Do inkjets beat analog prints today?

Bob Carnie said: ↑

The photographic final print IMHO is the only thing that counts.. how we get there is irrelevant.
How does the final print look, how does it move you, that is what is important in my club ... not what stinkin equipment made it.

Paul said: This sums it all up very nicely. Thank you Bob, for your well-reasoned remarks.

As an artist, all parts of the process are equally important to me. It all counts...it all adds up to what the print will look like and feel like.

Inkjet prints will never beat wet process prints...they do not have hands.

Vaughn said:

Inkjet prints will never beat wet process prints...they do not have hands.

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I've seen some very nice inkjet prints, and the technology is improving quickly. However, when it comes to my own work, the physical, hands-on relationship to the print is important. Each (even when doing multiples from the same negative) seem to have a personality of their own.

Adrian Bacon said:

Ugh... I *never* unsharp mask. It’s like using a sledgehammer to drive in a nail. All the power, but no control. Perceived sharpness is all about how much contrast there is along the edges in the picture. There are far, far, more nuanced and controllable ways to amp up that contrast without it intruding.

What I’ve been doing recently is doing a high pass filter with a layer mask so that I can selectively dial in just where I want the contrast to go, then on top of that I’ll put a layer of high frequency luminance noise right at the upper limit of the spatial response. Those two combined in the print gives a very subtle smooth but sharp look to the image that isn’t really noticeable, until it’s not there. Adding sharpness in is all about emphasizing certain parts of the picture, just like depth of field.

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Sorry Adrian but messing about with high pass filters/layer mask seems a bit of a faff. When I colour print all I need to do is burn in a little bit here or there or wave a thin piece of wire with a piece of card under the enlarger lens to 'dodge' the print to bring out a bit more detail in a shadow. It really is quite easy and to be honest quite a bit cheaper too, Still each to their own I suppose, I know what I like and I will continue to use it.

There is another thing, with film you don't have to be worried about getting a bit of dust on the sensor, Each frame with film comes with a brand new, unused sensor every time.

Adrian Bacon said:

I’ll put a layer of high frequency luminance noise right at the upper limit of the spatial response. Those two combined in the print gives a very subtle smooth but sharp look to the image that isn’t really noticeable, until it’s not there. Adding sharpness in is all about emphasizing certain parts of the picture, just like depth of field.

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I've never heard of this technique before. Do you have a before/after comparison readily available? Are you adding Poisson noise in the luminance channel, or something more complicated?

While we're sharing techniques, here are mine. I think of sharpness as involving resolution and acutance. For resolution, I find Richardson–Lucy deconvolution works wonders. There are some examples here: https://clarkvision.com/articles/image-restoration2/. It's available as a feature in the open source Raw Therapee. (If this interests you, I can point you to a development version that gets better results.)

For acutance/edge enhancement, high pass filtering is pretty stone age. I get good results with wavelets, which are a much more contemporary and effective way to do the frequency analysis you're implicitly doing with the high pass filter. This video demonstrates sharpening and other applications in another open source program: .

(Maybe you've already seen this, in which case I apologize for explaining what you already know...)

BMbikerider said:

Sorry Adrian but messing about with high pass filters/layer mask seems a bit of a faff.

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That’s a little like saying using depth of field to your advantage when taking a photo is a bit of a faff. It may seem that way if you’re not skilled in using it, but it’s a tool in the toolbox, and if used appropriately, significantly effects the content of the picture.

I get that an analog worker has a different toolbox, and that there are different tools in that toolbox, and that’s OK. What I find odd is when I come across an analog worker that seems to be oblivious that a digital or hybrid worker is using a different toolbox than they are, and then makes a comment like the one above when a tool that isn’t in their own toolbox pops up. Really? The point of being on here is to share and learn. If an analog worker mentions something that they do in the darkroom that I’m not familiar with, I’d rather learn what I can about it, not call it a faff, but that’s just me.

When a digital worker is preparing an image for inkjet printing, failure to use the tools available to you in that toolbox will result in a print could look a lot better. Just like if an analog worker doesn’t use the tools available to them when making a print.

eddie said:

I've seen some very nice inkjet prints, and the technology is improving quickly. However, when it comes to my own work, the physical, hands-on relationship to the print is important. Each (even when doing multiples from the same negative) seem to have a personality of their own.

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And someday in the far future, (say a couple centuries) if by some distorted odds a carbon print of mine still exists in decent condition, it stands a chance of looking like the day I made it. There is also a chance that there could be some emulsion cracking if mis-handled as an old print. And as a bonus, if the gelatin emulsion has one of my beard hairs in it, someone probably could check on my DNA, my diet, my drugs of choice, or whatever. Try that with an inkjet print!

But in the end, what does count is that one's final result satisfies or exceeds ones criteria for a good print, then one moves on from there. If one has clients or buyers that have their own varied criteria and needs, then a diverse toolbox is needed. My toolbox is pretty much limited to wet process tools...with a digital toolbox I am more likely to mistake a pipe wrench for a framing hammer.

Derek L said:

I've never heard of this technique before. Do you have a before/after comparison readily available? Are you adding Poisson noise in the luminance channel, or something more complicated?

While we're sharing techniques, here are mine. I think of sharpness as involving resolution and acutance. For resolution, I find Richardson–Lucy deconvolution works wonders. There are some examples here: https://clarkvision.com/articles/image-restoration2/. It's available as a feature in the open source Raw Therapee. (I this interests you, I can point you to a development version that gets better results.)

For acutance/edge enhancement, high pass filtering is pretty stone age. I get good results with wavelets, which are a much more contemporary and effective way to do the frequency analysis you're implicitly doing with the high pass filter. This video demonstrates sharpening and other applications in another open source program: .

(Maybe you've already seen this, in which case I apologize for explaining what you already know...)

Click to expand...

I don’t have actual prints readily available, no, and even then, it’d be pretty difficult to evaluate over the Internet. Those are techniques for the actual prints, not for looking at on a screen.

For a critical print, I always print at 600dpi (the native resolution of my printer’s print head), so I size the the image to that and then do the work.

For the high frequency noise, I make a separate image at the same print size, but 2400dpi and fill it with 50% grey. Then I add monochromatic Gaussian noise at 12.5%. From there I resize that image to the print size at 600 dpi and copy paste it to a layer in the image I’m going to print and set the blend mode to overlay. It’s important that this layer be on top of any sharpening that you’re going to do, not under it. In the actual print, it has what I guess you could call a visual dithering effect. It’s well above the spatial resolution that we can actually see with our eyeballs, but at the same time effects what we can see and makes it appear to be much smoother while still retaining sharpness. It’s very subtle, but looks more pleasing, at least to my eye.

For the high pass filter, you know what they say... oldie but goldie.... I know there are other newer ways, but I really love the high pass filter, though my usage is probably somewhat unique. The way I usually use it is I make a black and white version of the image at the print resolution and then identify the parts of the image that I want to sharpen. From there, I’ll apply the high pass filter to the black and white image until there is just enough in one or more parts that I want to sharpen, then I’ll copy paste that as a layer into the image to be printed, add the layer mask and set it to black so everything is shut off, then set the blend mode to overlay and paint white into the mask for just the edges I want to add the contrast to. I do this for each part I want sharpened up, since they tend to be different spatial resolutions. Sometimes I end up with one layer, sometimes I end up with a handful of layers. It all depends on the image, but this gives me very fine grained control in where that contrast is added in and how much of it is there.

Thanks! Interesting ideas. I'll need to the luminance noise trick sometime.

Derek L said:

Thanks! Interesting ideas. I'll need to the luminance noise trick sometime.

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Yep, you’ll have to tune it to whatever resolution your printer prints at. The values I gave are for my particular setup.

I don't think it is clear what "better" means and I am not sure that I could even tell the difference with really fine prints. However, even if it could be scientifically proven that one was "better" (perhaps technically superior in some quantifiable way?) it would make no difference to me. I really enjoy the darkroom and I also love contact printing large negatives. The work flow engages me whereas spending more time on the computer does not appeal to me. Also, I simply couldn't afford ink jet and the whole digital process. It would mean getting a much better computer and an expensive printer, not to mention a digital camera. The most expensive piece of equipment I own is a Jobo and it wasn't even half the price of good DSLR.

I will keep my well-worn darkroom and spend any extra money I have on decent wine!

Vaughn said:

And as a bonus, if the gelatin emulsion has one of my beard hairs in it, someone probably could check on my DNA...

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Then they could clone you, and you could start making photos again.
PS- You may want to talk to Sean about keeping your subscription active, just in case...