Photo Printers

[Ed_Ingold]

temp control is a bit of a red herring unless your wife flushes the toilet a lot while you're printing.

Good luck processing (and washing) without temp control ;) Maybe count "thousand-one, thousand-two" instead of using a timer. Technology - who needs it?

 

Sans thermostat, I get good results by manually tempering water and chemicals in a styrofoam box. Once stabilized (and stirred), it will hold within 1/2 degree for 10-15 minutes, long enough to process color film. B&W film is best held within 1 degree, but even that's impossible with a kitchen faucet. They're not designed for mixing, much less handling minute deviations in pressure. It's okay to wash with cold water only. Film is not particular, but paper takes longer to clear.

 

B&W inkjet prints are indistinguishable from wet prints, especially on matte or semi-gloss paper. The giveaway is that digital prints are sharp. There is something to be said about pride of craftsmanship, exercised in the darkroom. That's a personal issue. For me, what goes on the paper is more important than what goes into it.

[joe_hodge]

Everything depends on your priorities. Is it money and doing it on a shoestring? Is it absolute maximum technical quality in terms of pixel level sharpness? Is it the look and feel of an actual silver gelatin print? Is it the enjoyment (or disgust) with the wet process? Is it the enjoyment (or disgust) with sitting at the computer? Fact is, I enjoy all of it!

 

This is the main reason I shoot film and print in the darkroom. I know I could (and do) make a better picture digitally, but I’m an IT guy by trade, and the hours in the darkroom away from computers are what make this hobby enjoyable.

[paddler4]

This is the main reason I shoot film and print in the darkroom. I know I could (and do) make a better picture digitally, but I’m an IT guy by trade, and the hours in the darkroom away from computers are what make this hobby enjoyable.

 

I sympathize. A lot of my work is statistical computing, and it bothered me for some time that I was sitting at the same screen editing photos that I used to fit models and edit papers. however, I got over this. The amount of control digital offers is so far above anything I ever achieved in a wet darkroom--actually, so far above anything achievable in a wet darkroom--that I got over it and eventually came to enjoy the digital process, particularly digital printing. And on top of that, I don't have to deal with the chemicals and chemical waste anymore. But to each her or his own. YMMV

[digitaldog]

A bit OT:

Monitor calibration. I am on an iMAC 27" 5K 2017 running 10.14. The MAC has a monitor calibration in the "System preferences" folder. Is that sufficient to achieve WYSIWYG in the print?

 

Why are my prints too dark?

A video update to a written piece on subject from 2013

In this 24 minute video, I'll cover:

 

Are your prints really too dark?

Display calibration and WYSIWYG

Proper print viewing conditions

Trouble shooting to get a match

Avoiding kludges that don't solve the problem

 

High resolution: http://digitaldog.net/files/Why_are_my_prints_too_dark.mp4

Low resolution:

[John Di Leo]

Thanks, DigitalDog, A lot of info there and your info makes sense. To be clear, if I download your sample pallets and print them, they are going to print properly, assuming the paper profile is correct. IOW, they take the monitor, and the way it looks, out of the equation...is that correct? If so, is it possible to "reverse engineer" the monitor's display to make it look like the printed sample?

Not actually having a printer (yet) makes all this theoretical for me, thus harder to get an practical understanding.

Thanks

[digitaldog]

The print is just one of several options for a color reference image used for output and soft proofing. You still need good ICC profiles for the printer and you still need to calibrate the display to produce a match to the soft proof as best as the display and calibration software will allow.

[Ed_Ingold]

Any time you print a file without making adjustments, the monitor is "out of the picture."

If so, is it possible to "reverse engineer" the monitor's display to make it look like the printed sample?

That's how a monitor is calibrated (profiled). A file containing color patches displays them one at a time on the monitor while measuring the color. All profiles and special effects are turned off in the process.

[digitaldog]

If so, is it possible to "reverse engineer" the monitor's display to make it look like the printed sample?

No. The reference prints have RGB values that are display agnostic, the values are 'correct' so to speak and the output to a printer could be done on a grayscale display or without any display and it would be what it is, again based on the qualities of the ICC print profile, the tables within that profile for the various rendering intents etc. That profile also has a soft proof table for preview only but still requires and calibrated and profiled display for the soft proof to 'match' the output. Two profiles are used together(display and printer). So you have two areas to deal with if your goal is WYSIWYG: the display and it's calibration and profile AND the printer profile and it's qualities that convert the RGB values in a working space to the output color space along, optionally, with a table for soft proofing.

 

Soft proofing in Adobe Photoshop CC

In this 33 minute video, I'll cover soft proofing in Adobe Photoshop CC:

What is sof proofing.

Setting up a soft proof.

Saving soft proof presets.

What the simluate ink and paper check boxes do, why to use them.

Making output specific edits in layer sets.

Working with soft proofing in full screen mode.

The Out of Gamut Overlay and why to ignore it.

 

High resolution: http://digitaldog.net/files/SoftProofingInPhotoshopCC.mp4

Low resolution (YouTube):

 

Additionally:

http://digitaldog.net/files/LR4_softproof.mov

http://digitaldog.net/files/LR4_softproof2.mov