From: Sandy King (sanking@clemson.edu)
Date: 04/06/02-08:36:08 PM Z
Let me first thank Dan Burkholder and Mark Nelson for their help and
suggestions with regard to my questions about making digital
negatives with the Epson 2000P. It is truly wonderful to have persons
of their talent on this list.
OK, here are some thoughts about my limited experience with making
digital negative with the Epson 2000P.
The original image was a 5X7 negative made on Ilford FP4 film. The
negative has good details even in the deepest shadows and is very
sharp. The scan was made on Mark's Imacon at about 1600 dpi, in
grayscale. After the scan was made Mark did some of his PhotoShop
magic to control contrast and he then applied several sharpening
techniques, including both an unsharp mask and a high pass mask.
Back at the local ranch I loaded the file into my PhotoShop and did
some cleanup, the printed it with the Epson 2000P on Epson's Radiant
White watercolor. Result outstanding, certainly the equivalent of any
silver print I made in the past with this negative.
However, I want to make a big carbon with this negative so I took the
slide, applied Dan Burkholder's platinum curve for the Epson 2000P,
made a draft kallitype from the negative, tweaked the curve a bit,
and finished the evening by making a 13X19 negative on Pictorico with
the 2000P. The resulting negative has a DR of about 1.4 when read
through a transmission densitometer, about perfect for kallitype or
carbon.
Today I made a couple of draft kallitypes with the large negative.
The first was a bit flat so I adjusted my developer by adding a bit
more potassium dichromate and the second was very nice, almost a
perfect print.
So some of you will want to know how a kallitype print made from an
inkjet printer measures up. The answer is, that depends on your
standard. If your standard is 35mm or 6X6 negatives I think the
output from the Epson will compare favorably. Apparent grain would
probably me greater with a a 35mm negative and about the same from a
6X6 negative. For me, the standard is an alt prints made with ultra
large format negatives, primarily 7X17 and 12X20. Compared with an
original contact print from one of these large negatives there is
really no comparison with the print made with the inkjet negative
from the scan of the 5X7. The inkjet negative is very sharp, and the
print tones are quite wonderful, but there is a granulary look and
the kind of creamy look that I get with my ULF negatives is absent.
Sandy King
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