New to alt processes, looking for advice

Perry Way · Mar 2, 2023

Hello, I'm new to alt processes. I have always wanted to do gum bichromate, like since forever. And I'm discovering Gum over Cyanotype and Gum over Platinum/Palladium and now I want to make plans financially to get set up with necessary equipment.

I would like to know first what kind of printer is best for making the digital negative from my negative scan? I realize the printing size will be a concern for price so let's just say my budget would be usually described as moderate but not exorbitant. I still try to get a good value. I am understanding from a few people that ink jet is the way to do, not lazer. So any suggestions? To be honest it would be real nice to be able to print at least an 11 x 14 area, but long term I want bigger. Maybe I have to start with 8.5. Would like to cut through all this incredible research time it takes to select a worthy printer.

Thanks!

MattKing · Mar 2, 2023

I've moved this thread to the Hybrid area Digital Negative sub-forum, because it clearly is a thread about digital negatives.

Perry Way · Mar 2, 2023

MattKing said:
I've moved this thread to the Hybrid area Digital Negative sub-forum, because it clearly is a thread about digital negatives.

Sorry, I'm a bumbling person here. I have always limited myself to the old APUG section hehe. Next time I will look for the appropriate place.

Andrew O'Neill · Mar 2, 2023

I have always used Epson printers such as the 4000, 3800, and the P400. I usually just the P400, and when I want really big negatives, I'll use the 3800. Why Epson? Because I can use QTR to make profiles and curves. The P400 allows me to print negatives up to 13 inches wide.

fgorga · Mar 2, 2023

I think your best bet is one of the Epson pigment ink photo printers... the current generation includes the Surecolor P700 (13") and the P900 (17"). The older generations are also good.

Why these? Because these are what most folks use and thus you will have the most support/help available. Most curves you can find in 'the wild' are built for Epson printers. These are often a good starting point for working on a new process.

Personally, I currently use a P800, a 17" printer one generation back and before that a 3880 (two generations back). Both have been good, reliable printers for digital negatives and for prints.

The 3880 has been converted to Piezography Pro, but I have never found a need to use it to make digital negatives. I 'dialed in' my process for digital negatives years ago using Photoshop curves and Epson OEM inks and firmly believe 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'.

Patrick Robert James · Mar 2, 2023

Personally I won't use an Epson, but everyone else does so unless you want to spend the next couple years learning obscure things you should probably get an Epson. In other words, what Frank said.

Pigment printers are going to be better, though more expensive. Even a dye printer is going to cost though, so you might as well bite the bullet.

After that you could follow one of the paint by the numbers methods that are out there. Making digital negs isn't rocket physics though a lot of people try to make it sound like it is.

Another alternative is to just pay someone to make the negs for you. That would be the path of least resistance. In the long run it might even be cheaper. Inkjet printers are hella expensive to run. And they are always one dreaded clog that you can't clear away from going to the dump, especially Epson. If you live in a dry climate, good luck....

Depending on the quality you are after you could use a laser printer if you aren't that picky. I think I made a neg or two way back with my laser printer. I didn't keep going with it so it must not have been very good. Most anything can be calibrated and profiled though to get the max quality that it is capable of. I wouldn't recommend it though.

Start with cyanotype. It is easy and you can get a pretty good one without massive effort. Gum prints require multiple coatings to really make a quality print so they are simple as well, but more complex if that makes any sense. With gum you have to shrink the paper as well. You'll have to do it anyway if you want to do gumovers, so there is that.

MTGseattle · Mar 2, 2023

I have some interest in this topic as well. I haven't done any real good searching yet, so I may answer my own question in a few minutes. Are there 1 or 2 decent youtube videos regarding digital negatives?
I'm probably making it super complicated in my head, but I just don't see how a pigment printer on whatever the substrate is (more research) can equal an analog (traditional) negative. I've got my sights set on carbon printing sometime in the near future and the thought of bumping 8x10 up to 11x14 is intriguing. I hesitate to have this be another avalanche of gear acquisition though. I don't even own a modest photo printer currently.

koraks · Mar 3, 2023

MTGseattle said:
I just don't see how a pigment printer on whatever the substrate is (more research) can equal an analog (traditional) negative.

That's a simple one. It can't. But you can make inkjet negatives that look OK as long as you don't take a loupe to the prints.

Dan Pavel · Mar 3, 2023

koraks said:
That's a simple one. It can't. But you can make inkjet negatives that look OK as long as you don't take a loupe to the prints.

And, for alt-processes, it doesn't need to equal an analog (traditional) negative. As you only make contact-prints with alt-processes the printer only needs to equal the traditional printing papers.

nmp · Mar 3, 2023

Primary criterion for choosing a pigment or a dye based printer for diginegs is whether it can provide enough UV opacity (or UV transmission density) to obtain paper-white at the highlight end of the scale. For this, each process has different requirement - some like salt prints require very high density while others like cyanotypes (classic developed with plain water) can do with much less. Pigment inks in general have higher UV opacity than dye inks. So if you are going to do salt prints, for example, you will be better off with a printer with the former. Other processes may not be as stringent so for those a good dye based might work fine. Even among pigment printers, there are nuances. Some of the higher-end Epsons, for example, allow dialing in greater than normal (i.e. 100%) amount of ink to boost the density from within the print driver, while others do not. P600/800/700/900 are in the former camp while the cheaper P400 is in the latter. If you need to add ink in P400, you must use the QTR driver. I am not familiar with Canons too much so I can't say if ink density can be controlled there. Also, QTR does not work with Canons so that option is not available either.

If you are starting from scratch in the digital world, you will need a photo-editing software to be able to manipulate the photograph (if need be,) print the transparencies and make contrast corrections in the digital file to match the process. This is another can of worms. Easiest (for me since I already use it for digital work) is using Photoshop where you will get a lot of support. Others less widely used ones can do the job as well, some have cost and some are free, like GIMP - each with its own quirks.

My advice, echoing @Patrick Robert James, is to start slow and low - not worry about what is the best but work with what is readily available. Go through the whole process - no matter if it is with a cheap laser printer with overhead transparencies. Once you get the feel for it, you will figure out where the deficiencies are and whether or not those can be addressed with improvements in tools at hand.

:Niranjan.

TheFlyingCamera · Mar 3, 2023

koraks said:
That's a simple one. It can't. But you can make inkjet negatives that look OK as long as you don't take a loupe to the prints.

If you are talking about making projection enlargements from digitally-created negatives, then MAYBE you have a point. If you're talking about contact printing, then no, you are wrong. I can show you dozens of prints in palladium that were made with digitally created negatives that look every bit as good. If I didn't tell you, you wouldn't know.

Back to being productive:

Yet another vote for the Epson pigment printers, and using QuadTone RIP (QTR). Yes the Epson printers have their issues, like the clogging nozzles (there are several fixes for this - print something daily, for one, as a preventative, or if a nozzle clog happens, soak a paper towel in Windex with ammonia and then get it under the print head. Let it sit overnight. That will often clear the clogged nozzle without a very expensive trip to a service shop). A friend of mine once switched away from Epson because he was having problems with his (I think it was a 3800, which is a now long-discontinued printer) because of "pizza-wheel marks" (the geared wheels that advance the media through the printer can leave teeth-marks on the prints - I very seldom experienced this on my 3880, and have yet to see it happen with my P900). When he switched to Canon, he found he was having to make two copies of each negative and then sandwich them in register to get sufficient ink density. That creates its own separate set of problems, and in the end, was at least as expensive if not more, than the Epson. As I mentioned, I have not seen this happen at all on the current generation of Epson printers, so I think the problem has been solved.

Dan Pavel · Mar 3, 2023

Yes, clogging nozzles are a problem with Epson printers. After I had to throw an Epson SureColor SC-P600 after approx. 2 years of use because of clogging nozzles I have learned my lesson. I bought another new SC-P600 but this time I always have a humidifier inside it when I don't use it, I always use genuine inks and I always keep it covered in a plastic cover. There is not a sign of clogging even after I am not using it for a few weeks.

By the way, SC-P600 is a very good printer for alt-processes digital negatives and you can print up to A3+. That was the main reason I've chosen it.

koraks · Mar 3, 2023

TheFlyingCamera said:
I can show you dozens of prints in palladium that were made with digitally created negatives that look every bit as good.

Some alt. prints from digital negatives I've seen are quite good. However, it depends on the process, the paper and the image. If digital negatives are really on par with silver ones, that's great. I remain very skeptical based on the prints I see and the ones I've made myself on various processes. In any case, there's no contest that great images can be made from digital negatives. And when doing so, I agree with you and others that Epson printers have the edge because of the ecosystem and the compatibility with QTR.

MattKing · Mar 3, 2023

MTGseattle said:
I just don't see how a pigment printer on whatever the substrate is (more research) can equal an analog (traditional) negative.

Have you priced 8x10 and larger film recently?
One thing that my Alt Photo friends like about digital negatives is that you can tailor them to different processes. A normally exposed and developed film negative will work well with silver gelatin paper, but won't work well with a number of the other processes - many of which require more density and contrast. If you expose and develop that negative for those processes, it won't make good prints on silver gelatin paper. Whereas if you digitize a film negative optimized for silver gelatin, you can make multiple different digital negatives, each of which are customized to a different process. And then make a good print on "regular" paper.
In addition, burning and dodging and localized adjustment of contrast are a lot easier to incorporate into a digital negative than into a contact printing procedure.

Perry Way · Mar 3, 2023

Patrick Robert James said:
Personally I won't use an Epson,

I'm a guy that often thinks outside the box. Can you share why and what other vendor(s) would you consider, yourself?

MurrayMinchin · Mar 3, 2023

I hardly have the experience to be offering advice and consider myself very new to the game.

Have an Epson P600, and while I've acquired all the QuadToneRIP (QTR) materials, I have been using Epson's Advanced B&W through QTR's Print Tool and have arrived at a pretty good salt print adjusted curve manually with Capture One editing software. Not advising that you go this way, just that there are options out there.

I live in a moist, coastal, rainforest environment where clogging isn't an issue, but I do a nozzle check every couple weeks at least.

Perry Way · Mar 3, 2023

Dan Pavel said:
Yes, clogging nozzles are a problem with Epson printers. After I had to throw an Epson SureColor SC-P600 after approx. 2 years of use because of clogging nozzles

This scares me. I have hated ink jet technology for over two decades, won't go near it because the vendors making them (Epson included) were completely oblivious to people having these problems. They just kept making them and making them. Throw away printers basically. If you come into my house you won't find anything throw away in my place except a Bic lighter. My perception from that moment forward has been basement low of the technology. You would think after all this time they would know how to say have a "Clean" function that separates the ink from the jet and then blows the jet out with alcohol and dries it and keeps the ink away from the jets until they are needed. This is how I would have approached this whole design. but manufacturers are sneaky, they build into their products a certain obsolescence factor and only those who use it like literally every day are the only ones that extract value from their investment.

I see brand new they have the P700 and P900 models. The P900 looks like it would satisfy my needs for a very long time. But then wait.... it's ink jet. If it clogs it's a throw away instrument.... Will I use it every day of my life so it never clogs? Don't think so. Hmmm...

I guess I need more time to assess things but if I need the P700 at least to make my first digital negative, one that will be effective for printing what I want to print, then I can afford this option. I just don't want to throw the money out because I went on a long 5 month hike and come back and it's non-functional.

koraks · Mar 3, 2023

Don't be too scared of the nozzle clog issues. Firstly, the technology is improving and the problems seem to be less frequent than they used to be.
More importantly, so what if a nozzle clogs once in a while? Run a cleaning cycle and in nearly all cases it goes away.

The inkjet I use the most is an old 3880 that I got second hand. I sure haven't treated it gently over the years. It has sat around doing nothing for months at a time. When we were doing major renovations, it had a layer of fine cement dust on top of it that I was sure would have permanently clogged the head. I've printed on warped media, paper with unhardened gelatin, and has suffered more headstrikes than I'd care to count. It has printed only a single black channel for many hundreds of prints leaving most of the channels unused. I've fed it virtually only non-Epson inks, most of the time long expired ones. Hauled the machine around multiple times, transported it in the back of a car, etc. I've basically done literally everything wrong with it that I can imagine.

Guess what? It still prints fine. Yes, there's the odd clog once in a while when I fire it up after a few weeks of dormancy. Run a cleaning cycle and it's back to life again.

Not saying that the technology is 100% failsafe or anything. But you got to see the horror stories in perspective a little.

MurrayMinchin · Mar 3, 2023

I hate it as well. There is absolutely no joy in anything related to using a printer, and very little with computers.

Having said that, I don't want to haul an 11x14 camera through the bush or up mountains.

I'm still at the testing, hopeful, all this effort on a wish and a prayer while not being 100% sure it's the right idea part of the learning curve. Have at times considered farming the enlarged digital negative making portion out to someone else, but am giving it a good effort to make them myself. The cost of each negative would be higher, but they would have to worry about those gremlins and the costs involved while I could do more photographing. There would also be shipping delays, but no more printer related hair pulling!

Some people seem hard wired to understand computers...I am NOT one of them.

TheFlyingCamera · Mar 3, 2023

I can say with firsthand experience that the current generation Epson printers (P600,700 and 900) are worlds better re: head clogs. I have let mine sit for weeks on end, fired it up, and it printed just fine without needing a cleaning cycle. So don't be too concerned/discouraged about the longevity of the printer if you're buying a new one.

CreationBear · Mar 3, 2023

Very illuminating discussion! Here’s my situation, though:

1.) I’ve got the equipment (DSLR, macro lens, Photoshop, etc.) that makes me think I can get a reasonable scan of a 6x7 negative that will support a modest sized alt print, just a little bigger than what is possible with my 8x10 negatives from my Sinar.

2.) Since I shoot mostly landscapes in a rather busy environment, I’m also looking for the ability to make targeted adjustments (burning and dodging, especially.)

3.) On the other hand, if I am being honest with myself, I am a very low volume photographer—one finished print per month remains an aspirational goal. As such, I have to question the cost outlay for a printer (and perhaps a scanner, as some people use in their work flows.)

My question, then: given those constraints, would it make more sense to outsource the digital negatives? There appear to be a number of places in the UK that provide that service, and I believe that Cone here in the States does as well. If I went this route, what would I be giving up?

I think I would be comfortable with the prospect of making a few more test strips along the way, but I’m not sure how much calibration is needed to allow for enough linearization to burn/dodge, etc. I’d also be curious if the particular alt process one is working with affects the amount of fine tuning necessary— Pt/Pd for instance might be more ‘sensitive) than, say, VDB?

Any thoughts appreciated!

Vaughn · Mar 3, 2023

Asking for a friend -- does anyone use HP printers for digital negatives? Are their inks poor UV blockers?

nmp · Mar 3, 2023

Vaughn said:
Asking for a friend -- does anyone use HP printers for digital negatives? Are their inks poor UV blockers?

Do you mean ones that use their Vivera pigment inks? They are the best in terms of UV blocking, once you find the correct color (which is a shade of green.) I have had two B9180's - regret killing the last one now that they are no longer available. Their bigger printers use the same set of inks so they should be work great too. If you are talking about their smaller desktop printers that uses dye inks, I would not have a clue. Same as other dye ink printers, I suppose.

:Niranjan.

nmp · Mar 3, 2023

CreationBear said:
I’d also be curious if the particular alt process one is working with affects the amount of fine tuning necessary— Pt/Pd for instance might be more ‘sensitive) than, say, VDB?

Any thoughts appreciated!

I would posit that it is the other way around. Pt/Pd is relatively more robust process than the VDB. It's just more expensive to do.

:Niranjan.

Vaughn · Mar 3, 2023

nmp said:
Do you mean ones that use their Vivera pigment inks? They are the best in terms of UV blocking, once you find the correct color (which is a shade of green.) I have had two B9180's - regret killing the last one now that they are no longer available. Their bigger printers use the same set of inks so they should be work great too. If you are talking about their smaller desktop printers that uses dye inks, I would not have a clue. Same as other dye ink printers, I suppose.

:Niranjan.

Thanks...I believe he uses a desktop..I shall inquire.

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