digital darkroom printing- no really

[adrian_cowin1]

With the trend of modern technology to digitise 35mm film and print

on to photographic paper, I was wondering if it were possible to

reverse the process and take the digital image from the camera and

transmit this image through an enlarger onto photographic paper, so

that one can enjoy the best of poth worlds and explore the

photographic darkroom processes. Or is this a totally pointless route?

[zapped]

Dan Burkholder's book on making digital negatives for contact printing (no enlarger tho):

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0964963868/qid=1074987891//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i10_xgl14/104-8841927-7875960?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

 

Also all Fuji Frontier (Walmart) and Noritsu (Costco) printers project your digital image directly onto Fuji Crystal Archive photo paper, so we not skip the chemicals :)

[rcoda]

DeVere has a digital enlarger. San Miguel Photo (NM) has one and offer this service. I had a sample print made. Was not impressed by the quality (of the process, not the lab).

 

http://www.bestlab.com/sanmig14.html

 

Rich

[patrick_drennon]

Fuji Frontier draws the image with a laser on normal 'R' type paper and then develops

it in a dev/blix process. It apparently doesn't project an image optically. I found this

out by asking a Fuji service rep the difference between my Pictrography 4000II and

the Frontier.

[steven_clark]

Me, I've been wondering if an inkjet paper neg would make for a very interesting way to print digital on B&W variable contrast papers. It would be especially interesting to be able to effectively adjust the filter number for each piece of the image seperately. Of course I don't have the darkroom or darkroom experience to play with this and it would take either some extreme finagling or some programming know-how to get it implemented.

[Karim Ghantous]

Surely there must be a device that is effectively the reverse of a flatbed scanner: put the photographic paper on the glass (all this ina darkroom of course), close the lid, and the head scans the paper, projecting light onto it to make the image (as opposed to projecting light onto a magazine page, say, and reading the reflected light).

[marshall]

There are a few different printers that output digital files onto regular photographic paper, which is then developed in something like traditional chemistry. Frontier printers (common in minilabs) and Lightjets both use lasers to expose the papers; Chromiras use LEDs. It's not a traditional "enlarger" with a lens, but it's how digital images get printed onto traditional papers. Enjoy.

[michael_matsil]

Frontier and Light Jet are "best of both world" technologies that I know of.

That is, digitization of film, laser burned onto 'C' paper and processed

chemically. I've seen great large (30X40) prints made from sharp 35 mm

slides, drum scanned. The prints are much more than I would expect from a

traditional optical system. For instance corner to corner sharpness on mural

prints is a difficult feat....not so with these laser processes. If you really want to

get involved in the process then Burkholder is the man.

[danny_liao]

why not just go with a film recorder?