Luis Nadeau (nadeaul@nbnet.nb.ca)
Sat, 09 Jan 1999 14:06:36 -0400
At 11:16 PM -0800 99/1/8, Andy Darlow wrote:
>To Bob:
>
>I can understand why you may say that :
>
>"I gather that people want extreme quality, but do not do what it takes.
>
>Photoshop and digital methods are not the way to go"
>
>based upon a whole lot of poor quality work out there in the realm of
>digital creations.
>
>
>
>
>However, if you ever have the opportunity to view work from someone like
>Dan Burkholder, who uses "Photoshop and digital methods" to create
>breathtaking alt process contact prints, then I am very confident your
>quote will change"
---------------------
I have never seen any of Dan's prints but I do have several of Chalie
Palmer's prints from digital negatives, who used a different approach,
explained on this list, ca. June 96 (see the Archives). This is part of one
message I saved:
>From: CHPalmer@aol.com
>Sender: alt-photo-process@cse.unsw.edu.au To: Multiple recipients of list
><alt-photo-process@cse.unsw.edu.au> Date: Wed, 5 Jun 96 13:53:13 +1000
>Subject: Re: Digital negs
>David Fokos (beakman@netcom.com) wrote:
>
>>Anyone know someone ... who can make a 16x20 enlarged neg >from a 4x5 for
>me?
>
>I am guessing that you are doing platinum or palladium, as you had a note
>on the list a month ago about hand coating with a glass rod. Assuming
>Pt/Pd:
>
>I had a couple of messages on the list about a month ago regarding my work
>with digital negatives for platinum/palladium. If you didn't see those let
>me know, and I will send them to you privately.
>
>The service bureau EverColor (evercolor@aol.com) makes 400 LPI digital
>negatives for me on a Scitex imagesetter, with a D/LogE curve optimized for
>pt/pd. They can make negatives up to 20"x24". I have had excellent results
>with these negatives. The only problem I've had is occasional Moire
>patterns in the negatives in areas of high and relatively uniform density;
>when this has happened, the EverColor people have somehow tweaked the
>Imagesetter to eliminate this problem when I've asked them to redo
>negatives with Moire.
>
>I have also tried the Burkholder diffusion dither bitmap method and find
>that the results are quite inferior to the 400 LPI EverColor negatives. I
>had the same trouble you did with "gritty" appearance in the diffusion
>bitmap negatives. Also, I found negatives made with the Burkholder platinum
>curve to be difficult to print well, at least with my printing methods and
>chemicals, etc; again, I have numbers and curves in that regard if you're
>interested.
>Charlie Palmer
>Albuquerque NM
There are obviously several ways to get excellent results and not
everything works for everybody. Your mileave may vary.
The prints I have are 300 lpi. The screen is invisible to the naked eye and
the print quality is extremely high. As good as the best Dick Arentz and
Rob Steinberg prints I have from 8x10 and 11x14 negs, respectively.
I keep hoping that something close to these results can be obtained from
negs produced with low-end ink-jet printers. They work fine with relatively
short scale processes but I have not seen anything close to a full scale Pd
or Pt print on smooth paper.
Luis Nadeau
NADEAUL@NBNET.NB.CA
Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
http://www3.nbnet.nb.ca/nadeaul/
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