Re: Precision Digital Negatives

From: Sandy King ^lt;sanking@CLEMSON.EDU>
Date: 08/18/04-10:36:04 AM Z
Message-id: <p06020406bd4930f953eb@[130.127.230.212]>

>Can any of you who were initial testers comment a bit
>on the "precision digital negative" process?
>
>In particular, how does it differ from Burkhoder's
>method?
>
>If it's still super secret info, I guess I'll have to
>wait till I save enough to get the book.

One of the main differences is that Mark Nelson's method shows you
how to choose the dye or pigmented inkset of any printer that most
closely matches the exposure scale of the printing process. This
results in a much more gradual curve that eliminates the very abrupt
changes necessary when the contrast range of the inkset is much
greater than the ES of the process. After some initial skepticism
about the superiority of this approach I am now convinced after
printing digital negatives in AZO as well and kallitype and palladium
that the smoother curves give negatives that are much easier to print.

Another difference is that Mark's approach allows you to calibrate
everything to your working conditions: process mix, paper, printer,
OHP material, etc. But what this also means is that you really need
to go through the calibration process yourself for optimum results.
You might be able to obtain a curve and working procedures from
someone without buying the book but this would rather defeat the idea
behind precision since you won't be able to get the very best results
without doing the calibration procedures yourself.

Sandy
Received on Wed Aug 18 10:40:47 2004

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