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

Ryuji, I have enlarged inkjet negs as an experiment - they don't seem to
enlarge successfully. The dot pattern becomes very pronounced and isn't like
enlarged film grain. - I prefer to print larger nega and contact print them
on silver emulsion - working on heavy watercolour or printmaking paper
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ryuji Suzuki" <rs@silvergrain.org>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2004 9:14 AM
Subject: 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)
>
Received on Thu Jan 1 05:00:19 2004