HP launches large-format negatives for fine art photography

My thanks to Mike Ware for finding this article and sending it me. The most interesting part for me is that HP seem to be taking digital negatives quite seriously, it would be nice to have a review of the software they are using to create the negs.


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HP launches large-format negatives for fine art photography
Barney Cox, printweek.com, 13 July 2010

HP has premiered the results of a new software tool that enables photographers to produce large-format negatives for contact-printing alternative photographic processes.

Large-Format Photo Negatives, which will be launched at Photokina in September, was used by Magnum Photographer Elliott Erwitt to create a new edition of 76x102cm platinum prints, which were shown at photographic exhibitions Les Recontres dArles in France and ArtHamptons in Bridgehampton, New York, USA.

"Platinum printing is the Rolls Royce of photographic reproduction and has traditionally been limited to modest dimensions," said Erwitt. "These new prints with their unusual size are a Rolls Royce and Ferrari combined. The photographs have a luminosity that is not achievable with any other process, old or new."

The software was developed by HP colour scientist Angel Albarran and uses the Designjet Z3200 photo printers black and green ink onto a clear film to produce the negative.

Fine art digital printmaker Gabe Greenberg, who worked with Erwitt, and has spent years researching digital negatives, described the results as the "crme-de-la-crme of prints"

As well as the platinum printmaking process the negatives can be used with any process which relies on UV exposure through a same-size contact-printed negative including cyanotype, photogravure, dye-transfer, gum bichromate and carbon printing.

http://www.printweek.com/digital/ne...-large-format-negatives-fine-art-photography/

So it sounds as if it would mean buying a whole new expensive printer. No such thing as an add-on for my B9180, which has not yet earned the money I spent on it.

At least that means we'll finally have people who thinks (and try to solve problems) about our specific needs in the R&D departments of printer manufacturers... I hope Epson will follow soon. (OTOH, I'm very happy with my B9180 and probably will never return back to Epsons!)

I saw this and as luck has it am considering a 24inch printer for fall winter.
H HPZ3200 is the unit, and it looks pretty good. I wonder when the software will be available for the other printers?

I am going to Fuji to look at a Epson 24inch model a friend of mine is considering to buy and I will ask the question from the techs there.

We're currently using this printer for digital negatives (at Istanbul Photography Center) and results are very good... I presume it's a special RIP module for the job.

Regards,
Loris.

What I great idea -- I can buy a Z3200 which weights about 150 lbs and costs about $4000 USD to replace my R1800 and 3800 for making digital negs. I'll pass, but like Loris I'm glad they are thinking about negatives. I wonder how many alt printers will want a 24" behemoth for making negatives. Nice for 30x40 cyanotypes, but I don't need anything larger than a 17" printer for carbon negs.

Actually this is the size negatives I want to make for alt printing, I am experimenting with Lamda film Rollie ortho ISO 25 at this very moment and all the prints I want to make with different processes will be from 20x24 to 30x40.
I am considering this machine to run inkjet negs as well as lambda negs and get an apple to apple comparison of each method of making negs.

pschwart said:

What I great idea -- I can buy a Z3200 which weights about 150 lbs and costs about $4000 USD to replace my R1800 and 3800 for making digital negs. I'll pass, but like Loris I'm glad they are thinking about negatives. I wonder how many alt printers will want a 24" behemoth for making negatives. Nice for 30x40 cyanotypes, but I don't need anything larger than a 17" printer for carbon negs.

Click to expand...

Loris

Have you tried this software on the HP?? very interested to hear your thoughts.


Bob

Loris Medici said:

We're currently using this printer for digital negatives (at Istanbul Photography Center) and results are very good... I presume it's a special RIP module for the job.

Regards,
Loris.

Click to expand...

bob carnie said:

Actually this is the size negatives I want to make for alt printing, I am experimenting with Lamda film Rollie ortho ISO 25 at this very moment and all the prints I want to make with different processes will be from 20x24 to 30x40.
I am considering this machine to run inkjet negs as well as lambda negs and get an apple to apple comparison of each method of making negs.

Click to expand...

Let me know when you make a 30x40 carbon transfer

No, we didn't. I learnt about this sofware (thanks to Mike Ware) just this morning, as you all.

We use good old PDN - actually an openoffice spreadsheet I designed based on PDN curve calculator I... I find openoffice spline trendline drawing algorithm works better than excel. I have upgraded to curve calculator II, but even if it seems like a much better reincarnation (= having all calibration information packed up in a database is nice!), I somehow didn't like it much. Not the idea and design, but I really hated the 4D application / runtime environment...

Regards,
Loris.

bob carnie said:

Loris

Have you tried this software on the HP?? very interested to hear your thoughts.

Bob

Click to expand...

Loris Medici said:

I learnt about this sofware (thanks to Mike Ware) just this morning, as you all.

Click to expand...

This announcement was made over a week ago on the Large Format Photography Forum:

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=64262

I've been waiting for someone to spill the beans here.

My gut feeling is that HP's technology will be targeted to commercial labs and possibly well heeled individual artists, which there aren't many of these days.

At this point I'm not that excited about the news release.

Don

Thanks Don, I wonder how this new "paper profile" works better than currently established methods...!!!

Loris Medici said:

Thanks Don, I wonder how this new "paper profile" works better than currently established methods...!!!

Click to expand...

Perhaps they will work very well if they have been crafted properly, but I'm not a believer in cookie cutter curves for making fine prints. I assume their experts have developed a work flow that can be tweaked as needed.

Of course we could all just go back to making enlarged negatives in the darkroom.

Don

1. I assume it will be tweakable. If not, then all of this is pure/total marketing BS!

2. Never!

Regards,
Loris.

Z3200 HP digital negative wokflow

Has anyone seen any prints made using the Z3200 and HPs digital negative workflow? I downloaded the manual and was having a read through it. Appears they only use two inks to produce the negatives - photo black and green (the latter of which, by default, has a relatively linear response to UV light) - and I was wondering if there was any graininess in the highlights of the final print (i.e. where the black ink kicks in to provide the required density).

amphoto said:

Has anyone seen any prints made using the Z3200 and HPs digital negative workflow? I downloaded the manual and was having a read through it. Appears they only use two inks to produce the negatives - photo black and green (the latter of which, by default, has a relatively linear response to UV light) - and I was wondering if there was any graininess in the highlights of the final print (i.e. where the black ink kicks in to provide the required density).

Click to expand...

Hello Angus,

Very nice work on your website. It would appear that smooth results can be expected with the Z3200 judging Angel's online palladium work.

Best regards,

Don Bryant

Cheers Don. I had a look at Angel's website - not easy to judge finished prints from web images, but they look nice as you say. Don't think I'll be dropping $4k anytime soon on a new printer - though I might buy a green ink cartridge and empty the contents into the CIS of my ailing Epson 2200 for a play around. From what I could tell after reading the Z3200 Digital Negatives manual, the workflow isn't too different from QTRip - but with only two inks, a systematic way of determining when the second ink kicks in to generate enough density in the highlights (which is where I thought they might get some graininess due to the different UV blocking abilities of the two inks, but I guess not), and an automated way to create the final correction curve using the Z3200's inbuilt spectrophotometer.