Who prints digital negs commercially?

DrPablo · Dec 12, 2006

It seems that none of the professional imaging labs in Boston are willing to print my digital negs. Do you know of any labs where I can send the files for transparency printing?

clay · Dec 12, 2006

For imagesetter negatives, Copygraphics in Santa Fe is reliable with a lot of experience.

www.copygsf.com

Ask for Duane.

Bostick and Sullivan are also now printing inkjet negatives on a wide format printer.

www.bostick-sullivan.com

talk to Kevin.

drpablo said:
It seems that none of the professional imaging labs in Boston are willing to print my digital negs. Do you know of any labs where I can send the files for transparency printing?

Joe Lipka · Dec 13, 2006

Before I started printing my own negatives on a desktop printer, I used Revere Graphics in Portland, Or. They did a fine job for me.

philsweeney · Dec 17, 2006

clay said:
For imagesetter negatives, Copygraphics in Santa Fe is reliable with a lot of experience.
www.copygsf.com
Ask for Duane.
Bostick and Sullivan are also now printing inkjet negatives on a wide format printer.
www.bostick-sullivan.com
talk to Kevin.

For the imagesetter negs. What are your preferred methods? Just curious. I had been doing kallitypes and I ended up using rastus bitmaps. I found rastus to be smoother than icefields. Originally I tried printing silver gelatin but had too many disappointing results.

clay · Dec 17, 2006

I did a series of tests, and I found that Rastus had some banding issues when you pushed it to 3600dpi. So what I generally do now is just use the photoshop function to convert to a bitmap at 1800dpi and output it at 1800dpi native resolution. I had been doing 1200bitmap to 2400dpi output, but I liked the 1800 native output better. It also looks visually sharper than a 450 dpi bitmap shoved through the Rastus RIP to a 1800dpi bitmap. I found that trying to get the 1800 dpi bitmaps output to 3600 dpi was a hit-or-miss proposition with no gain in the perceived sharpness of the resulting prints. This is for platinum, mind you. If you are doing silver gelatin,you will probably need to fight the Agfa and get a true 2400 or 3600 output.

philsweeney said:
For the imagesetter negs. What are your preferred methods? Just curious. I had been doing kallitypes and I ended up using rastus bitmaps. I found rastus to be smoother than icefields. Originally I tried printing silver gelatin but had too many disappointing results.

philsweeney · Dec 19, 2006

I had the same problems at 3600dpi. I do not believe I have had any problem at the 1800dpi output. Duane told me they have not outputted at 3600dpi in a while.

I have given up on silver gelatin digital negatives!

Timothy · Dec 20, 2006

Hey phil,

Why did you say you have given up on using diginegs for silver ?

I just finished a workshop with Mark Nelson and Sandy King regarding digi negs for Pt/Pd printing, and I was so impressed that I am considering getting rid of my enlarger. What has been your experience ?

Tim R

philsweeney · Dec 20, 2006

Hi Tim,

I have made very sharp prints. However with some images the linescreen can be seen (as an example) where a sky has tones that go from a light gray to white. Years ago I tried half tones (425lpi, 3600dpi) and made one print and I felt I could see the linescreen, and not with a loupe.

If you can make a direct comparison with a regular contact print (or enlarged print) and a one from a dig neg and be satisfied I wish you the best. I could not.

I am however pleased with the kallitype prints from digital negatives.

philsweeney · Dec 26, 2006

clay said:
I did a series of tests, and I found that Rastus had some banding issues when you pushed it to 3600dpi. So what I generally do now is just use the photoshop function to convert to a bitmap at 1800dpi and output it at 1800dpi native resolution. I had been doing 1200bitmap to 2400dpi output, but I liked the 1800 native output better. It also looks visually sharper than a 450 dpi bitmap shoved through the Rastus RIP to a 1800dpi bitmap. I found that trying to get the 1800 dpi bitmaps output to 3600 dpi was a hit-or-miss proposition with no gain in the perceived sharpness of the resulting prints. This is for platinum, mind you. If you are doing silver gelatin,you will probably need to fight the Agfa and get a true 2400 or 3600 output.

I just got three negatives done at 1800dpi using rastus and there are faint verticle process lines in portrait view (not banding). I have not experienced these before. In the final print the lines are just noticeable. I could live with a less sharp print if the lines were not there. I feel like I'd should try the 2400dpi output? Have you ever experienced these lines using diffusion dither bitmaps?

bob01721 · Dec 26, 2006

drpablo said:
It seems that none of the professional imaging labs in Boston are willing to print my digital negs. Do you know of any labs where I can send the files for transparency printing?

Have you tried Industrial Color Labs in Framingham?

Who prints digital negs commercially?

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Privacy & Transparency