>Mr. Marshall, you are wrong about your reply. The comment that computer
>output not being archival is correct. Regardless of the paper used to
>print the output on, the fact that it is a material similar to
>photographic paper means very little. It is the dyes or pigments used,
>the manner in which they are applied, the way they are handled, stored or
>displayed also factor into it. There is absolutely no proof that a
>digital image will be here even 5 years from now. None. Nada.
I am talking exactly about prints made on photographic paper. Wherever
you get your
>idea that you have never actually seen a well made photographic print
from I have no idea - this is just adding an ill-judged personal insult to
ignorant comments. I've seen - and handled - prints by all of the great
masters of both b/w and colour printing - including for example Weston,
Strand, Steiglitz, Adams (Robert & Ansel), Penn, Sudek etc. I've made
prints using virtually every major photographic process from salt printing
to digital and exhibited in most of them, written technical reviews of
materials and articles about printing and related topics etc. And I think
I can also say I've had many comments made on the fine quality of my
prints using conventional b/w and colour printing - and I have taught many
people how to make them.
Computers can print to genuine Fuji (or even Kodak etc) photographic paper
using a suitable printer - as I said. These prints are on exactly the same
paper and have been through the same processing as any other photo print -
and thus are exactly as archival as prints produced by standard
photographic printing. They can also produce absolutely neutral b/w prints
on colour paper by the way. The Fuji material has the longest display life
of any normal colour photo display material, though certainly not quite in
the carbon print league. Plenty of people have tested these materials, not
least Henry Wilhelm.
Obviously this isn't done using an ink jet, but with special printers that
use a LED light source. They print direct from jpeg images. The result is
a genuine photographic image from your computer file. It costs about 50%
more than a standard hand print, but the big advantage is that you can do
all the 'dodging' and 'burning' and any other manipulation you want on
your own computer screen. Or you can pay more for someone at the bureau
to do it of course. In London they offer this at Sky and perhaps other
places. The first such system I saw was a bit over a year ago from I think
Morco and cost about 20,000 UK pounds for a system that would do 8x10, but
the latest I've seen were pretty big prints. You obviously have not seen
any of these prints (or at least have not been aware of how they were
made) if you think you can tell them from those made by normal printing.
Possibly the only clue is that they are a little too perfect!
Lasers have of course been used for some printing for a long time - I
remember paying a fortune for some Cibachromes that were printed this way
to reduce the contrast many years ago.
Photoshop enables you to easily do many things to prints which skilled
hand printers find either difficult or impossible. Colour correction of
areas of prints becomes simple, and dodging and burning and altering
contrast are possible beyond the limits of the darkroom. I've also
retouched a number of damaged negatives which would certainly not have
been an economic possibility without the computer. You can even do some
correction of mixed lighting if this is impossible to avoid when taking a
picture. Beyond this sort of correction of pictures the possibilities are
more or less without limit.
You are even wrong about ink jet images by the way as the tests that have
been done on some of these using suitable inks and paper give display
lives roughly 50% greater than - for example - any Kodak colour paper.
Peter Marshall
On Fixing Shadows and elsewhere:
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~ds8s
Family Pictures, German Indications, London demonstrations &
The Buildings of London etc: http://www.spelthorne.ac.uk/pm/