8X10 contact prints vs digital

[rob_haury]

I've been shooting 4x5 primarily black and white for about a year.I

have posted a couple of questions on this forum and have found the

contributors to be very helpful and understanding. Recently I posted

a question regarding 8x10 still life and contact printing. In the

past any discussions regarding the print quality of digital vs

traditional have become philisophical in nature. Opinions about the

intrinsic value of a hand crafted silverbased print vs the digital

medium. My question is this, without regard to archival longevity or

which medium is more legitimate, can a good digital black and white

print achieve the same depth and tonality as a good 8x10 contact

print? Or has anybody seen, side by side, the same picture printed in

both mediums? I'm trying to decide if I want to stick with 4x5 and

make digital prints or go with the 8x10. Both approaches would

require a significant cash investment.

Thanks

[neal_shields]

I have done direct comparisons with consumer grade scanners and printers, and I can't get in the same universe with digital that I can with even my poor darkroom skills.

 

In his book, "Post Exposure: Advanced Techniques for the Photographic Printer" Ctein says that at a half meter viewing distance most viewers see 10 lpp mm as sharp, however, viewers can tell the difference in sharpness up to 30 line pairs per mm in side by side comparisons. With no loss at the printer or anywhere else, it seems to me you would have to scan a 4x5 negative at a true resolution of at least 1500 ppi (30x2x25.4)to get anywhere near 30 lpp mm when printing at 8x10.

 

Beyond that, in my limited efforts, I wasn't able to get the range of tones that I had captured on film to scan in, even at the 14 bit setting. By then the file sizes are so large that I find it easier to just go mix up some developer.

 

One study I read said that they are still getting information off of 35mm negatives at 6000 dpi scans. If that is true, and you want to get everything off of a 4x5 negative look at where your file sizes would be! Then where would you find a printer that could get it onto paper?

 

Neal

[david_goldfarb]

Ink sprayed on paper might look very good, but it will never look like emulsion floated on paper, and chromogenic prints will never look like silver prints. It isn't really a matter of which is "better" in some quantifiable sense or in terms of resolution and tonal gradation. The materials just reflect light in different ways. Fine work can be created in different media, just as some painters work in oils and others in watercolor or tempera, but you really need to find your medium for yourself by studying real prints in galleries and museums.

[deardorff8x10]

For me, the biggest issue would be technical. Think of all of the techniques in the Ansel Adams series for getting the most out of negative/print:

 

Burn/dodge, reducing negative, reducing print, compensating negative development, Dektol/selectol soft, print devo, etc. etc.

 

You can do the above either chemically, in photoshop, or a blend. I use the zone system for negs, then photoshop the rest. While starting with the best negative possible helps, I find photoshop great for really working on the local and overall contrast, etc. However, I agree that inkjets are not as quite as nice as platinum or silver prints per se. However, for me the controls of a photoshopped work more than offset this limitation in terms of getting a result that I like. I also enjoy the process more.

 

Also, printing multiple editions is much easier!

 

Thus, there is no free lunch. You might want to check out the Burkholder book on Making Digital Negatives -- he uses 35mm and MF to make 8x10 and bigger digital negs.

 

Both analog and digital are difficult and to get the best possible quality requires a lot of work. I would choose what you like to do best. Digital is also good for color as well, though.

 

Michael Waldron

[walter_glover]

A colleague of mine with a vast inventory of 8x10 negs produced

over 25 years has just gone digital. The results are stunning

and he claims that he is better able to get a fine print from a

problem negative through the digital process than he could in

the wet-darkroom. I have seen the results and his claims are

valid in relationship to resolution and tonality.

 

HOWEVER ...

 

Viewing the digiatal prints alongside silver bromide prints it is

patently clear that each is an entirely different artifeact. Neither

can emulate the 'feel' of the other. This leads to a situation

where afficianados of one medium will claim its superiority over

the other.

 

Frankly, I see it as water-colours on paper vs. oils on canvas.

They are different and each is valid.

 

He has used a Sinar multi-pass digital capture device on what is

essentially a copy set-up of an opal glass back-illuminated by a

Broncolor flash. The flash fires repeatedly to make the

exposures for each capture and at the resolution he works at he

is getting a 400mb file in 48 bit. He claims that the dynamic

range of the capture back, the diffusion of the opal glass and the

absence of oil baths makes his process more facile and quick

than drum-scanning. His brother owns a pre-press house so

the scanning alternative is a real possibility.

 

He is working with the file ONLY in 48 bit and then printing on

either his Epson 7600 or 7000 using piezography software and

inks. I have not seen comparable results from lesser levels of

apparatus and procedure.

 

But let me assure you, this is not a cheap fix, even the

four-processor CPU has more fans than Elvis to keep the

temperature down.

 

He's only been at it a while and occasionally gets issues with

banding but other than that the results are quite impressive �

furthermore the large-format printer paper he uses is very flat..

Flat to the point that he is goindg to sell me is dry mounting

press.

 

Is it my cup of tea? In a word, NO! But to each his own.

 

Walter Glover - Sydney

[wayne_crider4]

First off what a great thread. Second, what prevents one from scanning and manipulating in photoshop and then outputting to film for a contact? Why digitally print to printer paper at all? I mean outside of all the different papers that you can print to which may or may not last. You can still digitally print to photographic paper if you want to. I think the only limitations are the labs machines, since I know Dale Labs in FL can print up to 8" wide onto photographic paper. For Rob and 8x10 contacts I'd go with a photoshopped neg and a digitally printed film neg and contact that. There you have the best of both worlds, and you should be able to scan and keep your files reasonably small.

[jorge_gasteazoro4]

I am by far the least knowledgeable person on digital in this forum, but the obvious I think begs the question. if you want the same information contained in an 8x10 contact print wont you have to scan an 8x10 neg? I mean a 4x5 neg enlarged to 8x10 is almost but not the same as an 8x10 contact print, why would a 4x5 scan be different?

[michael_a._smith1]

I have been told by a number of people in the digital field that

they think their prints are the "best," but on repeated questioned

and comparative viewing they ALWAYS admit that, no, a digital

print cannot come up to the quality of a contact print on Azo. And

these were very fine digital prints. To my eye, however, the digital

prints do come up to the quality of contact prints on enlarging

paper.

[jorge_gasteazoro4]

<i>And these were very fine digital prints. To my eye, however, the digital prints do come up to the quality of contact prints on enlarging paper.</i>

 

I think that would depend on the person doing the contact prints!

[chris_patti1]

Although not directly relevant to Rob's question, I have some very recent experience which may be interesting here. I've been experimenting with using a flatbed scanner as a camera to scan florals, printing the results at about 2x life size (and bypassing the camera altogether). The resulting prints are (in my opinion) stunning and have much of the depth and tactile feeling of my better 8x10 contact prints.

 

Also, I would say that if Michael Smith believes that digital prints can match the quality of silver contact prints on everything but Azo, that's a pretty strong endorsement of digital printing! I'll definitely take it for my smaller format work.

[david_f._stein]

Good discussion. Hey, were Ansel Adams still alive, I wouldn't be

surprised to see him in an Epson printer ad! (1) The inkjet technique

as engineered by Epson is no doubt one of the watersheds in the

history of imaging-there is incredible ingenuity and love of imaging

behind that spritzing. (2) In some respects, no photograph can

express what good inkjet prints do and vice versa. (3)

Unfortunately, the commercial photography world has driven the "let's

make it look like a photograph" mentality and all the inkjet papers-RC

coated-advertised to be "just like traditional photo paper." (4) As

much as I have enjoyed inkjet printing, I would love to also be able

to generate the contact negs that Lens World Quarterly uses to then

print on fiber base paper. I advise taking a nice digital file,

uploading it to Ofoto and get back a print on (glossy) photo

paper-very revealing. Next, order up the Lens Work Quarterly intro

Special Editions print-also sheds valuable light on these issue

[hankg]

To match the resolution of a 2000x3000p (2,000ppi) consumer

35mm scanner with 4x5 film would require a scanner capable of

an 8,000x10,000p scan. That eliminates all the consumer and

prosumer models and leaves the $30,000+ scanners. However

it is likely that to capture all the information (down to film grain) in

a quality neg or transparency you might need at least double that

resolution.

[neal_shields]

Unless I did my math wrong the photographer in Walter�s example with 400 meg files and 48 bit depth is working with 300 ppi resolution. It would seem that he thinks that tonal range is more important than resolution. I would tend to agree. However, 300 ppi is, best case, 6 line pairs per millimeter. How many would consider that acceptable sharpness in a wet darkroom 8x10? (400 /48 = 8.3 meg. Square root of 8.3 is 2.8. 3/10 is 300 pixels per inch.)

[qtluong]

There is certainly more information in a contact print than in a

digital print. If you look at a contact (ie an Ilfochrome) with a lupe,

you'll see fine

detail which you couldn't resolve with the naked eye. If you

look at a digital print (ie a Lighjet) with a lupe, you'll see the

pixels.

How the additional information matters for normal viewing

is unclear. Some see the difference, other don't.

[neal_shields]

I think I should have divided by 8 to change bits to bytes in the above post. That gets the resolution from the 400 meg file up to a respectable level Sorry.

 

Neal

[brian_ellis3]

I make 8x10 contact prints on Azo paper using Amidol or Ilford Universal developers. I also often make digital prints from the same negatives. The digital prints usually look at least as good, often they look better. You just have so much more control over the look of a digital print than you do with a traditional darkroom print. I don't get as much satisfaction from sitting at my computer as I do in the darkroom, I don't feel that I've really created a unique work of art when I use the computer, I don't have the same sense of craftsmanship or personal involvement as I do in the darkroom, but I can't quarrel with the quality of the digital prints. Longevity is very definitely an issue - I don't believe these 40 year claims and the black in Cone's new selenium inks reportedly has faded and discolored very badly after just a couple months of display - but you said to ignore longevity so I will.