Re: Digital negatives - Epson and grain.

I have tested Pictorico OHP film, Epson 2100 combination with silver
gelatine paper and found that a key factor is the colour of the negative -
choose the wrong colour and the results can be very grainy. Green negatives
give the best results for me. You might want to try Mark Nelson's Precision
Digital Negatives system, a key component of this system is choosing the
best colour for your negative.

David
----- Original Message -----
From: "Etienne Garbaux" <photographeur@softhome.net>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2005 8:02 AM
Subject: Re: Digital negatives - Epson and grain.

> Roman wrote:
>
> > I have been doing digital negatives with my Epson 2100 (in us: 2200)
> > and OHP of Pictorico and Agfa Copyjet. I use Epson pigment inks -
> > UltraChrome.
>
> > I test these negatives in a traditional silver process on paper grad 0
> > and I can see the negatives are making like "grain" in the midtones
> > and the highlights on the print.
>
> There may well be improvements you can make in your inkjet negatives, but
> part of what you are seeing is very likely the greater resolution of the
> silver-gelatin paper as compared to most hand-coated processes.
Commercial
> photo paper is coated on very smooth stock that has been precoated with a
> bright white barium sulfate ("baryta") layer that is polished smooth. It
> can show much more detail than salted paper or Pt coated on even a very
> smooth paper surface. Don't get me wrong, I love Pt prints and have
> probably made nearly as many of them as I have made prints on commercial
> photo paper. But at their "best" -- I mean, their most technically
perfect
> -- their resolution falls far short of a good baryta-coated silver-gelatin
> print. (As an aside, I have tried various methods to make Pt prints on
> baryta-coated paper, hoping to get the best of both worlds -- or at least
> something interesting -- but so far with little success.)
>
> Also, your Grade 0 paper is still significantly more contrasty than most
> hand-coated processes, further accentuating the "grain" of the negatives.
>
> Best regards,
>
> etienne
>
Received on Thu Mar 31 11:01:34 2005