Making Enlargements From Inkjet (digital) Negatives?

[Daniel Balfour]

Just wondering, has anyone ever tried (or has information on) making enlargements from digital negatives?

What are the factors at play?

- Daniel

 

[ann]

Don Bryant, who is active here, gave a wonderful workshop on making digital negatives last year (using PDN) and we contacted printed them on Ilford RC paper.

They were amazingly terrific.

We only contacted printed 8x10 sizes, but i don't think that the same process couldn't be done with even a larger "negative".

By the way the "negative" was inexpensive inkjet photo paper.

 

[keithwms]

Daniel, do you mean enlarging a digital neg, as opposed to contact printing? To my knowledge the only diginegs that can be credibly enlarged are LVTs, which can be printed at up to ~3000 dpi. Good 5x LVT enlargements are possible.

I don't think inkjet diginegs would achieve more than a very modest enlargement because you would be enlarging the substrate texture along with a fairly resolution-limited print. I popped a pictorico digineg into an enlarger and...no good. Maybe someone else can get it to work better than I, but when I compared to LVT I simply don't see it happening.

 

[Daniel Balfour]

Keith -

Yea that's pretty much what I was thinking. But I was sort of gonna go about it another way -

1. Making a digital negative (Pictorico) with a curve tailored to the dynamic range of some graphic-arts film

2. Using the graphic arts film as a "negative" for projection enlargement.

It's a thought process. I already figured that Pictorico substrate might not be suited for enlargement, hence the intermediate step.

I'll be giving this a shot -

Mostly, this is for mural photographs projected onto Liquid Light. In the hobby-sense at least, LVT's are entirely cost-prohibitive.

- Daniel

 

[sanking]

Keith -

Yea that's pretty much what I was thinking. But I was sort of gonna go about it another way -

1. Making a digital negative (Pictorico) with a curve tailored to the dynamic range of some graphic-arts film

2. Using the graphic arts film as a "negative" for projection enlargement.

It's a thought process. I already figured that Pictorico substrate might not be suited for enlargement, hence the intermediate step.

I'll be giving this a shot -

Mostly, this is for mural photographs projected onto Liquid Light. In the hobby-sense at least, LVT's are entirely cost-prohibitive.

- Daniel

The problem is that the resolution of Pictorico is only about 7-8 lp/mm. That is about 355 - 400 ppi. If you enlarge only 2X you drop the resolution to 180-200 ppi, which is below the threshold of resolution, plus you get a lot of grain. Enlarging from Pictorico to a graphic arts film won't change that situation.

Sandy king

 

[Daniel Balfour]

Sandy,

Gotcha - So much for that. Hey, gotta give credit for effort right? heh

So then, LVT's aside, is there another alternative?


- Daniel

 

[keithwms]

Nah just do an LVT and be happy!

Well I do have a nutty solution, which involves printing a positive by inkjet directly onto some ortho film. Might work, might not.

Actually, Daniel, why not forget pictorico and find out what is the finest/smoothest glossiest paper you can, something without that pictorico granularity which I guess comes form that ceramic coating or whatever. Print onto glossy and then contact print from that onto tmax. I say tmax because I am thinking that you won't get enough blue light through glossy paper to properly expose ortho film. (OTOH ortho is sure nice to developby inspection when you're playing like this)

If you do that, what might happen is that the glossy paper might effectively interpolate for you by spreading the ink very slightly, and the paper might diffuse the light enough to contribute to that noise filtering. I have seen this effect with dye sub prints- rather low res prints (150 or 200dpi) that nevertheless came out quite nice and smooth. Then, when you go to film, you might see the film grain controlling the overall texture. Might. The effect you get might be cool in its own right.

I have one brief story to relate. I enlarged a fuji 64T positive to some tmax sheet. What happened is that the 64T had basically no grain to contribute, but there was some sort of almost subliminal granularity because it was a pretty big enlargement. But the tmax actually broke that up with its finer grain, that's what I think. I got something that I think is actually quite nice.

Based on that observation, here is my final nutty suggestion: if you intentional push the grain in your final step, that grain might emerge and control the overall appearance and it might work over some range of enlargement. I think what you don't want is for the paper lp/mm to break up your photo and pixelate it in an ugly way. But you might be able to introduce enough grain to sort of mediate that.

I say all this in the following spirit: sometimes things shouldn't be done, but then they are by some naive newbie, and then something unexpectedly cool is discovered. Just experiment.

P.S. One other thought, you might get a glossy inkjet positive made and contact print to film from that. That'd give you, what, 300 dpi on good photo paper and then maybe the paper would diffuse the dots enough to make it credible, or you could insert a thin plastic sheet between the LJ print and the film to de-dot the transferred image.

 

[Daniel Balfour]

Keith,

There are several issues with the "LVT Option" -

1. I don't know the first thing about LVT's. I'm *assuming* that, like inkjet negatives, LVT's require some sort of correction curve applied in order to "fit" the dynamic range of the digital image to silver-gelatin. I wouldn't even know where to start. If trial-and-error is to be used, it would probably take forever (considering back & forth shipping) and cost a fortune to get it right. I spoke with Bowhaus. They couldn't offer me any information - surprisingly.

2. LVT's are EXPENSIVE! About $50.00 a pop!

3. LVT's require a 4x5 enlarger, modified for wall-projection. This is a problem on its own right. Even if the enlarger can be modified in this way and affixed to some sort of "rolling-stand", maneuvering this beast would be a pain and then there's the question of "enough light".

----------

The Ortho film options you present are certainly thought-worthy, but again, require a lot of fiddling and experimentation with absolutely no guarantees.

My conclusion (thus far):

Given that the "murals" I'm interested in making aren't intended to go beyond 30" in width (length isn't as important), I think it might be simpler to bring the "water to the horse" by sticking with conventional digi-negs and adapting some sort of contact-printing frame that would pin the damn thing flat on the wall. In theory it should be doable, though I'm not quite sure how as of yet.

The best idea I was thus far able to conjure up is to make/use/modify some sort of squeegee-like "clamp" that would be physically screwed down to the wall on the "handle side" using drywall anchors, pressing the glass against the liquid-light-coated wall. Using several such gizmos would allow for variable sizes (use as many as you need, depending on how big your glass/print is).

A standard (read "cheap") slide projector could then be used to expose the print. And given a fixed aperture, it would be easy enough to make a time/distance chart for dmax exposure. Of course, at the end of the session, some minor plastering & paint would be needed to touch up the screw holes in the wall.

Thinking out of the box? Or should I just stick to taking my meds?

- Daniel

 

[keithwms]

Well if you are going to use a slide projector for illumination then why not just make a mounted 35mm dupe negative and project that directly onto the LL. I think you should be able to get a 35mm dupe made for a rather low price. Check at dr5. I'm thinking you might pay $20 for a 35mm slide that does the job well enough. I could be wrong.

 

[Daniel Balfour]

Well if you are going to use a slide projector for illumination then why not just make a mounted 35mm dupe negative and project that directly onto the LL.

Keith,

Ugh! NOW you come up with this?! You could've saved me hours of engineering! Heh...

But how's this different from LVT's?

- Daniel

 

[keithwms]

But how's this different from LVT's?

I don't know what dr5 uses, it might well be LVT. Anyway, just look around, people need 35mm slides made from digital files and it really shouldn't be too pricey. The enlargements you mention seem small enough to be just fine via projected 35mm or 645.

Regarding the concerns you expressed about LVTs earlier... just tell them the slide will be used to make enlargements onto silver gelatin and they'll take it from there and give you the right curve / CI. You can either turn in an electronic file yourself or have them do a full res scan for you.

Of course if you are duping a neg or chrome then that can be done in a 100% analogue way, no scanner required. But I assume that you have a digital file and you don't have a neg or chrome, and that's why we're having this discussion! If you do have a neg or chrome then there are some other options that dr5 can also do.

 

[Daniel Balfour]

dr5 does indeed offer film-recording. Even in 2 1/4 format (6x6) which is perfect! Wow.. terrific idea & at around $10.00 per neg it's certainly more affordable then LVT's. Now about working somekind of curve into that workflow, I take it you'd suggest speaking to the folks at dr5.

- Daniel

 

[keithwms]

http://www.dr5.com/

Besides the "digital silver" (LVT?) service that I mentioned, yhey have some nice processes for developing positives from many common b&w films. The results can be quite like scala (which I adore) and much less costly. I've used them a few times for 120 film.