digital to wet print

<p>does anyone know a shortcut other than digitally printing a neg or positive onto clear acetate then make a wet print from it .I need to print my art prints from a digital camera onto silver bromide via an enlarger ? thanks c</p><div></div>

<p>The process of creating a negative (mostly for contact printing) used to be taught on occasion by the <a href="http://stores.photoformulary.com/">Photographers' Formulary</a> people.<br>

Going to an "internegative" is the only way I know of to actually get a wet print.</p>

<p>ok thanks ,thought maybe there was a usb enlarger in the pipeline back to the drawing board</p>

<p>You would need to be able to print @4000 dpi to get something to use with an enlarger. These days you make a neg as big as the print you want and just do a contact print.</p>

<p>The results are easily obtainable for BW, but colour is way too complex for this.</p>

<p>Did you know that most printing places have the ability to print (and is the standard) a jpg or tiff on ra4 (silver print) paper?</p>

<p>sort of guessed they do that in labs but wanted more control over the print than a contact or a 60 second machine job , but eventually someone will put their hand into that profit wallet and make something I suppose,after all they made a vacuum cleaner when a broom did just as well . thanks , a help to have a second opinion c</p>

I heard of this enlarger: De Vere 504 DS Didital Enlarger. It projects images from digital files onto photographic paper,

sounds like a very expensive solution though.

<p>I did some work for a rather high end printing company. It may be a good idea to look around as I don't think the quality will suffer at all.</p>

<p>Digital Silver Imaging does this commercially to B&W paper. Direct laser exposure of Ilford paper. RC or FB, they will even do toning.</p>

 

<p>these are all companies and having once been a worker in the machine instrument business in my youth I know how easy these are to make , just thought someone was making a heath robinson beginners models out there , maybe have to botch it together myself only need a scanner reduction of a projectable image onto slide ,doesnt seem such a problem c</p>

<p>De Vere 504 DS Didital Enlarger am going to look for this , but am always hampered by money in my life but its a start thanks </p>

<p>ok looked at it and what fool spends 5000 to make a negative ..no wonder photographers are obsessed with tech and then lose the artistic edge while companies like that exist for profit selling high tech rocket fuelled equipment , its about when you press the button , not how many times or when the camera says yes ,no to auto functions . the daguerreotype has its own beauty no matter how crude . I have a mini scanner to copy negs and all I want to do is reverse it to project and expose the negative from a digital source , how hard can that be c</p>

<p>Welcome to Photonet.com. colin.<br>

I guess you feel strongly about this topic to have gone to so much trouble.</p>

<p>For the record, however, there was nothing "crude" about daguerreotype images. Unique and slow, yes, but the images were of extraordinary quality difficult to duplicate with any modern film or sensor.</p>

<p>If you really want to make wet prints from digital files, one alternative is to have your files output to film with a film recorder. There was a thread here on photo.net a few weeks ago from someone who wanted to make slides from digital files. Go find that and it has information on a lab that does this. You would want a negative rather than a slide, but that's just a matter of having the lab load the film recorder with negative film instead of slide film. Depending on where you get the negative made, it can be 35mm or medium format and you can print it on any enlarger.<br /><br />The bigger question, however, is why you want to do wet prints from a digital file. You can make very high quality, fine art level prints on an inkjet printer today, and they are routinely exhibited in galleries. <br /><br />If you like wet prints for artistic reaons, why not go tradtional the whole way and shoot film rather than digital?</p>

<p>I think Craig makes the point very nicely. And there's a big financial dimension too. I get 12" x 10" inkjet B&w prints made on Harman's Fibre Baryta paper for £10.50 from my own file without anyone else deciding that the print really ought to look like whatever. If I want to tone the image, its free. But if I go to my old lab and get the same size print hand- made on an enlarger that's going to cost me £70. Both prices include tax, and if you can persuade the "analogue" lab you're going to be a regular volume customer you might get a discount. If you want it toned that's 50% more. And you have to pay the man with the film recorder. </p>

<p>This may not be what you want to hear, but if you want prints from a digital file, make an inkjet print or send the file to a lab that has an imagesetter to be printed onto traditional B&W photo paper. I did that once, and while it turned out fine, I am pretty sure that my lab used colour paper that does not look as good as a wet print on traditional B&W fiber paper from an enlarger. It looks good, but not as good. Since you're using colour, this may work just fine.</p>

<p>If you want a print from a film negative, you can scan it to digital and print that on an inkjet printer, send the file to the lab for the imagesetter print, or put the negative into an enlarger and print it on something like Adox MCC110 glossy fiber paper and be done w/ it. That's the easiest way, and gives the highest quality for an enlarged B&W film negative print.</p>

<p>I can understand where you are all coming from , you see the answer as a problem of how to overcome a printing option . but I initially asked if there was a shortcut. I am able to send on the email to a lab and receive a neg , but I want to simply print and develop my neg myself as there are options for me to solarize and fog parts as an artistic choice relating to daguerreotypes which to me are perfection and the crudity of the developing I find part of the attraction.I do film on film as in photographing tv screens or through 3rd party negs to an original subject .my work comes from 2 or 3 stages of images through images , not high end pro gallery images , they relate to war and the way it was filmed ...hope this clears up the tech side , just want to plug a camera into an enlarger really , de vere has gone too far assuming we all want rolls royces ., the chinese will make something as usual I suppose , it will be basic as I want it to be , so I must wait c</p>

<p>There are many things not available, as the demand isn't enough for economy of scale.</p>

<p>Seems to me that you could make a copy negative, with a copy stand and film, from a print, then do anything with that negative.</p>

<p>It would seem that you should be able to put a transparent material through the usual digital printers, but maybe no-one makes that material.</p>

<p>Before digital projectors were common, film recorders used to be the way to project form digitally generated images. The machines that I knew pretty much never worked right.<br>

The usual system is a high-resolution monochrome CRT, filter wheel, and camera with electronic shutter and film movement control. They weren't produced in quantity years ago, and maybe not at all today. They didn't work reliably when new, likely less reliably today. (That is, not at all.)</p>

<p>In the wet-print days, there were affordable enlargers for beginners, and more expensive ones for pros. Today, there are no direct digital optical printers for home use. Ink jet is too easy, cheap enough, and works well for home use. Optical printing still seems to work for high production rate printing, but more and more are going to dye sublimation. </p>

<p>I suspect that a copy negative, large or small, from a print is the way to go, for those </p>

<p>You want or have to make wet prints from a digital file with an enlarger ?<br>

Best way would be to get a very high quality inkjet print done and then get some one with a large format camera on a copy stand to photograph that print, medium format would still be ok but 35mm would look like crap.<br>

Printing a negative does not work unless you know some one that has a printer that can print at well over 2000dpi, I am not to sure if such a printer even exist and even 2000dpi is way under what is on a negative.<br>

Alternatively you could get it printed at the print size you want and then do a contact print, you still loose a lot of quality with that though and it can take a few prints to get that negative right. It also looks like crap most of the time.<br>

All of the above will at best give you postcard size prints with about the same quality as a 5MP P&S camera.<br>

That digital enlarger is just plain stupid and way over priced, nothing more than a very expensive gimmick.<br>

Your best bet and probably the only way is to get a light-jet print done at a pro lab.<br>

If you want prints from an enlarger then get a film camera and use a REAL negative.<br>

There are NO shortcuts.<br>

There was another thread in one of the other forums about making silver prints from your monitor, maybe that will help you but once again unless you have a 4k or better monitor the quality will be bad at its best.<br>

I am also assuming you are only wishing to do B&W, some one above mentioned you doing colour, that is CRAZY thinking to say the least, RA4 colour printing takes a lot of practice and it is expensive, it is an even more stupid idea than that enlarger and will cost you just as much to set up and you will go through at least a few $k of paper and chemicals before you master it and it is NOT silver paper either.<br>

The Chinese just may come up with something but do not hold your breath waiting, it may not even be in your life time.</p>

<p>nope not colour , and I know all of thee options in a general sense , just that I thought as these days they use digital projectors there may be a smaller version that I could use to expose the paper ,the acetate negative and all those printers sound horrific to me , want to stay with photography not technology ,just its what I know , no more time to learn .. 'shortcut' in terms of if anyone knows what I dont in the digital world. I may have to try a digital projector and pin the paper to the wall ..</p>

<p>A copy of a good print shot on 35mm Ektar 100 with a high quality macro lens should not look bad.</p>

<p>Colin- the lenses in digital projectors are optimized for producing bright images. An enlarging lens, though is designed to perform best at 2 to 3 stops below its maximum aperture. If you had a way of replacing the projector lens with a suitable lens of adjustable aperture that has a flat field at high magnifications it <em>might</em> work. How well it would work would also depend on the resolution of the LCD element inside the projector. </p>

<p>Jeff.<br>

Only the best of camera lens would give you acceptable quality up to 8x10, the most limiting factor with 35mm is its physical size that due to diffraction limits the resolution, this is the main reason that digital has caught up with 35mm film, while a piece of film can record much more information than the same size digital sensor the final resolution is limited to the quality and physical size of the lens, there is no lens made that can out resolve films like Ektar100 or Velvia 50 and many B&W films are much higher still. That's why we go larger formats and why it applies to digital sensor size just as much as film. </p>

<p>Of course we all have different ideas of what acceptable quality means.</p>

 

<p>replacing lenses in projectors is one thing , the other is the fittings are generally impossible to adapt ,interesting that many have come back to my original fall back of rephotographing the digital print . it seems that the general idea is in production with the digital projector , just tht no manufacturer sees the use as far as the photographers in general as everyone just likes to press buttons in their new clothes and not get chemicals on their hands or ruin their perfect persona. not photography in my way of thinking I have to run after I photograph some subjects and often cornered and made to delete the image .. its what photography is about .. risk</p>

<p>replacing lenses in projectors is one thing , the other is the fittings are generally impossible to adapt ,interesting that many have come back to my original fall back of rephotographing the digital print . it seems that the general idea is in production with the digital projector , just tht no manufacturer sees the use as far as the photographers in general as everyone just likes to press buttons in their new clothes and not get chemicals on their hands or ruin their perfect persona. not photography in my way of thinking I have to run after I photograph some subjects and often cornered and made to delete the image .. its what photography is about .. risk</p>

<p>Colin. I feel your pain. I am just an amateur photographer. But as a retired engineer I am always searching for solutions to problems. I too would like to make wet monochrome prints in my darkroom from digital images. In fact I have just come out into daylight about 30' ago, disappointed with my latest efforts. I have been converting the images to monochrome in photoshop and applying the 'chartthrob' curve making app. Sadly the 'wet prints' result in way too much contrast. I have tried variations on film speed, developers and developing time, without success. I do use the 'OHP transparency' method with success. But it is a 'one size print' from each 'negative'. I believe in the book 'Way Beyond Monochrome' it is suggested that to achieve what we are after, is to photograph a print onto negative film. I will have a look at the thread mentioned here about photographing computer screens. Sadly I think we are looking for a solution that does not exist with our available (home) resources.<br>

Dennis</p>