Why did darkroom/wet printing die?

I've never done wet printing but I shoot film and I want to learn how.

I've seen a lot of photographs exhibited in museums with various quality and methods of printing (including large digital prints). Some of the digital printing looked good and I'm sure for a large portion of the population it's fine, but you can still tell the difference.

I'd say as long as even a small minority can see the difference, it will not die. When nobody can tell the difference (or care), then it will die.
 
Such a good idea that I packed a bit of herb into the end of a bidi and got three nice tokes out of it.

Martin, when I've got an all night session ahead to knock out a mess of prints I always think of a song. Google the lyrics "Casey Jones, riding that train high on..."

... but I guess nobody travels by train anymore either.
 
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Erik van Straten said:
Is there a digital way to make silver-gelatin prints?

Erik.
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Erik,

Almost any print you have made today commercially from is digitized and the image is transferred to silver gelatin paper which is then processed by roller transport. Kodak went to all digital, so I heard, for enlargements many years ago.

Probably the best use of digital?

My lab uses B&W paper for B&W negatives, but it is a RA4 process paper, some labs will try to print B&W on color paper, but the results are often odd. Many ordinary labs do not choose to keep B&W paper or bother to switch out the paper cartridges.

Or were you actually asking if normal process B&W prints can be made? Probably, but I would think few recent commercial printers would be built that did not output to RA4 paper and chemistry, it is much more convenient and cheaper.

I would guess a lab set up for high quality B&W on say fiber paper, would simply use a conventional set up?

Regards, John
 
JohnTF said:
Or were you actually asking if normal process B&W prints can be made? Probably, but I would think few recent commercial printers would be built that did not output to RA4 paper and chemistry, it is much more convenient and cheaper.
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I wonder if it is possible to make a silver-gelatin print (a silver bromide print) from a file of an image from, say, an M8, so that in the end there is no material difference between a print from a negative from an MP and a print from a file generated by an M8.

Erik.
 
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I think what keeps serious amateurs in digital is not the simplicity and speed to view,
but the advanced things that can be accomplished, such as:
1) HDR (exposure stacking)
2) Exposure bracketing, also is one of the HDR tools. Several DSLR's can bracket speedlight
exposures, as well.
3) 'Stiched' panoramas without the Wide-U-Lux.
4) 'Live View' without the ground glass.
5) Focus Stacking - Try that with your IIIf and Durst 66.

Don't look now, but digial photography is becomming more than just a scan.
 
Fewer people have any patience, and no client seems to. But I still print all the time, B&W and C-Prints both. I do not own a computer printer. The darkroom still seems cheaper to me than any other means of getting so many images on big paper.

I think better question might be "When will this need to rag on analog die?"
 
Dedicated (i.e. not knock-down-set-back-up) darkrooms were always in the minority, and I knew of relatively few people who had even a makeshift setup. Echoing Fred's statements, any darkroom setup is a chore and commitment that even most serious photographers had little to no interest in. And that was before digital became the Next New Thing.

I had–and still have–relatively little interest in the digital-capture side of things, and use film for a good 90% of everything I do (although over the weekend, I did a shoot for a political candidate which was 100% digital for the sake of Absolute Speed). Post-shoot, however, I've been doin' it digitally since at least 1998, because even a makeshift darkroom was just too much of a hassle, and getting consistent quality from such a setup was questionable at best. This hybrid setup, I suppose, could be regarded as a sort of Third Way.

But that sort of knocks me off the subject. How do we know that there are so many fewer dedicated individual darkrooms still active? We know about the commercial lab situation, but that's different (and that's where many of those fire-sale enlargers have been coming from). I do know one guy here in Brooklyn who did a lot of commercial/wedding work, and has a killer basement darkroom he rebuilt not too many years back, and is now pretty idle; I'm going to try and book a few hours in there to de-rustify my wet-printing chops. I might see if he's into renting it out to others as well.


- Barrett
 
I have just been out for the day, and shot what was for me - alot of images - 78 ( yes I know that's chicken feed-to some of you! ) but the thought of handling that amount in the darkroom, even though not all keepers - does not appeal at my age!, my remaining time here is too precious!. Now retired - I could spare the time....if I was still working - it would be near impossible!
Dave
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Freestyle just sent me their new catalog. If there's any doubt that film and darkroom printing are still alive and well just look in one of these things. I feel like a kid in a candy store.

And to put this in perspective, I just got a message on fleabay about my Epson printer I'm selling. Someone wants to trade me their darkroom setup for the printer! I emailed him back and said he had no idea what he was getting into. A slippery slope indeed.
 
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