Do inkjets beat analog prints today?

I've read a few sources (e.g. Barry Thornton) that suggest that modern inkjet printing can reliably produce results that are technically and aesthetically superior to analog printing by optical enlargement. Is this true?

First, how does the dynamic range of photographic paper compare to that of consumer or "prosumer" inks and inkjet paper? (I'm sure this data is readily available online, but I can't find it.) I think this is really the key issue, though of things like avoiding color casts in the inkjet prints also matter. Are there are other measurable and objective technical factors to take into consideration?

Second, to get specific, let's compare a Canon Pixma Pro-100 (or something in that price bracket) printing monochrome on 8x10 semigloss to an optical enlargement on Ilford multicontrast 8x10 pearl RC paper with a good lens and enlarger. The prints are both 6x9. Suppose the Pro-100 is printing a good scan (from a 24MP DSLR) from the same negative being enlarged. Can the inkjet produce results that are as "good" as the Ilford print? If no, does the answer change if we use a better printer? (I'm purposely sticking to semigloss papers for the comparison since the Pro-100 is a dye ink printer and has trouble with matte papers.)

Thanks in advance for your comments. My suspicion is that inkjet technology has advanced to the point where it's superior, but I'm looking for data to substantiate (or disprove!) this claim.

Oh dear jesus

I can't make a carbon print on an inkjet printer, so the question is moot.

I expect that you can develop testing methodologies that will "prove" that either method will produce a better result.
Are you speaking in terms of high quantities of production prints, or are you speaking of custom made, single prints. The two methods have different strengths.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) most of our criteria for measuring quality of result is as much subjective as it is objective.
I make relatively extensive use of post-developing toning to enhance the results I obtain from analog prints. I'm not sure there is anything in the digital world that adds those sorts of possibilities.
From what I understand, my friends who print digitally have recently been able to enjoy a greatly expanded choice of paper surfaces - similar to what us darkroom printers used to be able to enjoy, but are now not nearly so fortunate.
In my case, I can make much better prints using an analogue workflow. I know people whose digital printing skills allow them to make much better prints than if they worked in the darkroom. For me, to even hope to attain results that approach what I can attain in the darkroom, I would have to devote substantial amounts of money and learning time that I believe would be better devoted to darkroom work.
Both methods are capable of creating very high quality results. The operator is most important.

Let me reiterate that I'm interested in measurable technical characteristics of each printing method. It seems pointless to just share subjective impressions of each. This has been done to death across the internet with no real consensus.

Regarding single prints versus mass production, I don't think efficiency really relevant to the question of the aesthetic properties of each method. Let's say we care about creating the highest quality single prints for the sake of the argument.

Okay. So if you scan a piece of film, you're going to lose information and increase noise. So for that reason, you'll generally get a sharper image of a negative from optical printing, simply because you're skipping the scanning step and getting the most out of your negative. To get the most from an inkjet, you need to use a digital camera for the original image and skip the film step.

However, scanning a negative gives you more options for manipulation through software. So if you need to do some heavy editing, an inkjet will have the advantage.

High end inkjet printers are capable of a wider color gamut and larger dynamic range, especially ones with 8-10 ink cartridges and a good calibration and RIP system. So you can get more vibrant and accurate colors this way, though it takes a lot of skill to get accurate colors from a film negative.

On the other hand, optical printing papers use silver halide particles which are typically smaller than the dot produced by most inkjet printers. So you can typically get a higher resolution with an optical print. Though, beyond a certain point, you're not going to be able to tell with the naked eye. Those silver halide particles also have a different look to them than pigment or dye inks, which some people will prefer.

Also, pretty much anyone can make an inkjet print. Making a wet print is a bit more difficult and requires specialized tools. So wet prints tend to have a bit more value to them.

So inkjet is neither better not worse than an optical wet print. It's just different. I do both, plus a whole host of alternative process prints. Which method I use depends on what I'm trying to achieve. I generally prefer alt. process or optical wet prints because they're more fun to make and generate more interest. But sometimes, inkjet is the way to go, especially if I'm printing larger than 16x20, printing from slide film, or printing from a digitally captured image.

If you really want to see the difference, go to a gallery and look at their photos. Many will have both on walls right next to each other. My wager is that you'll find at least a couple of prints that you can't tell if they're inkjet or optical wet prints without looking at the label. A well done print in either method will look really good.

Derek L said:

Let me reiterate that I'm interested in measurable technical characteristics of each printing method. It seems pointless to just share subjective impressions of each. This has been done to death across the internet with no real consensus.

Regarding single prints versus mass production, I don't think efficiency really relevant to the question of the aesthetic properties of each method. Let's say we care about creating the highest quality single prints for the sake of the argument.

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In that case, in my case, analogue prints are superior, because I am much better able to obtain high quality results.
Much like musical instruments and canvas and paint, as long as one reaches a certain level of quality of equipment and materials - and extremely high quality materials are available are available for both inkjet and darkroom prints - then the quality of the result is dependent on who is using them.
I asked about single prints, because I do believe that in a production environment it may be possible to obtain higher aesthetic qualities from an inkjet workflow, because there are more lab resources available for obtaining customized results from them. That is a feature of the current marketplace, not the materials themselves.

Thanks for your comments. Let me put aside questions of rarity or "value" and address some of the mechanistic points you raised.

jim10219 said:

Okay. So if you scan a piece of film, you're going to lose information and increase noise. So for that reason, you'll generally get a sharper image of a negative from optical printing, simply because you're skipping the scanning step and getting the most out of your negative. To get the most from an inkjet, you need to use a digital camera for the original image and skip the film step.

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I agree that the lens and sensor used in the scan will all degrade image quality. On the other hand, so will the enlarging lens, and most of the enlarging lenses in use today were made 30+ years ago when optical engineering was not nearly as good as it is now (due to increased available computational power). So it's conceivable to me that a negative scan from a modern macro lens could be indistinguishable, especially on something like a D850 with 40+ MP. The hybrid process can also access various digital sharpening techniques (e.g. digital unsharp mask and Richardson–Lucy deconvolution) unavailable in the analog process.

That said, I'd still bet on the analog print being sharper in the best possible circumstances, but I'd be surprised if the difference between that and an expert digital print were perceptible under normal viewing circumstances.

jim10219 said:

Optical printing papers also use silver halide particles which are typically smaller than the dot produced by most inkjet printers. So you can typically get a higher resolution with an optical print. Though, beyond a certain point, you're not going to be able to tell with the naked eye. Those silver halide particles also have a different look to them than pigment or dye inks.

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I agree, though I'm not sure at normal viewing differences the silver halide particles offer a perceptible advantage over a 600 dpi print. Even 300 vs 600 dpi is barely noticeable under magnification, if I remember an article by Jeff Schewe correctly.

But—thank you. You raise good points, and it does seem inkjets can't truly match these characteristics.

I doubt you will find an improvement in quality if you switch from a high quality, modern enlarging lens to a much more general purpose macro lens, at least when working in the realm of close focus, flat field duplication under controlled lighting circumstances.
In fact, if you are fortunate enough to be able to use a modern, high end apochromatically corrected enlarger lens, I would suggest that the quality is likely to exceed the lens on the camera - unless of course you have adapted that lens for the camera as well.

A digital process does open up the possibilities of using digital editing tools, but I took the meaning of your question to be more about the qualities of the materials than the methods used to obtain the intended results.

If I make an 11x14 carbon print from the same sized negative -- what's the equivilent MPs? I've heard of 600 MP for an 8x10, so double that and round it off to a 1000MP (1 GP?) I can get all that information , or close enough to it, onto the print and easily accessable to our eyes and brains, subject to the abilities of our eyes and brains. And the print has a raised relief. What is comparable in the digital world? Apples and oranges.

I've read a few sources (e.g. Barry Thornton) that suggest that modern inkjet printing can reliably produce results that are technically and aesthetically superior to analog printing by optical enlargement. Is this true?

Yes...and I think analog printing by optical enlargement can reliably produce results that are technically and aesthetically superior to modern inkjet printing. Not forgetting the alt processes...

One matches the dynamic range of one's printing material with ones negative (or transperency), or digital file. Pretty much of a muchness. Good luck in your search for your way of making prints!

Thanks, Matt and Vaughn. Those are good points. Though I should note I'm mainly considering 35mm negatives (I did not make this clear in the original question, unfortunately), in which case I think there is much less than 600 MP of information there...

Derek L said:

I've read a few sources (e.g. Barry Thornton) that suggest that modern inkjet printing can reliably produce results that are technically and aesthetically superior to analog printing by optical enlargement. Is this true?

First, how does the dynamic range of photographic paper compare to that of consumer or "prosumer" inks and inkjet paper? (I'm sure this data is readily available online, but I can't find it.) I think this is really the key issue, though of things like avoiding color casts in the inkjet prints also matter. Are there are other measurable and objective technical factors to take into consideration?

Second, to get specific, let's compare a Canon Pixma Pro-100 (or something in that price bracket) printing monochrome on 8x10 semigloss to an optical enlargement on Ilford multicontrast 8x10 pearl RC paper with a good lens and enlarger. The prints are both 6x9. Suppose the Pro-100 is printing a good scan (from a 24MP DSLR) from the same negative being enlarged. Can the inkjet produce results that are as "good" as the Ilford print? If no, does the answer change if we use a better printer? (I'm purposely sticking to semigloss papers for the comparison since the Pro-100 is a dye ink printer and has trouble with matte papers.)

Thanks in advance for your comments. My suspicion is that inkjet technology has advanced to the point where it's superior, but I'm looking for data to substantiate (or disprove!) this claim.

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Can't speak for anyone else but the one at my house does not except in color. The only digital I shoot is for color prints. My analog photography is strictly in black and white. That is how it is going to stay as long as I am in "control".........Regards!

Hi Derek L
i've no clue, and I know its one of those things that no one really knows. The best thing to do it figure out if you can make the prints the way YOU like them on whatever scanner it is you like
or find a lab that prints them the way you like, and just do your thing. Today someone might say its all BS but tomorrow the tech improves and it is better.
Are you selling to clients, museums and galleries ? If not, and it is just a fun thing you do for a hobby or whatever I really wouldn't worry about what people say, because
in the end there will always be someone who will say YES and another person who says NO ...

have fun !
john
ps call the HABS project in the library of congress and / or the new england documents conservation center and ask them which printers and inks are the best
both places will be happy to tell you watsup.
pps i use a epson perfecta all in one printer scanner these days, and i've been happy with the quality of the images. printed up a show about a month ago, it looked good ..

Derek L said:

I've read a few sources (e.g. Barry Thornton) that suggest that modern inkjet printing can reliably produce results that are technically and aesthetically superior to analog printing by optical enlargement. Is this true?

First, how does the dynamic range of photographic paper compare to that of consumer or "prosumer" inks and inkjet paper? (I'm sure this data is readily available online, but I can't find it.) I think this is really the key issue, though of things like avoiding color casts in the inkjet prints also matter. Are there are other measurable and objective technical factors to take into consideration?

Second, to get specific, let's compare a Canon Pixma Pro-100 (or something in that price bracket) printing monochrome on 8x10 semigloss to an optical enlargement on Ilford multicontrast 8x10 pearl RC paper with a good lens and enlarger. The prints are both 6x9. Suppose the Pro-100 is printing a good scan (from a 24MP DSLR) from the same negative being enlarged. Can the inkjet produce results that are as "good" as the Ilford print? If no, does the answer change if we use a better printer? (I'm purposely sticking to semigloss papers for the comparison since the Pro-100 is a dye ink printer and has trouble with matte papers.)

Thanks in advance for your comments. My suspicion is that inkjet technology has advanced to the point where it's superior, but I'm looking for data to substantiate (or disprove!) this claim.

Click to expand...

They each have their strengths, and if the operator is skilled and has a good image to start with, each can produce results that make it difficult to tell which is which. I've seen inkjet prints that I thought were analog prints, and I've seen analog prints that I thought were inkjet prints.

I think we can break it down to two classes, color prints and black and white prints.

For black and white prints, modern papers and modern pigment printers (like Canon's Pro series) in the right hands and with a good paper, can make a really mean black and white print that you'd be hard pressed to distinguish from an analog print as long as the analog print didn't have extensive post chemistry processing done to it. From a technical perspective, max black is an easy match with an inkjet, resolution isn't a match depending on film format, however, a good modern inkjet can put down 600 pixels per inch with 1200-2400 dpi, which to the naked eye, you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference, assuming the image you had actually had enough spatial information to fill that up. If it didn't, with digital, it's pretty straightforward to selectively add contrast to the edges that mattered inside the image to boost the perceived sharpness to the point that the average person couldn't distinguish.

For color, modern inkjet prints with 8+ inks have a gamut that is shockingly large, and again, resolution and max black are not really issues assuming your image had it. Analog color prints do have a somewhat unique look to them, which just comes down to preference.

In terms of resolution, a lot people make a lot of noise that 300 pixels per inch (pixels, not dots, big difference) isn't enough information, and that you have to have a lot more than that. This is pretty hotly contested in some circles. A few years back I made a bunch of 8x10 test prints where they were printed at 600 pixels per inch, but the printed image itself had varying amounts of spatial information in it, all the way down to 75 pixels per inch. Each print was a print of the same thing, with the only variable being how much resolution was actually in the image. I then spent the next several months showing the prints to random people and asking them to order the prints from least sharp to most sharp. They could hold the prints in their hands, and look as close as they wanted to. Less than 10 in 100 people could reliably tell the difference between the 75 pixels per inch print and the 600 pixels per inch print on their own, much less put them in the right order. That doesn't mean there were no differences between them, they just didn't see the differences until you pointed them out, and even then, a significant number of people would respond with something like "I'm sure there are differences, but I just don't see it." 150 pixels per inch and up, and I had an occasional person see the 150 ppi print, but above that, nobody was able to reliably order them.

Long story short, the average person is not that discerning, and our eyes aren't as good as we'd be willing to admit. In our circle here on Photrio, we're pretty discerning, but I think it's prudent to be aware that things that we may not accept on technical grounds, the average person just does not care about. I can't tell you how many times I've made an 11x14 or 12x18 inkjet print off of an srgb jpeg shot on an iPhone and the client was over the moon with the results. Of course, I did a fair amount of post processing to sweeten the image up and selectively sharpen the parts that mattered, but this is a reasonably large print with 12 megapixels and a tiny color space. Food for thought.

It depends entirely on your skill in the darkroom.

faberryman said:

It depends entirely on your skill in the darkroom.

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And on the computer.
Both are capable of outstanding results. The difference, to me, is in the dedication level of the creator.

I have scanned Kodachrome slides and printed beautiful prints with a Canon inkjet.
For prints from a negative I prefer the analog approach.

There's no question that inkjet can produce amazing results.

Derek L said:

Thanks, Matt and Vaughn. Those are good points. Though I should note I'm mainly considering 35mm negatives (I did not make this clear in the original question, unfortunately), in which case I think there is much less than 600 MP of information there...

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One thing that should be noted is that there is a tendency to try to evaluate the capabilities of each process by converting one into the other and then taking measurements of the respective results.
Whether you are converting analogue into digital by scanning, or converting digital into analogue using a film recorder, in almost all cases the mode of conversion has the greatest influence on the quality of the result.
Essentially, you distort the comparison if you try to evaluate either process using the measurement systems applicable to the other.

Several years ago there was an article in Lenswork asserting that ink can get to a higher d-max than silver, which would yield a bit more dynamic range if the original image supports it. I have seen ink jet prints using a monochrome ink set that are better than most darkroom prints. But there are many other inkjet prints that are obvious from across the room, and darkroom prints that seem like they could suck you into the scene were it possible. Inkjet may have a theoretical edge, given the right image, but not many people can work at that theoretical edge consistently.

bdial said:

but not many people can work at that theoretical edge consistently

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IDK i have seen inky of some sad clowns, playful puppies & kittens and butterfles fluttering in post storm rainbows that reach that theoretical edge consistently !
i've also seen 8x10 chromes made with nice equipment that cost $40 just to process that look like well, lets just say the puppies were less than playful ...
but it might just be one of those eye of the beholder things,

If I was brutally honest being an analogue printer, I would say it is easier to make an acceptable inkjet picture. Easier to get the colours accurate or distort them to whatever shade you wish.

BUT!

The problem that condemns most inkjet printing for me, is they are vastly over sharpened. Not every one, but more than what could be described as a good few. There is always a tell tale white halo around lighter items which are against a darker background. It looks artificial...It looks wrong and it spoils what could be a stunning picture. I also have a strong dislike of clouds that have a blue or cyan tint in their darker parts - they do not look like that in real life. Darker cloud colours are grey.

My ex wife came up with a good comparison " Inkjet prints do not have a soul'. It is difficult to describe exactly what she meant. I know myself, but could not get her true meaning over which would be understood by everyone.

In my limited experience with it, Canon's Pro-10 can make fine-looking b&w prints with great separation of the low tonal values and nary a hint of unwanted color cast, or weird uneven reflectance. It's good enough that the real question is not so much about the quality of the print, but whether or not the photo is interesting!

Oh dear.... what's better, and I mean not subjective impressions, but quantifiable, measureable, scientifically studied,... of oil paintings and acrylic paintings?

Do it for whether you like the process. At the hands of a great darkroom printer, or a photoshop and printer wiz, either process can produce the most amazing prints you will have ever seen or imagined.

If you want a "really good" print in least amount of time, then inkjet is easier to get you an acceptable prints.

On the other hand, if you just don't care, then you can get crappy prints either way.

I have seen very good inkjet prints. Done by professionals. On exhibitions and in galleries. I have inkjet prints done for me on much better printers than this pixma thing. I like them. But...
Everyone who is saying what it is better than darkroom prints is just blind. Like really or for whatever reason under self illusion. Optical prints from nineties done in regular lab are still fantastic. Totally different quality of media.
To me it is much more easy to print from my inkjet. But I'm not this lazy or blind. I just can't print from c-41 at home, so I inkjeting it

Contact print on chloride paper toned in selenium.