Re: Quadtone Inks & Digital Negatives

Sorry Mark,

It was very late last night when I posted that. Re-reading my comments I
can easily see how you were confused.

Loris's followup echoes my experience exactly. I initially was using
third-party color inks with the Canon, trying to use the spectral
method. Although the spectral method did the best job blocking the UV,
it didn't seem to do a good enough job, especially for VDB; and
Kallitype was pretty pathetic as well.

Basically the dmax of the NEGATIVE was so low, I wasn't able to get even
close to dmax of the PRINT before the highlights became so dense.The
highlights weren't even close to paper white. This was after some pretty
extensive curve adjustments. In photoshop I took a 8.5x11 sheet of film,
divided it into 5 sections with the same image (chop of a full scale
scan of some of my work & a 32-step tablet and full gradient from black
to white) with different curves applied. I then exposed and processed
this (and several iterations) under identical conditions and was able to
get a decent scale with some curves, but the common denominator was no
paper white, except for a small area I always put a piece of opaque
polstyrene to make sure the paper wasn't fogged. It was totally clean
paper white, ruling out fogging as far as I can see.

I am mostly frustrated because I; like Loris, don't know definitively if
my problems could be overcome with a proper curve. I designed my own and
used other curves available (Burkholder, Fokos, etc.) even though none
were designed for my setup. I feel like I have a good understanding of
the concepts involved, I know photoshop like the back of my hand (I am a
graphic designer); but I don't have much alt/photo experience; so it can
be frustrating.

So far at least, the Lyson quad black dye inks seem to have the same
problems as the spectral color negs from the Canon color inks.

To answer your questions....

No Stouffer tablet.

No pre-soak.

-Joe

Ender100@aol.com wrote:

> Joe,
>
> I'm not sure I understand your post correctly, Your highlights are
> printing too dark and your shadows are not printing with enough
> density? At first it sounded like you might be over exposing, but I'm
> not sure based on your comments. Are you able to get maximum black
> but your highlights are too dark?
>
> I think the confusion for me is that in your second paragraph and in
> your last paragraph it is not clear to my pea-brain when you are
> referring to your negative and when you are referring to your print.
>
> Are you printing a Stouffer or other standard stepwedge along side the
> digital negative? If so, what step gives you paper white and are any
> of the lower steps—1,2,3 etc merging?
>
> Are you pre-soaking the Stonehenge in Oxalic Acid before printing?
>
> Mark Nelson
>
>
> In a message dated 2/6/04 12:01:14 AM, dalaibobra@houston.rr.com writes:
>
>
>> I am currently trying to create digital negatives on a Canon s9000 using
>> Lyson Quad Black neutral inks with NO SUCCESS.
>>
>> The inks are dye-based, not pigment; and adhere/print beatifully to Agfa
>> CopyJet, but don't appear to be able to block enough light and I just
>> can't seem to build up enough density.
>>
>> I have only used thos setup once and will be testing this weekend
>> further.
>>
>> I am using these negs for VDB & Kallitype on Fabriano Uno & Stonehenge
>> Rising White, exposed under BLB 48" tubes for 4-9 minutes and in all
>> cases the highlights stained heavily long before reaching max black.
>> Very frustrating.
>>
>> -Joe
>>
>
>
Received on Fri Feb 6 10:30:02 2004