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Digital Printing

koraks

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Not possible any more.
Possible - sure. Feasible - not really for most of us.
There's a few more, but these people currently seem best positioned to produce in a commercially viable way (within this tiny niche)

The whole horse of "we don't know how archival X or Y is" has been beaten to death. There's data out there and at the same time, the arguments against its validity and reliability are inherent to the methodology. So that's one puzzle we're never going to solve - not even in 40 years' time. I see no progress in that discussion even though it has popped up here several times. Then there's the question for how many of us long-term stability (decades, centuries) of a print is really a pertinent issue.

Let personal choices be just that. What I find interesting about them is to hear about personal motives. What I find decidedly less interesting and more iffy are attempts to make universal claims about what's inherently better in one way or another. I don't think it works that way.
 

Don_ih

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@cliveh how many digital prints will you be making or getting made? What are they for?

I'd like a good inkjet printer but can't justify it - I wouldn't use it enough.
 
OP
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cliveh

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@cliveh how many digital prints will you be making or getting made? What are they for?

I'd like a good inkjet printer but can't justify it - I wouldn't use it enough.

I wasn't thinking about making any digital prints myself, but paying a printer to do it for me should I find something I want to print.
 

RalphLambrecht

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Have fun in your new rabbit hole. I tried, and now my Epson is in the dumpster, and I'm back in the darkroom several thousand dollars poorer.
 

Chan Tran

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Have fun in your new rabbit hole. I tried, and now my Epson is in the dumpster, and I'm back in the darkroom several thousand dollars poorer.

Did you do quite a bit of printing using digital negative? The reverse of what the OP wanted to do? But for me I keep analog analog, digital digital neither is better or worse I keep them in their own space.
 

Don_ih

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I wasn't thinking about making any digital prints myself, but paying a printer to do it for me should I find something I want to print.

That's a sensible approach, since a good printer is expensive and really needs to be used pretty regularly. You'll likely also get better quality that way.
 

Carnie Bob

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I print both inkjet and wet prints in colour and black and white, I like both methods of printing and kind of disagree with cliveh a bit , IMO he is not wrong that for the casual printer it is easier to make a better print using digital methods, basically I could train my puppy Milly to hit auto contrast - auto colour and then have her move the levels slider to achieve a good if not surprisingly great inkjet print.
What I cannot do is train Milly the concept of colour theory , range of tonalities and contrast required to operate an enlarger or better yet multilayered colour image over palladium.


The difference in visual presentation can be equal and this is where I agree with cliveh , the difference between a well executed tri gum vs an inkjet is basically the physical texture of the prints, but in my opinion the most important factors are the uniqueness of making a print with brushes , light , water , paper , crushed stone, tree sap and actually seeing a print that can equal the values that an inkjet can achieve, and also the knowledge that if one uses Palladium and Blue Wool Scale pigments of high scale the print by hand has the potential to last for many centuries, I have yet to meet an authority other than the marketing departments of Epson tell me what to expect with their inks.

thats it- hand craftsmanship and longevity is the answer for me and if these two values do not matter to the artist then I totally agree with cliveh to keep in the inkjet lane.