Commercial options for having a digital file printed in "true" black and white?

Nitroplait · 2025-09-09T05:32:48-0400

I practice photography in the analog domain and do my own darkroom development and printing. I know very little about printing digital BW files and hope to get a few pointers from those crossing the domain line.

I have a digital BW file which I would like to print. I'd like it to be archival and true monochrome, as close to a B&W fiber based print as possible (not an inkjet print composed of colors that tries to resemble grey scale nor a BW print on color RC paper).

I'd like to send it out to a professional service, but struggle for a vocabulary to describe my requirements.

What service should I search for? what process or technology is common today for printing pure greyscale photographs from digital files?

Any recommended companies that will do above? (I am in the EU)

Thanks.

dokko · 2025-09-09T06:53:11-0400

you'll want a provider that can expose on true b/w photo paper.
the machine are usually Lightjet or Lambda, the paper is normal B/W paper which gets developed chemically as usual. Barita is often used as a term for fiber base paper.

so look or a place that still runs b/w paper workflow.

I usually use white wall. they are an automated web service, so very affordable and the quality is very good (although they oversharpen by default, so my advice would be not to pre-sharpen your image)

Baryta B&W Photo Print | WhiteWall

Top Quality B&W Photo Prints on Baryta Paper ➤ Classic Baryta Paper ✓ Laser Exposure ⭐Voted BEST PHOTO LAB WORLDWIDE ➤ Create Now!

www.whitewall.com

Ilford B&W Photo Print | WhiteWall

Custom B&W Photo Prints on Ilford Paper ➤ Cutting-Edge Laser Exposure ✓ Traditional Development ⭐Voted BEST PHOTO LAB WORLDWIDE ➤ Create Now!

www.whitewall.com

a dedicated professional lab can give a bit better quality if you happen to catch a good one, or worse if you come across a bad one.
they are significantly more expensive since they provide human custom service.

Nitroplait · 2025-09-09T07:11:22-0400

Thanks @dokko ! That is very helpful.

cirwin2010 · 2025-09-09T07:52:14-0400

You can also look for shops that produce prints using Piezography inks. Basically inkjet printers converted to use only black and grey carbon inks. Probably about as archival as it gets for a digital print. I converted an Epson 3880 to use Piezography inks. Using Hahnemuhle fine art baryta paper with this process has produced results that are the closest I've seen to darkroom fiber based paper.

bdial · 2025-09-09T09:11:40-0400

Another approach would be to create a digital negative on a transparency film, then contact print it to photographic paper. Either on your own, or using a service.
This is a very common approach for making alt-process prints.

Carnie Bob · 2025-09-09T09:15:42-0400

I see you are in Europe, Picto Paris or Metro in London make silver gelatin prints off digital files with their Durst Lambda. As well a calibrated inkjet negative
can be produced and contacted onto paper.
I use to own a Lambda but now prefer this option of manking a negative and then printing via contact onto any paper or process I want. - Durst Lambda printers are limited to the choice of papers available, but if you are looking for a true black and white print then this would be the way to go.

Alan9940 · 2025-09-09T10:17:42-0400

Carnie Bob said:
I use to own a Lambda but now prefer this option of manking a negative and then printing via contact onto any paper or process I want. - Durst Lambda printers are limited to the choice of papers available, but if you are looking for a true black and white print then this would be the way to go.

Bob,

Have you written an article or something on how you craft digital negatives for silver gelatin printing? Though I've made digital negatives for pt/pd printing for many years, I could never seem to get a digital negative to produce a decent silver gelatin print. The biggest issue I had was that I could see the dots; even though I printed the negative on Pictorico on my Epson 3880 at its highest resolution.

GregY · 2025-09-09T12:10:13-0400

Carnie Bob said:
I see you are in Europe, Picto Paris or Metro in London make silver gelatin prints off digital files with their Durst Lambda. As well a calibrated inkjet negative
can be produced and contacted onto paper.
I use to own a Lambda but now prefer this option of manking a negative and then printing via contact onto any paper or process I want. - Durst Lambda printers are limited to the choice of papers available, but if you are looking for a true black and white print then this would be the way to go.

Bob, Have you overcome the banding problems in printing digital negatives...as several negatives i got from you suffered from that problem.

Carnie Bob · 2025-09-09T12:56:20-0400

GregY said:
Bob, Have you overcome the banding problems in printing digital negatives...as several negatives i got from you suffered from that problem.

there is an old saying garbage in garbage out... your work was the only banding issue we had in years. We actually stopped sending out film to end users
because of this uncertainty and are not willing to trouble shoot client files.

GregY · 2025-09-09T12:56:59-0400

Carnie Bob said:
there is an old saying garbage in garbage out... your work was the only banding issue we had in years.

Whatever you want to believe Bob..... you said yourself it was a printing artifact....& not in the neg scans..,..
I was asking an honest question, since contact printing produces good results from disparate media.

Pieter12 · 2025-09-09T13:05:02-0400

Cone editions piezography: https://www.cone-editions.com/piezography

Carnie Bob · 2025-09-09T13:05:28-0400

GregY said:
Whatever you want to believe Bob..... you said yourself it was a printing artifact....& not in the neg scans..,..
I was asking an honest question, since contact printing produces good results from disparate media.

digital artifacting manifests itself in many ways, after doing thousands of prints of our own using our original scans and files we happen to know that sometimes banding will happen and in all the cases we have seen its because of digital work done before we get the file.

Pieter12 · 2025-09-09T13:06:13-0400

Alan9940 said:
Bob,

Have you written an article or something on how you craft digital negatives for silver gelatin printing? Though I've made digital negatives for pt/pd printing for many years, I could never seem to get a digital negative to produce a decent silver gelatin print. The biggest issue I had was that I could see the dots; even though I printed the negative on Pictorico on my Epson 3880 at its highest resolution.

There's always LVT film negatives, though not many suppliers.

GregY · 2025-09-09T13:06:34-0400

Carnie Bob said:
digital artifacting manifests itself in many ways, after doing thousands of prints of our own using our original scans and files we happen to know that sometimes banding will happen and in all the cases we have seen its because of digital work done before we get the file.

Thanks for the answer.

Carnie Bob · 2025-09-09T13:06:44-0400

Alan9940 said:
Bob,

Have you written an article or something on how you craft digital negatives for silver gelatin printing? Though I've made digital negatives for pt/pd printing for many years, I could never seem to get a digital negative to produce a decent silver gelatin print. The biggest issue I had was that I could see the dots; even though I printed the negative on Pictorico on my Epson 3880 at its highest resolution.

No I have not, as there are too many issues to overcome when doing this and right now I am busy with printing, a book is a massive undertaking.

Carnie Bob · 2025-09-09T13:07:41-0400

Pieter12 said:
There's always LVT film negatives, though not many suppliers.

Griffin Editions in NY provide this I believe as well as lambda fibre and optical fibre prints.

koraks · 2025-09-09T15:50:05-0400

GregY said:
overcome the banding problems in printing digital negatives

This is not about @Bob Carnie's negatives, but I have run into this issue as have other printers. One trick Kees Brandenburg mentioned to me not too long ago is to use two identical negatives, one rotated by 90 degrees prior to outputting to the inkjet printer. The result is that the banding is at an angle in both negatives, which results in a much less noticeable cross-hatched pattern that can even go entirely unnoticed.

Alan9940 said:
Though I've made digital negatives for pt/pd printing for many years, I could never seem to get a digital negative to produce a decent silver gelatin print. The biggest issue I had was that I could see the dots; even though I printed the negative on Pictorico on my Epson 3880 at its highest resolution.

Same here, also with the 3880. I've to date not come across any convincing technique or physical example that completely avoids this issue while at the same time maintaining the same kind of excellent fine detail rendering you get with in-camera negatives. The results can be pretty good especially if you keep a certain distance from the print. As such, it's much less of an issue with bigger prints as the viewing distance will be larger anyway, so you can (sort of, within certain limits) get away with some imperfections.

Imagesetter negatives have better potential, but sadly, they're a bit of a dead-end street with this technology being very firmly on its way out.

For a truly high quality B&W silver halide output I think the option offered by @dokko is really the way to go. Inspection of the prints under high magnification will show a 'digital pixel pattern', but this should be entirely invisible to the naked eye, even at close distance, so it's arguably irrelevant.

dokko · 2025-09-09T16:57:21-0400

koraks said:
Inspection of the prints under high magnification will show a 'digital pixel pattern', but this should be entirely invisible to the naked eye, even at close distance, so it's arguably irrelevant.

I've never inspected those prints under a loupe, but I've run many tests and by naked eye I've never seen any pixel pattern, no matter how closely I looked.

If there is a pixel pattern on print on these machines, then most likely the scan wasn't very good.

koraks · 2025-09-09T17:07:25-0400

dokko said:
I've never inspected those prints under a loupe

That's what I'm explicitly referring to.

dokko said:
If there is a pixel pattern on print on these machines, then most likely the scan wasn't very good.

Scans have nothing to do with this, sorry.

foc · 2025-09-09T18:31:44-0400

There is the Harman Lab in UK .

https://harmanlab.com/collections/digital-silver-black-and-white-prints

Commercial options for having a digital file printed in "true" black and white?

Nitroplait

dokko

Baryta B&W Photo Print | WhiteWall

Ilford B&W Photo Print | WhiteWall

Nitroplait

cirwin2010

bdial

Carnie Bob

Alan9940

GregY

Carnie Bob

GregY

Pieter12

Carnie Bob

Pieter12

GregY

Carnie Bob

Carnie Bob

koraks

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Commercial options for having a digital file printed in "true" black and white?

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