How many still wet enlarging ?

I find it now far to easy to scan ones negatives and produce an

acceptable print using a PC and a half decent printer. I am not doing

as much wet printing as I used to. However when I do switch on the

V35 and see the print appearing in the dish it still gives a sense of

achievement that no digital printing supplies. When the final article

is viewed it is so much more pleasing than a digital print. Ease and

conveninece is a numbing, dumbing down, process which it is difficult

to resist. It really takes an effort now to take the trouble to

produce wet prints, but they are so superior. It seems to me that

digital prints are 'dead' whereas wet prints seem 'alive' Anyone else

feel like this ? I am determined not to be dumbed down myself.

Ditto, ditto, ditto. I'm not ready to give up my wet darkroom -- even though it's

completely occupied my kitchen!

Darkroom printing my B&W, and starting to like scanning and sending off to mpix.com for my color prints. I pretty much print on Ilford Pearl RC exclusively, and 5x7 is starting to become a favorite size for mass printing sessions, then 8x10 for the real nice shots.

I used to think like you. But now I think my digital version are the best (Delta 400 in ultrafin plus, coolscan V, epson 2100). I have found a curves setting that gives me the dark-room look. Adjustment-layers has also helped a lot. Traditional is still faster for me.....

I have been printing in a dark room since 1970. I do not plan to stop anytime soon. I have played around with DSLR's and computer printing and quite frankly, I found it boring. Sitting in front of my computer for hours on end is not my cup of tea, but that is just the way I feel. I have a friend that is into digital photography and gets excellent results and he would never think of going back to the wet side. To each his own, I suppose.

I recently got back into printing again and I like it a lot. I also see a good number of young people at the public darkroom where I print learning how to do it the old fashioned way. Film is suffering, and will continue to suffer, from attrition but it's far from dead yet.

 

Dennis

I even recently had my darkroom remodeled. I love the whole process of mixing chemistry, loading film, and aligning my print on the easel. But the best part is playing my music really loud and rocking out in glow of amber lights. Mary

I guess having a dedicated darkroom is a big advantage. There's a sink big enough for 4 16x20 trays, 2 print washers, a forced air film dryer, an Omega B-22XL enlarger that'll print 16x20's with a bit of cropping from either 35mm or 6x6 right on the baseboard, and a Kodak Precision Enlarger from the 1940's with about every carrier they made for it, including one that's perfect for my 2.25 x 3.5 inch Veriwide 100 negatives. Each enlarger has its own Time-O-Lite and the Gra-Lab timer is next to the sink and does double duty timing the film dryer. It's a great place to go hide and get away from everything. The smells are invigorating. There are dozens and dozens of boxes filled with negatives and the matching contact sheets to look through. Over 40 years' worth. My whole life from High school to the present.

 

For me that's all the ease and convenience I need.

some people insist on leica camera leica lens leica enlarger, but I thing digital dark room is much better to control. using digital to retouch the scanned negative is much easy than the traditional dark room practice. I send all my digital files to Adorama for B/W and color print, the digital B/W turn out much btter than Epsion printer prints.

Just curious, but how many of you have a digital printer that can knock out 16"x24" prints at home? I've done it in my darkroom.

We have use of an Epson 2100 which uses ink like a Subaru uses gas. When the print is finished the surface has a tacky feel for days. Quality is not bad but boy is it slow ! Give me Multgrade any day.

who needs 16x24 prints? i just went to a ralph eugene meatyard show (excellent), 99% of the images were 8x10 or smaller....

<i>Just curious, but how many of you have a digital printer that can knock out 16"x24" prints at home? I've done it in my darkroom.</i>

<p>

Can do 36 inches by 300 feet, but as a previous post mentions wheter it comes in five or ten pound bags sh*t is still sh*t.

yo!

maybe meatyard didn't have a sink as big as al's...

 

on the other hand, while i haven't seen his show, i would be willing to bet if he had printed them 11 x 14, they would be just as impressive.

Anthony

 

I have just rebuilt a darkroom for negs up to 4 x 5 after years overseas. I have a Nikon Coolpix camera & film scanner and a flatbed 4 x 5 scanner, do wet darkroom prints and will start doing platinum/Palladium prints again soon.

 

I will also grow my own food, milk the goats & make cheese and distill my own brandy, after matins every morning. LOL

\Cheers

Anthony,

 

I want to install a wet darkroom, not get rid of one. I much prefer real black and white printing over digital work. I find it easier and generally gives better results. Also I am the kind of person who likes to go and set aside a few hours for printing rather than do it in dribs and drabs as the digital workflow encourages.

Me too, DeVere 504 with LED HEAD, dedicated custom made (by me) sink (3 20x16 trays and a wash sink) plus all the other film goddies. I use my scanner to have a closer look at the neg (in positive) for 35mm as contacts don't do it for me, but 5x4 contacts are OK. Quicker than PS or the Gimp for dodging and burning. Don't do colour much (5 rolls a year tops, then it's only snaps from the minilab).

My wife and I went to see the Meatyard show last weekend. We reached the same conclusion: they are boring and depressing. To her, this means that she is not interested in them. To me, this means they are GOOD ;-) We are glad that we don't live in those "boring places".

 

And I promised my wife that I would never bring her and our future kids to shabby places to make "artistic pictures".

 

BTW, I made my first darkroom prints on 8.5x11 Ilford MGIV RC yesterday!

Hey Grant, consider the remote possibility that someday you might have a paying client who actually orders a print 16x20 or larger. It does happen, and you can make a lot more money selling large prints than small ones. Do they NEED them? That's not my call. I'm just the greedy bastard who wants the money!

I had a V35 years ago, vanished in a divorce. Considered going wet again but digital won because of space limitations. Digital B&W has come a long way. Which is better? I dunno. A lot of skill is required

for both. Look here www.paulroark.com I have a lot to learn/re-learn.

 

However, there is something magic going on when the image appears in the tray!

Anthony, if it were not for a film scanner and the ability to make prints without a traditional darkroom I would not have picked up the M cameras again. I don't have space to set up a darkroom even if I wanted to. Even if I DID have space I still wouldn't want to set up a wet darkroom! I'm glad I have the experience of printing in a wet darkroom because those skills have transferred to digital printing. I just find the wet printing process tedious, messy and smelly. But I can still remember the magic of it when I first started.

 

I'm perfectly thrilled with the ability to make prints up to 13x19 on my Epson 1280, using the "Black-Only" method of printing with MIS Eboni pigment carbon ink. I'm running a continuous feed system, so at $18 for 4 ounce of ink it's dirt cheap to run, compared to cartridges.

I've found that 11x17 is about as big as I want to go on my printer. Al, I don't think I made 16x24's even when I did have a darkroom. ;)

 

I've compared prints I've made in the darkroom to the ones I made digitally, and come to the conclusion that they are just different animals. Anthony, what process are you using to make your digital prints?

Other than promo things, I doubt if I'll ever leave the 'wet' darkroom. I admit that I'm very impressed by some of the color I've seen come out of inkjet printers, much less so than black and white. Now I know I'll take a hit from those out there who will claim otherwise...but I don't think the quality is where I want it to be yet, whether in capture or output. In my profession I deal on a regular basis with probably 100 working pro shooters...I'm depressed with how many say things like 'my D100 gives nearly as good an image as film', I don't use my DSLR for any publication process over 5X7', 'my inkjet prints are nearly as good as RA'...we've become a society where mediocrity is king.

I've seen hundreds of shows over the years and there is no doubt in my mind that 24x16, all else being equal, is so much more satisfying than 8x10. As for Edmo's comment, has this turned into the nasty little teenager site?

 

This is really one of the advantages, as yet, of the traditional darkroom - the sort of flexibility that Al talks about. I was at Oleg Klimov's show here in Amsterdam, last week where he showed mostly 24x16's, which worked very well. One of the images, though, was blown up to two metres high and looked amazing, considering it was from a 35mm neg,(Summicron 35, I think).

 

He had a few 12x9's but they looked a little lost in the gallery space, and the detail doesn't attract the attention of the larger prints.

<I>Just curious, but how many of you have a digital printer that can knock out 16"x24" prints at home? I've done it in my darkroom.</i><P>For prints that big, I use a LightJet at my local lab, and I've sold several 20x24's this month all digitally printed. Have a problem with that? <P>Just curious, how many of you actually print color in your darkroom? How many of you consider B/W superior to color simply because you're too stupid to use a dichroic head and color paper? <P>Next question, who here wastes their time enlarging that stupid 35mm format vs MF or LF? <P><I>However when I do switch on the V35 and see the print appearing in the dish it still gives a sense of achievement that no digital printing supplies</i><P>You stare over a tray of RA4 and watch a color print develop? Of, I forget, fine art printing is only B/W....I forgot.