Is the value of a wet print recognized in the digital world?

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DREW WILEY

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Maybe not irrelevant at all in the big picture. But I for one come to this particular segment of Photrio so I don't have to hear about inkjet and PS this n that over and over and over again, not because of any lack of parallel validity, but because I happen to prefer darkroom results for my personal work, and like a space to discuss that kind of thing without it being cluttered with a lot of extraneous "what ifs". So what is relevant in one space might be irrelevant in another. Choice is good.
 

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hi drew
i think part of the problem is that
some folks bring up the question
about both types of images and
very quick there are folks who
start ranting and raving making
the type of image making they Don't Do
the spawn of the devil. its kind of weird
 
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Bob Carnie

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There is an interesting show on right now at The Stephen Bulger Gallery. it is interesting because if I am right there are only three kinds of prints.. Lambda Silver, Lambda Cprint, and Inkjet, all products I am well versed in.
At first glance one cannot tell the difference in prints, but it really is interesting that I always gravitated to the silver.. the large inkjets are magnificent but I think the real difference that I can tell in all the prints.

The silver halide images seem to contain the image below the surface and the inkjets have the image melting on to the surface.. A very subtle difference I must say but one worth noting. Because I grew up on silver I gravitate to it. But for the millions of young workers who only know digital the inkjets are really good and as vital, valuable to them.

In 100 years we will know if the ink on print will be as archival.... I am making hand coated colour prints until the time comes where a machine will lay down pure pigment on registered paper then that is the direction I will go.. I hope I can live long enough to see this approach come to life.

btw Drew you know I have no hard feelings for you , I just think you should spend less time trying to teach bigfoot how to print in our man cave.
 
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jtk

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DREW WILEY

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Ha! I like your reference to a "man cave", Bob, where people sit around on their arses on a stuffed chair punching buttons on a remote control. Kinda sums up a bit of my prejudice against automated workflow. Good luck with your ongoing pigment printing. You've put a lot into it, and I still hope to see some of it someday. I'm kinda sucked into my own version of color darkroom printing because the results have been so encouraging.
 

jtk

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Its ridiculous to "mimic" another medium. I've seen thousands of professional color lab color neg enlargements, closely inspecting many of them, and almost all would have been better with inkjet if it had existed back then. That applies equally well to dye transfer..

As to "archival," most 50 year old color neg prints are well on the way down.
 

Andrew O'Neill

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So, you're saying dye transfer would be better printed digitally?
 

DREW WILEY

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Most pro labs were on the clock. Provide things relatively quick, but decent enough for average commercial use. A compromise, at least if they wanted to stay in business. And that's why so few are anymore. Nowadays everybody wants everything yesterday, so digi workflow has taken over. I still use labs for unthinking standardized things programmed machines do better, like developing color film. But high-quality printing was never their fare, with a few exceptions which I would refer to as hired guns rather than a regular service; and in such cases, one paid appropriately. Dye transfer printers are still like that, though the largest one remaining has gone hybrid. There are also custom pigment printers like Fresson. So I'd agree with your assessment that lots of old commercial lab work would in fact have turned out better if inkjet had been around. But its a pretty flimsy yardstick. If you want some greasy French Fries, we can debate all day long who makes the worst : McDonald's, Jack In The Box, Burger King? So if you require a better alternative, ever hear of home cookin', and the still-valid old adage, "If you want something done right, do it yourself" ? I suspect that many of you would be downright shocked if you saw what serious home cookin' can actually do with color neg film these days. I'll just hint that it would crush your stereotypes.
 
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Andrew O'Neill said:
So, you're saying dye transfer would be better printed digitally?
Click to expand...
why not ?! at least you wouldn't need to have matrices and it wouldn't take 6 hours to set up
i think there IS a dyetransfer plugin in PS now, and soon an autochrome one as well. no potato starch needed !
 

DREW WILEY

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What a dismal thought ! There are PS fakeries for everything. Want a cobweb inside lens look - they've probably got it. But I do have very good reasons to state that most dye transfer prints made over the decades really would have come out way better in inkjet. It was a complicated and expensive process, and certainly not everyone did it well. And most people today don't sufficiently recognize that it was predominantly a commercial process, adopted for advertising and illustration usage because it was so flexible, rather than a fine art medium, in today's terms. But when it is done right, and the image is truly appropriate, a well-done dye transfer print can leave any inkjet behind in the dust. Certain things one should not expect - this is not the sharpest printing technique; dyes bleed, there can be registration issues, etc. It is harder to control the highlights than with inkjet; yet the shadow values come out way better. Permanence is an issue with both, because all kinds of different dyes can be potentially be used in DT, just like inkjet employs complex blends of dyes, pigments, and lakes of differing lightfastness. But there is something vibrant about the transparency of pure dyes that inkjet by definition is incapable of fully replicating, because inks are rather opaque. Just depends on the specific image. I'm too much of a beginner to DT to go around crowing about it. My skills are in Ciba and Chromogenic printing.
 

DREW WILEY

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I'd call it Post-Apocalyptic Progress. Like the movie, Total Recall. Mutants using runaway mutant technology.
 

Sirius Glass

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I prefer to look at and hold the prints after they have dried.
 
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