Digital Negs > carbon

Hi everyone, new here. I have shot and printed silver traditionally with film and a darkroom for a number of years.

I made the mistake of buying a sony nex recently, and put a voigtlander 15mm on it, and really really REALLY like shooting with it, and the files it makes 100% match or surpass anything 35mm film can, image quality wise, for me (at least on a monitor ).

My problem is prints. I have never been happy with black and white inkjet prints.

I tried, a number of years ago, probably 5 years ago, from information found on the old hybrid forum, making silver prints from digital negatives. I made my own curve that after 30 or 40 test prints seemed to work reasonably well, and was quite pleased with my first few tests. My problem was the texture from the transparencies I was using (overhead transparencies) showing in the print, not having a big enough printer, and then my printer developed banding issues that I could not get cleared, so I gave up. I was using scanned negatives to begin with, so it was more trouble than it was worth - I was mostly interested in using it for the alternative process possibilities but never got there.

So now, with picking up the digital, if I want to use it, I really have no choice.

My question, is printing carbon prints from a digital negative way more difficult than doing it with silver prints? I have never tried any of the alternative processes, at all. Zero experience.

I have found, a ton of very detailed information here, and through links found here, but have not found a general rough overview of what is involved and what is needed equipment and chemistry wise.

I think I would ultimately like to print 20x30 inch prints, carbon, silver, or some other alternative process - I will play with these, but don't want to be limited by equipment to only silver.

My problem is prints. I have never been happy with black and white inkjet prints.

Why? An inkjet made with a monochrome ink set can equal or surpass what most printers can achieve in a wet darkroom.


My question, is printing carbon prints from a digital negative way more difficult than doing it with silver prints? I have never tried any of the alternative processes, at all. Zero experience.

Creating digital negatives for carbon is no more difficult than for silver gelatin; creating a carbon print is a lot more difficult than printing silver gelatin. This is not to discourage you. Try it!

I think I would ultimately like to print 20x30 inch prints, carbon, silver, or some other alternative process

Try some alt processes with small prints to see what direction you would like to take -- and what can practically be achieved. If 20x30 inch alt prints are your goal, carbon is not a good choice. This size will be more reasonable for kallitypes, cyanotypes, platinum/palladium, and gum prints. 20x30 is a big print that can be challenging in any process.

Ok I should have said I have never printed a nice bw inkjet or seen one. Maybe that would be a place to start.

Got it - I figured carbon print would be difficult - or any alt process - at least introduce another learning curve.

I am comfortable printing 30x40 inch silver enlargements from 4x5 and 8x10 negatives in a wet darkroom. I like big prints.

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Yes, you should try to see some exhibition-quality b&w inkjets. You may have already seen some and mistaken them for silver prints.

Don't forget, many alt processes require a full-size negative for contact printing. Those will require a printer 24" or larger. You will also need a vacuum frame and a light source to cover your format, and all the other equipment will need to scale up. Once you have tried some alt processes, you will see this in a whole new light.
You will still need to master smaller sizes before going large.
If you have large format negatives, you can try some alt processes and skip the considerable complexity of digital negatives for now.

steve barry said:

Ok I should have said I have never printed a nice bw inkjet or seen one. Maybe that would be a place to start.

Got it - I figured carbon print would be difficult - or any alt process - at least introduce another learning curve.

I am comfortable printing 30x40 inch silver enlargements from 4x5 and 8x10 negatives in a wet darkroom. I like big prints.

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I think you are right. I have probably never seen a decent inkjet print. I should give regular inkjet a go first and try alt process on some 8x10 negs I already have.

I have a 30x40 vac easel..and everything to print big with silver - but yeah a light source and 24 inch printer would be the big expense?

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Digital Negatives for alt processes won't show the texture of the OHP film because the texture of the paper. If you are looking for a an overview of how the digital negative process works, (forgive the shameless self-promotion), my web site has several pages (illustrated, of course) on how I made digital negatives. The link to me website is in the signature. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the link for digital negatives.

Joe Lipka said:

Digital Negatives for alt processes won't show the texture of the OHP film because the texture of the paper. If you are looking for a an overview of how the digital negative process works, (forgive the shameless self-promotion), my web site has several pages (illustrated, of course) on how I made digital negatives. The link to me website is in the signature. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the link for digital negatives.

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OHP doesn't have any texture to speak of, but silver-based processes and carbon will show *everything* else on smooth papers, even the dither pattern from the inkjet printer if it is the least bit out of alignment.

pschwart - but it is possible to get clean silver prints from an inkjet printed negative?

Does everyone try to save these inkjet negatives, or are they looked at as a one shot deal?

steve barry said:

pschwart - but it is possible to get clean silver prints from an inkjet printed negative?

Does everyone try to save these inkjet negatives, or are they looked at as a one shot deal?

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gelatin silver from digital negs -- I dob't do this, so i'll leave it to someone else to relate their experience
digital negs -- I store mine with an exposure record just like film. I can remake them if necessary, but I don't consider them single-use.

LensWork Special Edition prints were silver prints made from digital negatives. Since these were made in the early days of digital negatives, they negatives were made on lithographic film from imagesetters at a pre-press production house. They were every bit as good as the original print.

What about from inkjet negatives though? And how hard/expensive is it to keep an Epson in that kind of alignment with casual use?

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"I made the mistake of buying a sony nex recently"

i read that and b4 i even read on i thought OMG wt* how could that be a mistake?! lol