>From his post, Carl clearly knows much more about pre-press and all that
DP gobblety-gook than I do (although I am slowly learning, mostly
through trial and much error). So, in my ignorance, I used some ProCD
scans of 4x5 transparencies to make enlarged negatives a la Fokos. The
file size of a ProCD will give you a maximum image size of about 9.5x11
inches at 450 dpi (without any upsizing in Photoshop). As I recall, I
made 4 or 5 negs this way, and all but one printed very well in
platinum/palladium. And, I think the 5th one did not work well mostly
from my limited Photoshop skills, and I've never gone back to attempt to
dial it in.
However, I must say I am getting quite frustrated with the digital
negative approach. The service bureau I've been using had to load a
larger roll of film for some bigger negs that I am making now. This
roll of film is giving very different results (much higher dmax) on the
same imagesetter set the same way.... So today I had a neg done at a
different service bureau and it came back with quite severe banding.
They don't know why that happened, but perhaps it was something in my
file... WRONG! Anyway, I'm on a tangent and ranting, so I will let it
go at that for now...
Feeling digitally impaired,
Kerik Kouklis
Platinum/Palladium Photographs and Workshops
http://www.jps.net/kerik/
> Take this with a grain of salt, or maybe a bag of it. "Sufficient"
> should be a red flag--we're not talking about a flat-out quest for
> quality here, but about an adequate commercial product. The higher
> levels of PhotoCD scan are quite sufficient for 133 line web-press
> magazine reproduction at up to full page repro, but would look quite
> disappointing when reproduced on a 300 line sheet-fed press like those
> used for a high-end annual report or fine art monograph.