Re: Making Digital Negatives

SCHRAMMR@WLSVAX.WVNET.EDU
Sat, 25 Jan 1997 20:12:10 -0500 (EST)

Stephen,

I'll offer an opinion which I'm sure will be challenged, nevertheless...

Unless you have a very expensive printer or a syquest drive so you can
output large, 10-16 meg files, to a syquest cartridge and send it to
someone to create the neg on a very good printer, you will not be able to
achieve as high a quality negative as you would using silver based phgotography.Since the platinium print is capable of extremely sharp detail and a very
long tonal range, many i, if not most, platinium try for very high quality.
Personally, after going through a lot of film and developers trying for
that perfect platinium negative, I finally went to a 8 x 10 camera in order
to get what I wanted. Of course you may not be concerned with the above and
interested in platinium for the look or permanence. I have made digital
negatives on a bubble jet printer (300 dpi) and used them for VDB and
even paladium prints. They (the prints) turned out OK, but nothing to
write home about. My personal feeling is if you want sharp images with
long total scale, do platinium. If not, do gum. (Aside to Judy: yes, I
know you can get sharp images with gum, but not the long tonal range of
platinium). Well, that's my two centimes worth.

Bob Schramm