From: Peter Marshall (petermarshall@cix.co.uk)
Date: 07/31/02-03:27:00 AM Z
(Much snipped)
> The benefits of digital are clearly convenience. For artists it much
> more
> efficient to set up a large run of digital prints, and consequently
> allows
> lower prices for consumers.
(Much snipped)
Many photographers are charging the same prices for digitally produced
prints as for those made by wet processing. Some charge more. I've
slightly increased my prices since going mainly to digital printing, and
charge the same for both. The costs are generally higher for me using
digital, as so far I've seldom made more than a very small number of
prints from any single negative.
Last year in preparation for a digital printing workshop, I made around
twenty prints from a single negative using different materials. Mainly
digital prints on different surfaces, but also including two on silver
gelatine papers (RC and Fibre.) Almost everyone I've shown the set to
picks one particular print as the best. It was printed using Cone
Piezography software and inks onto Hahnemuhle German Etching paper. One
benefit of digital is that it can sometimes give better prints.
I can't match some of the older prints I made, either in the darkroom or
from the computer. There used to be something in the old Record Rapid that
gave it an edge, but probably the closest I can get to this now is from
digital. If I need good glossy prints, the darkroom is still the best
place, but for matt prints the inkjet wins. There are still things I can
do better in the darkroom, and it is more flexible in terms of print
colour than the inkjet system I use (though that is now changing.)
I've been using digital techniques in colour printing for several years to
produce prints on wet processed Fuji papers. Apart from the extra control
in printing it is impossible to tell these from work printed direct from
negative. The print is on the same material I use in the darkroom.
Some of the nicest colour work I've produced in the last year has been
relatively straightforward digital prints, and certainly some of the best
work I've seen in recent shows has been produced digitally. I won a little
competition with a digital print last month, and technically it was
clearly better than anything else submitted. They reproduced a postcard
direct from the digital print and it is fine (rather to my surprise.
Increasingly, unless work is labelled appropriately, it is often difficult
if not impossible to tell if it has been printed digitally. It is ceasing
to become an issue. People are simply using whatever produces the best
results for them, and most of us are happy with that.
Regards,
Peter Marshall
Photography Guide at About http://photography.about.com/
email: photography.guide@about.com
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