The best I can hope for?

I'm starting up what's turning into a very long learning curve on scanning/inkjet printing. It's getting impossible to spend time in the darkroom these days, so I'm going the hybrid route.

I shoot medium format and 35mm black and white film, scanning with an Epson v750 and will probably buy and Epson R2880 soon.

But, without wanting to believe the hype, am I going to ultimately dissappointed with the final print? What is realistically achievable with this approach, am I going to be looking at the final prints and always thinking 'it's not as good as a wet print'?

So far it's been a pretty soulless experience.

Depends on your own subjective criteria of a good print I guess. OTOH, if you're after "imitating" the feel and look of a real wet print, I mean if that's "the benchmark", you'll be dissappointed I'm afraid... IMHO, "you have to acknowledge and respect the intrinsic nature/virtue/beauty of each, equally".

I do both, err, actually all three; darkroom, injket and alt-process from digital negative... (plus, film and digital capture - which eventually doubles the total count of the all possible combinations, not including which alt-process(es) were chosen for the image) and all give me equal pleasure, "when executed successfully and used appropriately / where it fits (aesthetically and technically)".

I always thought it's better to focus the struggle towards the path you feel most comfortable / satisfied and creative... - in other words, to what works best for you / your vision.

So, maybe you should do some thinking and listen to yourself instead of asking others' opinions -> you'd better convince yourself, instead of getting convinced... ???

Like Loris I also do all three and consider each to be a different medium not to be compared as to one is better than the other. Whatever medium you are using try to do the best for it. You wouldn't compare an oil painting with a charcoal sketch so why compare an ink print to a silver or platinum print? Each can be beautiful.

Snapper said:

But, without wanting to believe the hype, am I going to ultimately dissappointed with the final print? What is realistically achievable with this approach, am I going to be looking at the final prints and always thinking 'it's not as good as a wet print'?

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It may also depend on what kind of print. These days matte inkjet prints on high quality paper can be very good. Glossy is a bit farther behind but then my printers are not the latest. Go to some galleries and look at the "giclee" prints there.

Snapper said:

I'm starting up what's turning into a very long learning curve on scanning/inkjet printing. It's getting impossible to spend time in the darkroom these days, so I'm going the hybrid route.

I shoot medium format and 35mm black and white film, scanning with an Epson v750 and will probably buy and Epson R2880 soon.

But, without wanting to believe the hype, am I going to ultimately dissappointed with the final print? What is realistically achievable with this approach, am I going to be looking at the final prints and always thinking 'it's not as good as a wet print'?

So far it's been a pretty soulless experience.

Click to expand...

I can relate. My darkroom is a laundry room, so just setting it up takes much of what little free time I have.

I regularly scan 6x4.5 negatives on my 4990 and print them on an Epson 3800 and I am quite pleased with the results. However, I am better at bending pixels than I am at wet printing. I do regularly get wet prints that are quite good as well and they are just different than the inkjet prints. Not necessarily better or worst.

I recently got a N90s and scanning 35mm has been futile so far, but the wet prints have been good.

I would not call any of the scans soulless. They all have their own unique signatures and the challenge is matching the image ( or my time ) to the process.

I take your points - I agree, inkjet prints can be very good these days, and I have got some decent (colour) prints from my more modest Epson PX700W using files from a DSLR and hi-res lab scans.

I guess the critical path in this process is the actual scanning, and I need to know that it can produce good enough files to produce good prints. I have a lot to learn - for example, the moment I'm wondering why my creamy HP5+ grain has been turned into horrible noise in the scanning process.

You have selected fine equipment. I have been using an Epson 4870 for about six years scanning MF and 4x5 black and white and occasionally color negs and transparencies with excellent results and no noise or resolution problems. I can highly recommend SilverFast Ai or the studio version for scanning software. Worth the investment to complement your choice of equipment.

Snapper said:

I take your points - I agree, inkjet prints can be very good these days, and I have got some decent (colour) prints from my more modest Epson PX700W using files from a DSLR and hi-res lab scans.

I guess the critical path in this process is the actual scanning, and I need to know that it can produce good enough files to produce good prints. I have a lot to learn - for example, the moment I'm wondering why my creamy HP5+ grain has been turned into horrible noise in the scanning process.

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I attached a 6x4.5 scan from my buddies wedding. This is Delta 100, souped in pyro and I think it scans just fine. I use HP5 for my 8x10 negs and it has much chunkier grain. You may need to make some adjustments to get negs that scan better.

Snapper said:

But, without wanting to believe the hype, am I going to ultimately dissappointed with the final print? What is realistically achievable with this approach, am I going to be looking at the final prints and always thinking 'it's not as good as a wet print'?
So far it's been a pretty soulless experience.

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You didn't say what kind of prints you want to produce. Will you be satisfied? Fair question, but one only you can answer. Try seeking out some local examples that you can view up close so you can see what is possible. I have seen really beautiful palladium prints and carbon transfers from digital negatives. Inkjets and carbon transfers can be indistinguishable from silver gelatin, but I don't see any reason to make this a goal. If I want a silver print then that is the process I will use. Sounds like you have discovered there is a lot of drudgery involved in honing the technical skills needed to make expressive alt prints. This is true for silver printing (actually all artistic endeavors), too, but at least there it's pretty easy to get an image on paper, while it's much more difficult and time-consuming to achieve this using most of the alt processes.

Snapper said:

...am I going to be looking at the final prints and always thinking 'it's not as good as a wet print'?

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What -- you expect us to read your mind? Don't you think that's asking a bit much?

Clearly no one can answer that question but you. But know this -- inkjet prints are *not* wanna-be darkroom prints. Inkjet is it's own media, just like silver gelatin is it's own media, and platinum, and albumen, and...

Each media has it's own strengths and weaknesses. Which set of compromises you prefer, is clearly a personal choice. So don't be afraid to choose.

I guess that does answer my question - I shouldn't be looking for an inkjet print to replace a darkroom print then. In that case, I won't be selling my enlarger then, and use the two methods when I can.

Maybe alt prints will come later. It's something I'd like to try anyway.