Digital silver imaging..?

ToddB · May 25, 2015

Hey guys,

has as anyone checked out this site? Digitalsilverimaging.com? It's moving into our territory in regards to black and white print making. What do you think?

removed account4 · May 25, 2015

eric has been around for a long while!
from all reports he is wonderful to work with !

i have been on his email ist for years ...
john

pbromaghin · May 25, 2015

Wow, reverse hybrid process. This amateur thinks it's great.

Nathan King · May 26, 2015

I used the service to make a print that was far too large for me to make in my darkroom and was extremely pleased.

ToddB · May 26, 2015

I would agree. I would consider this service only if I had a complicated negative or to big of print, and if I had a buyer for the print. Pretty expensive just to have on our own walls.

Todd

RobC · May 26, 2015

laser printers for B+W (and they work for colour too) have been around for a long time now. Ilford even make FB paper specially for them. There are Lightjets, OCE and Durst Lambda printers out there just to mention the main ones. There are numerous labs in the UK who can do this. It's nothing new. But it's expensive and tends to be the preserve of professional photographers and a few high end art photographers who can afford it for gallery exhibitions and some clients.

However, if you use Ilfords own processs and print lab in the UK they will do it for reasonable prices but only onto their own RC silver gelatin paper.

Ian Grant · May 26, 2015

It's nothing new, De Vere were selling a Digital head for their enlargers. Minilabs offer colour prints from Digital media, Ilford has a lab capable of similar B&W prints and people like Bob Carnie make Silver Gelatin prints from Digital using a Lambada machine.

It's really a subject for DPUG.

Ian

RobC · May 26, 2015

Ian Grant said:
Bob Carnie make Silver Gelatin prints from Digital using a Lambada machine.

LOL. Hey Bob, tell us about your Lambada machine.

ToddB · May 26, 2015

It's really a subject for DPUG.

Sort of.. The idea of this service venturing into our neck of the woods as far as light sensitive paper and traditional dark room techniques is a little concerning.

Stephen Frizza · May 26, 2015

I own and operate The Lighthouse Lab in Australia and compared my hand prints to their work. I sent multiple images as tests to see what would come back... They were Wonderful every step of the way. I was assisted by Jessica and the communication was great, the cost was great and the product was amazing! I highly recommend this highly professional lab.

ic-racer · May 26, 2015

ToddB said:
Hey guys,

has as anyone checked out this site? Digitalsilverimaging.com? It's moving into our territory in regards to black and white print making. What do you think?

There have always been opportunities to have someone else print one's work. Good prints are almost always expensive.

Bob Carnie · May 26, 2015

I believe the bigger market is for digital negatives off my lambda.. We were the first lab worldwide to do mural silver gelatin fibre prints. Four years ahead of the Ilford product we were exposing Agfa Classic fibre.

Digital RC black and white was around well before I decided to try putting fibre base paper in the Laser printer.. It worked exceptionally well , we had a visit by the Harman brass sometime in 2006 just before they launched their product.. I remember Dylan my assistant at the time pulling a 30 x40 silver out of the tray and it was fun to see their (Harman execs) joy, that this was indeed a worthy product.

This product never really took off well for us, and also some of the labs, I think the silver gelatin market in general took a massive hit by ink on paper , and its a tough sell trying to charge 3 x the price for a silver over an inkjet , when the buyer has a hard time telling the difference..

Visually there is very little difference between an hand made mural, digital mural via lambda, and an inkjet print from the same negative. For me it boils down to print longevity and IMO silver trumps ink dyes.

RobC said:
LOL. Hey Bob, tell us about your Lambada machine.

RobC · May 26, 2015

Shame, I thought you were going to tell us about dancing in the dark...

wildbillbugman · May 27, 2015

Yes,
Full color laser printing has been a commercial entity for 15-20 years. Ordinary color printing paper can and is-was-used for this. Back when I was a working stiff, more than 15 years ago, I visited more than 1 commercial site using this technique on RA4.

wildbillbugman · May 27, 2015

I do not worry my not so pretty, not so little head about any of this. High end technology that I cannot do myself dose not get done. I cannot even imagine sending out my negatives to be printed by someone else, whether digital or the old fashioned way. The laser printers I have seen for this process are all much to large for my darkroom.
I think that an artist/photographer who has his work printed by someone else should give that someone equal billing. Printing is as much an art as taking the shot.
None the less, it will not be as long as most people think befor the vision of a photograph will go directly from the artist's brain to the printer. Really. Watch for it.

wildbillbugman · May 28, 2015

Nobody wants to argue with me? Really?

NedL · May 28, 2015

wildbillbugman said:
...I think that an artist/photographer who has his work printed by someone else should give that someone equal billing. Printing is as much an art as taking the shot...

I'm not inclined to argue that point

removed account4 · May 29, 2015

NedL said:
I'm not inclined to argue that point

me too
i always tell people who printed my images if it wasn't me ..
the lady down the street does it for me, she's great, and i want her to stay in business !

JoJo · Aug 16, 2015

wildbillbugman said:
The laser printers I have seen for this process are all much to large for my darkroom.

My laser imager has about the size of a shoebox.
http://www.dpug.org/forums/f21/home-made-lambda-printer-digital-projector-3761/index3.html
Posted half year ago, nobody was interested in.
DPUG is a completely dead platform and I will not post there any more.

Joachim

RalphLambrecht · Aug 16, 2015

pbromaghin said:
Wow, reverse hybrid process. This amateur thinks it's great.

Me too.

However,I always understood 'hybrid' to end up with an analog print.I use a digital negative to do it.Scanning negatives to inkjetprint is digital dinosaur

rthollenbeck · Aug 16, 2015

Ian Grant said:
It's really a subject for DPUG.

Im curious..... Is it really a subject for DPUG?

I've been thinking about a hybrid process a lot lately. Is it really "off limits" and explosive touchy to even refer to such things on APUG. Is DPUG the place for hybrid and APUG is a religious origination for purists only? OR if you dare speak of hybrid on DPUG is there a faction of digital only purist that jump in and say "Hey that not digital, so take that kind on non-digital talk back over to the APUG site"?

MattKing · Aug 16, 2015

You may have all the pure analog,ue discussions you want on DPUG.

APUG is intentionally different - by choice, no digital or hybrid here.

No religion involved.

rthollenbeck · Aug 16, 2015

Interestingly enough, I wasn't the one who said the "D" word... Then .... Followed up by saying it should be taken over to DPUG.

JMB · Aug 19, 2015

wildbillbugman said:
None the less, it will not be as long as most people think befor the vision of a photograph will go directly from the artist's brain to the printer. Really. Watch for it.

The only miserable defense to the arrival of this sad day is that printers of some sort will surely be in abundance then, but there will be no artist brains to be found anywhere.

Digital silver imaging..?

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