normally be placed.

But to answer the poll question, I print in the darkroom from negatives, scan negatives to digital image for printing, and also have digital images printed digitally. My flatbed scanner will scan a print, but a digital image produced from a good scan of the negative will be sharper and show a better range of tones.

You have to be so careful when you post a poll but I think most people got the idea.

Devere make a digital printer. They use an lcd projection chip from an lcd projector. The problem is that to prvent pixelation of the projected image the lcd unit moves to blur the pixel edges into each other. The output resolution gets lower the bigger the enlargement so that once past about 12x8 image the quality is questionable. The units are popular in colleges. But unitl they use a high enough resolution lcd chip I'll pass on one of those. Besides its bloody expensive.

 

[Benjamin]

I only consider digital, in-part or from capture to print, when I feel lazy.

It would be nice to sit at the desk, cup of tea, slide this way, too much, slide that way, too little.

Boring.

 

[Turtle]

beautiful sumptuous wet prints. I sometimes make a small low contrast print and flatbed scan for upload to the web after tweaking in PS but wet prints are what I am about.