Kallitype & HP B9180 Digital Negative

R Shaffer · Sep 3, 2008

Hello All,

I have been watching this forum with great interest for a year or two, but this is my first post.

I have finally taken the plunge and ordered up the supplies to make Kallitype prints . I have some 4 x 5 & 8 x 10 negatives and I would like to create some digital negatives as well. I was planning on using RNP array and Chart Throb for choosing a color & creating a curve.

I was hoping to get some advise on good colors to focus my attention upon.

Negative: B9180 on OHP
Process & chemistry: Following Sandy Kings article on unblinkingeye and planning to tone with palladium. ( also have Dick Arentz's book on pt/pd )
Paper: Arches Plantine

So any tips, advise or observations would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Rob

donbga · Sep 4, 2008

R Shaffer said:
Hello All,
QUOTE] I was planning on using RNP array and Chart Throb for choosing a color & creating a curve.

I was hoping to get some advise on good colors to focus my attention upon.

Negative: B9180 on OHP
Process & chemistry: Following Sandy Kings article on unblinkingeye and planning to tone with palladium. ( also have Dick Arentz's book on pt/pd )
Paper: Arches Plantine

So any tips, advise or observations would be greatly appreciated.

Perform your own tests to determine your specific blocking colors. Using someone elses curves and blocking color my work, but in the end discovering your own blocking color and building your own curve will produce the best work in your studio.

Good luck,

Don Bryant

R Shaffer · Sep 4, 2008

Thanks for commenting Don,

Yes, I was planning on running my own tests as well. I just wanted a heads-up on where others have had good results. I ran numerous tests with silver gelatine several months ago, but all the images had too much of a grainy appearance. I rather expected that result after reading the various posts here and figured I would try again with a UV process.

Colin Graham · Sep 4, 2008

Welcome to the forum Rob. I had good luck with MKS's RNP and the B9810 for kallitypes with pd toner. It's a very efficient system. I had the best luck with greens and reds with my routines. I say red, although it was so out of gamut that the actual blocking color was closer to orange.

Are you on CS3? I had some weirdness with my install of CS3 and the HP driver, would get a lot of odd default resets and got in the habit of checking every setting each time I send a negative to the printer. I seemed to get the best results using PS color management and leaving the HP color management off, and using the HP advanced glossy profile, and selecting 'perceptual' for the rendering intent in the PS print GUI. If I think of anything else I'll add it.

R Shaffer · Sep 5, 2008

Thanks for the tips Colin,

I'll pay special attention to red & green. We'll see if my red is out of gamut. Glad to hear that MKS's RNP has worked well for you. I'll go back Michael's website and refresh my memory on the procedure.

I print with Qimage which has worked flawlessly so far. Although, I have just started using a new computer with Vista64 and have not tried any printing yet. I have not had any of the issues with Vista64 so many have reported.

Rob

Colin Graham · Sep 5, 2008

I'm really due for a new computer and have been debating on sticking with XP vs giving Vista a go. Let me know how it goes for you.

amphoto · Sep 5, 2008

Don't forget printing in composite black either - sometimes the simple solutions are the best. I played around with the PDN system for ages (anyone want to buy my copy?) trying to find a colour that would print (ziatypes) without any speckling in the highlights. Could find plenty of blocking colours, but never one that gave me the quality of print I was looking for. Tried printing in composite black and, bingo! - got the smooth tones I was looking for. That said, the Epson 2100/2200 I use is a bit of a pig - if a nozzle blocks up (even partially) or the print head is out of alignment, speckling rears it's ugly head. A lot is made of the advantage of the PDN 'system' - i.e. that the process adjustment curve doesn't need to be as severe as printing without using a 'blocking' colour - but to be honest, if you do your editing and application of your adjustment curve while your image is still in 16bits this really isn't an issue. By the way, Chart Throb is excellent (and free!)

donbga · Sep 5, 2008

That said, the Epson 2100/2200 I use is a bit of a pig - if a nozzle blocks up (even partially) or the print head is out of alignment, speckling rears it's ugly head.

In a another thread here on HybridPhoto you posted:

"I got mine from Ink Republic in the US (www.inkrepublic.com) Why? Read some good reviews on the net, plus it was significantly cheaper than any you could get here in the UK. I've had it a for well over a year now, and so far it's worked like a charm on my Epson 2100/2200, "

Has this CIS system stopped working as well as before? I never had head clogs or speckling using the 2200 with PDN and Epson inks.

Seems like these systems are a bit of false economy when making digital negs for palladium prints, though they seem tempting.

Thanks,

Don Bryant

R Shaffer · Sep 5, 2008

Colin Graham said:
I'm really due for a new computer and have been debating on sticking with XP vs giving Vista a go. Let me know how it goes for you.

Well, I should have known I was tempting fate when I said that . Not ten minutes later my son tried to print his homework on my machine and it hung up.

R Shaffer · Sep 5, 2008

amphoto said:
Don't forget printing in composite black either - sometimes the simple solutions are the best.

That's a good suggestion. I would have probably overlooked straight gray-scale. I was impressed with chart throb before and ya can't beat the price.

amphoto · Sep 5, 2008

Don Bryant said:
In a another thread here on HybridPhoto you posted:

"I got mine from Ink Republic in the US (www.inkrepublic.com) Why? Read some good reviews on the net, plus it was significantly cheaper than any you could get here in the UK. I've had it a for well over a year now, and so far it's worked like a charm on my Epson 2100/2200, "

Has this CIS system stopped working as well as before? I never had head clogs or speckling using the 2200 with PDN and Epson inks.

Seems like these systems are a bit of false economy when making digital negs for palladium prints, though they seem tempting.

I can't fault the CIS - it's more than paid for itself. The problem (I found) was that if you're not printing regularly (and this is true of the OEM carts as well in my experience), dried ink on the printheads can cause problems (particularly if you're in a fairly dry environment). Perhaps this was because I left the printer on all the time so the print head wasn't parked and the heads capped, I'm not sure. There's been tons of stuff posted on the net over the years about head clogs in the 2100/2200 (and it's larger siblings) - if yours never clogged Don, you're one of the lucky ones (or maybe your good fortune was down to PDNs 'patent pending' technology ).

donbga · Sep 5, 2008

amphoto said:
I can't fault the CIS - it's more than paid for itself. The problem (I found) was that if you're not printing regularly (and this is true of the OEM carts as well in my experience), dried ink on the printheads can cause problems (particularly if you're in a fairly dry environment). Perhaps this was because I left the printer on all the time so the print head wasn't parked and the heads capped, I'm not sure. There's been tons of stuff posted on the net over the years about head clogs in the 2100/2200 (and it's larger siblings) - if yours never clogged Don, you're one of the lucky ones (or maybe your good fortune was down to PDNs 'patent pending' technology ).

Clogging I think it has more to do with one's ambient RH and temperature (at least with OEM inks).

I've been using inkjet printers for quite a while now and all of the non OEM inks clog eventually, IME.

Yes ocassionally I'll get a nozzle clog but a simple nozzle cleaning does the trick with OEM inks. I always perform a nozzle check before printing anything serious.

As for PDN it works if you have a tight workflow and realize that the effing Epson driver produces anomolies with the PDN tonal palettes, but it took me a while to realize that.

Hopefully I can give Chart Throb a whirl soon but I don't think it can compete with Curve Calculator II.

Cheers,

Don Bryant

Kerik · Sep 5, 2008

Colin Graham said:
I'm really due for a new computer and have been debating on sticking with XP vs giving Vista a go. Let me know how it goes for you.

Colin I just bought a new Dell laptop. It's one of the higher end XPS models. It came with Vista 64 (SP1) and 4 gigs of RAM. This is my second Vista machine, so I've grown accustomed to the interface. I have to say with this machine, I'm fully converted. It's fast and so far solid as a rock. I've had no hardware or software compatibility issues as yet. I think, for the most part, those are behind us now. I wouldn't hesitate recommending Vista to anyone at this point. And go for the 64-bit version. The next version of Photoshop is supposed to take advantage of 64-bit on the Windows platform (too bad for the Mac folks for now).

sanking · Sep 6, 2008

Why too bad for the Mac folks? What practical use is there for 64 bit files at this time?

Sandy

Kerik said:
The next version of Photoshop is supposed to take advantage of 64-bit on the Windows platform (too bad for the Mac folks for now).

Colin Graham · Sep 6, 2008

Thanks a bunch Kerik, that's great to hear. I know Windows probably wont support XP that much longer and have been putting it off for much too long.

Rob, I tried composite black with HP drivers, but I never could get the highlights (blacks on the neg) to print linearly in the 0-8% steps. I'd pick the RGB mix up from where the linearity resumed and try a new step wedge, but it would still have an odd hick-up in the highlights. Probably it was operator error, but it was very frustrating. (And sorry about the hang- sure hope I didn't jiinx you..)

Kerik · Sep 6, 2008

sanking said:
Why too bad for the Mac folks? What practical use is there for 64 bit files at this time?

Sandy

64-bit OS, not files. Supposed to give a mild performance boost to PS:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-9909725-39.html

R Shaffer · Sep 6, 2008

sanking said:
Why too bad for the Mac folks? What practical use is there for 64 bit files at this time?

Sandy

I chose the 64bit platform so that I could run 8gig of ram ( not an issue with mac ). It's my understanding that the 32bit Windows OS won't recognize more than 3 or 4gig. I seriously considered switching to mac and running an emulator for some of my engineering software. But with my savings by building my own PC vs. mac I was able to purchase an NEC LCD2690wxui-sv monitor ( sweeeet ). I would agree that the early compatibility issues with Vista are mostly resolved.

Kallitype & HP B9180 Digital Negative

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