Re: For those who are interested in making digital negatives using pigmented inksets

From: Sandy King <sanking@clemson.edu>
Subject: Re: For those who are interested in making digital negatives using pigmented inksets
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 14:44:38 -0500

> In my opinion in-camera originals offer no advantage at
> all with processes where the final print is on an art or drawing
> paper, as would be the case with Pt/Pd, kallitype, VDB, etc. In fact,
> because of the corrections we able to apply in Photoshop I would even
> go so far as to say that the prints from digital negatives are
> superior, in some cases remarkably so.
>
> This observation would probably not be true with a process like AZO
> where the final image is on a smooth surface. In fact, even with my
> carbon images on smooth surfaces I can see a slight superiority to
> images made from in-camera negatives, but the difference is very
> small indeed.

Are you referring to the "resolution" limit due to the paper surface
and that due to inkjet negative?

Say I can make an acceptable 13x enlargement on factory made b&w paper
but I can make acceptable enlargements much bigger than that on home
made silver gelatin emulsion coated on Rives BFK. I'm still trying to
push the limit of enlargement factor by changing the enlarger setup,
but with some preliminary tests, I can make 20-25x enlargements as
long as I can coat, dry, and process successfully. So that's a full
watercolor paper size image from 35mm negative (of course 13x looks
better, but I'm comparing limits of "acceptable" enlargements).

So coming back to inkjet negative. I have never made it myself, but
I'm very curious how much you think 5x7 inkjet negative can be
enlarged for printing on some emulsion coated on hot pressed paper
stock? Have you ever put your inkjet neg in an enlarger?

Silver gelatin emulsion coated on Rives BFK looks like image is "in"
the paper not "on" the paper. So the influence of surface texture is
similar to other processes unless the paper is coated with baryta
(or alkyd or something).

Thanks!

--
Ryuji Suzuki
"Reality has always had too many heads." (Bob Dylan, Cold Irons Bound, 1997)