quandry

I have started doing scanning and printing digitally with minimum equipment a epson 4490 scanner and a little deskjet 1010 printer. I have a complete
darkroom I no longer can use and over 50 years experience as a professional photographer and printer. The learning curve on digital is frustratingly slow and one questions if the results will ever equal a good black and white silver print without a huge investment in an expensive printer and inks and papers. In other words is it worth it?

If you can no longer use your darkroom then I think learning the digital tools is worth the effort, unless you want to give up on photography.

I think you can get black and white results that come very close to silver prints, but I still prefer printing b&w in the darkroom. But if I lost my darkroom for whatever reason I would be content (mostly) to print digitally. You will probably need to invest both money and time to get to where you are satisfied.

bobmolson said:

I have started doing scanning and printing digitally with minimum equipment a epson 4490 scanner and a little deskjet 1010 printer. I have a complete
darkroom I no longer can use and over 50 years experience as a professional photographer and printer. The learning curve on digital is frustratingly slow and one questions if the results will ever equal a good black and white silver print without a huge investment in an expensive printer and inks and papers. In other words is it worth it?

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The results can actually surpass what most can achieve in the wet darkroom, but there are many skills that have to be acquired, and the learning curve is high. B&W can be even more challenging than color. At a minimum you will need image editing software, a decent monitor, hardware and software for profiling the monitor, and a good printer. Seek out some high quality digital prints that you can examine up close.

I re-entered film, including B&W wet darkroom work, last year. That's after spending the previous 15 years shooting digital and working as a graphic designer by day.

Personally, my take is that B&W wet darkroom work is very satisfying, but maddeningly slow. If its speed/production I want, I can get there with digital in a fraction of the time. And I'll put my digital results (meaning prints, both color and B&W, made on my HP Designjet Z2100) up against anyone's analog prints.

But that doesn't mean I don't still enjoy the satisfaction and process of the darkroom. I've really enjoyed getting back into making analog prints.

I've also found that shooting MF color film and scanning gives a better foundation for a downstream digital workflow than I get from my DSLRs. Again, at a certain sacrifice of speed and efficiency.

And there is no doubt that mastery of a "digital darkroom" workflow is an entire process in itself. I've probably got 5,000 hours invested in Photoshop over the years. Maybe more. There is so incredibly much to learn. Even after all the time I've spent, I feel like I've only scratched the surface. There is also no doubt that once you get "there", you can do things in PS that are quite literally impossible in analog. It opens up an unlimited world of creative possibilities.

bobmolson said:

I have started doing scanning and printing digitally with minimum equipment a epson 4490 scanner and a little deskjet 1010 printer. I have a complete
darkroom I no longer can use and over 50 years experience as a professional photographer and printer. The learning curve on digital is frustratingly slow and one questions if the results will ever equal a good black and white silver print without a huge investment in an expensive printer and inks and papers. In other words is it worth it?

Click to expand...

I was in a very similar situation earlier this yearbut,after buying an Epson 3880with K3 inksand Hahnemuehle paper,I found that with minimal learning, one can create an exhibition-quality printworth hanging next to darkroom prints.I's not how they compare to wet prints.They arequality photographs in their own rightand that's what matters.I was even able to realostically simulate standard toning techniques and alt processes.I'm glad ,I made the move and having tthe darkroom experience really helped to shorten the learningcurve.the goals are the same .the methods are very similar.

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