joe_tait1

The above response is good, but to be more specific, Mac OSX can read and write to FAT & FAT32-formatted drives, and can read NTFS drives, which are the typical filesystems used for Windows.

 

Interoperability with flash drives, hard drives, CD, DVD, etc. has never been a problem for me, and I have always used both platforms in my work.

 

Something to understand about MAC/WINDOWS is that when it comes to RAM and hardrives, these components aren't mac/pc specific. Any incompatibilites have more to due with old & new than mac/pc. For instance, older SDRAM can't be used in most new computers, which typically use DDR. New systems are using serial ATA hard drives, and older ATA drives might not work, etc (although serial ATA is _supposed_ to be backwards-compatible).

Michael, it depends on the process you intend to use. 99% of the time, you use the _native_ stochastic/dithering screening of the inkjet to simulate the continous tone of conventional photographs; in other words, just send the file to the printer as you normally would.

 

The only exception that I know of, is that if you are going to use a printmaking-type alt process (photogravure/solarplate/etc.), you could _simulate_ the halftone/screen on the inkjet negative by converting to bitmap (in PS, Image>Mode>Bitmap and the appropriate settings). An important thing to realize is that you are still only simulating a halftone/dither; the printer is going to still print the way it was designed to. The reason this is done for these processes is because unlike a continous-tone process like platinum/kallitype/cyanotype; you are using a printing plate and ink to generate the image instead of metallic salts. In order to retain detail with these printmaking processes, you have to introduce gaps betweens the various ink dots so that the ink does not bleed into areas that are suppose to remain uninked, and that's where the screen comes in.

If you are interested in "tri-color" gum, or CMYK-types prints, I would _strongly_ recommend the photoshop and digital negatives route. I couldn't imagine working in a traditional way, but you could accomplish that through filters and B&W film, or generating seperations from a slide, with much time, frustration and money spent.

 

Anyhow, the actual process is pretty straightforward. The 3 RGB channels correspond to the three pigments you use: ® cyan, (g) magenta and (b) yellow. Each channel has its own negative, with different information (look at the separate channels in any PS RGB/CMYK file to get a visual). This is the exact same concept behind CMYK press printing in all its forms, except in Gum, Tri-color (CMY) is more common than CMYK; more from historical practice than anything else. You are definitely going to get a punchier print if you print with black, and there are any number of ways to generate that K channel in PS, but alot of gummists find it unnecessary.

 

Where your confusion comes from is that in gum printing, it's not always tri-color, it is actually more often monochrome, and selective colorations in specific areas of the composition, sort of like spot colors in magazines and other printed material. Printing gum this way, it is perfectly acceptable to use 1 negative, and you build up density and tone with successive exposures of the same negative with diffent formulations of the gum emulsion. It is a highly nuanced, paced way of working, but is the way many gummists prefer.

 

Adam, do yourself a favor and pick up this book:

 

The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes

by Christopher James

Publisher: Thomson Delmar Learning; 1 edition (June 21, 2001)

ISBN: 0766820777

 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0766820777/ref=pd_sr_ec_ir_b/102-4248110-8976167?v=glance&s=books&st=*

 

I don't know what your experience with photography is, but I hope you realize that there is practically 150 years of tradition & technique behind this thing and so many wonderful ways to create your images, and in this digital world, so much of that is being tossed away and people need to rediscover the handcrafted print!

One addition: slower speed films scan wonderfully smooth on the Minolta. For instance, I have always loved FP4, and if you shoot with very fine-grained films, you shouldn't have a problem with lacking smooth tonality in your scans.

I shoot primarily MF & LF B&W myself, and have found the Epson flatbeds to be pretty pitiful for any serious work. The sharpness is very poor, but I would say that the tonality is nice and smooth. I just can't look at my negs with a loupe and see detail and watch it melt away in the scan and tolerate it....

 

If I were you, I would opt for a dedicated MF film scanner. I have a Minolta Dimage Multi Pro, and I am mostly happy with the results with Vuescan. The enhanced grain was the biggest obstacle for me, and it can be objectionable with any 400-800 speed film I've tried prior to trying Pyrocat-HD. That, or any staining developer, when used with films that take the stain, reduces the grain nicely. Curously enough though, although files might appear "rough", when I make prints on a 2200, (or output digitial negatives) the Epson driver seems to smooth things out a bit.

I want to second the notion that Ultrachrome inks on many papers has a wider gamut than Lightjet/Fujiflex; and R4 color papers generally (photo papers are actually pretty lame in terms of color gamut). If I had to guess, Hexachrome and other exotic inksets would be the proper candidates for your question. Colorspan has several printers of this type, but I have admittedly never seen prints. I have heard that since most RIPs and profiles aren't optimized to take advantage of the CMYKOG, CMYKRGB, etc. inksets, a lot of the gamut is lost in the mix. I believe it. I know from experience that the RIP/ICC profile/Calibration/Media/Operator etc all plays into the final gamut of the media/printer/ink combination.

 

For that its worth, I think the Ultrachrome inkset has a very respectable gamut, good archivability potentional, etc.

 

If you really want to push the limits of reproducible colors you should explore alternate (non-silver) photography and specifically the gum/casein bichromate processes, which allow you to use the equivalent of "spot colors" to accentuate important elements in any given composition. Of course, it has plenty of limitations with color accuracy/reproducibility; but is a true art form unlike pressing print on an inkjet machine.

Just to clarify on the Hutch target, few profiling programs support this target and it is prohibitively expensive compared to IT8. So don't lay out several hundred dollars for some boutique target you can't even profile!

To have any idea what the problem is, an example file posted on this thread and _some specifics_ on your settings would go a long way in helping people help you....

 

Is this your first scanner and are you new to film scanning? Is your monitor calibrated? What ICC profile are you assigning to your files? What program are you looking at your file in? Are these 8-bit scans, 16-bit Linear?

 

You mentioned Velvia as the film you mostly use. Velvia happens to be the hardest slide film to scan in most Prosumer CCD scanners (which is what you own). It scans well for me in some situations (I have a Multi Pro), but I am ususally dissapointed. You should try multi-sampling (8x) and see if there is any improvement. The reality is that really dense slides are a job for a higher quality scanner if you want the best results. An accurate ICC profile for your scanner from an IT8 target really will help this situation, however.

 

I assume you're using the Minolta software. Trying out Silverfast or Vuescan is the first thing you should do. The Minolta software fails miserably in terms of sharpness and shadow detail. Why Nikon/Mintolta/etc. make such crap software for their scanners I couldn't tell you.

 

If I had to guess, there is nothing wrong with the scanner. I would try Vuescan (www.hamrick.com) and familiarize myself more with the concepts/techniques used in scanning film.

you cannot use the matte ink, it doesn't dry on the OHP film. use the photo black ink.

The people you spoke with aren't swindling you. Making a print and scanning that is something a lot of people prefer. It works well, assuming you captured all the tonal values you wanted with the print, and the print iteself is large enough to scan. It has its limitations obviously.

 

The grain problem with negative film is very real, particularly with drum scanners. A lot of people will tell you that a competent drum scanner can produce good negative scans, and I am sure that the right technique and scanner could do that, but you can't get around the fact that from both a software & hardware perspective, drum scanners aren't engineered for scanning color negative film. My understanding is that the densities a drum scanner is engineered to penetrate (slide film densities) is the primary reason why color neg film scan so noisy.

 

The most viable option I would say is to purchase a CCD desktop film scanner and do it yourself. Certain models do a decent job with slow speed color negative films. None will quite compare with slide scans IMHO.

 

I have used the Polaroid Sprintscan 120 (which is now sold by Microtek) and a Minolta DiMAGE Scan Multi Pro. I think the Polaroid was the most forgiving and tonally smooth, but it was also the least sharp. The Minolta can be just plain brutal with certain negs, and to this day I can't eliminate this from my workflow. There are a lot of things you can do in terms of technique to mitigate the gravelly, color-noisey look in these situations. Proper profiling, noise-reduction programs, tonal manipulation in PS, slight de-focusing at scan time, diffuse light sources, etc. It can be a pain but if you have a huge archive of stuff to scan, there's little choice....

 

Good Luck!

Van Dyke Brown would be the easiest/cheapest to try, and Carbon the hardest. You are well within the Kallitype range, not to mention Centennial POP processes (your only commercially available paper AFAIK). I would probably go fo Kallitype and develop in Platinum chemistry, but obviously you would know the proper tone/look you want.

 

All of the above processes are capable of very sharp results on the right paper with good chemistry under a quality contact frame.

 

I guess if the imagery was right, 6x9 prints could be appropriate, but that is quite small....perhaps you could scan the negs and make a digital negative so that you could still contact print!

Georgi Danov , apr 07, 2004; 05:34 a.m.

 

<<<Hi Joe I do respect all people's hard work, no matter if I understand their perceptions for art or not , but I do not think of myself as faker only because I shoot digital and then use PS. What was once being done by changing chemical concentration, times, temperature, you name it, now is done in PS and this is part of the progress. Every hour spent working on a picture is an hour of hard work, no matter if you use mouse & kbd, or you use chemicals.

 

Best Regards, Georgi>>>

 

I respectfully disagree. I don't presume to know your work or how difficult it is, and I don't want to come off like I think PS and digital is irrelevant, because it obviously is not.....but its not the equivalent to something else just because people say it is (coincidentally, people who so rarely know they other side that they are trying to equate).

 

One hour of work in PS is not the same as one hour sensitizing carbon tissue, it's just not, ask anyone who's done it! Pressing print on an Epson printer is not the same as handcoating paper with platinum salts and contact printing an 8x10 negative in a nuarc platemaker. Call me crazy, but I attribute more respect to the guy shooting LF, developing by inspection and making platinum prints.

 

I say this as a young person who went to college for graphic design, work in a sign shop everyday cranking out digital prints on a 5' inkjet printer and who is as comfortable using PS and digital as anyone else on this forum! But just because I can use these digital tools, I don't come to some dumbass decision that I am doing something of equal value to someone who's spent decades refining how well they can command their craft to realize the kind of images they want.

 

Digital makes it far too easy and riskless to do so many things and consequently it has spawned a bunch of weak-minded, lazy people pretending they are fellow colleagues with actual fine artists. Like I said, it's actually funny to me, and thank God many, many people see these distinctions as clear as I do.

John Henneberger , apr 06, 2004; 07:21 p.m.

<<<I don't know Joe. You first imply that Georgi is going to falsely represent that he used some particular process to make an image. Your next passage reveals the rationale behind your 'resentment'.>>>>

 

People are going to do what they want to do. The fact that I offered a solution to his problem doesn't preclude me saying that I don't necessarily like the fact that people freely digitally simulate traditional processes that require more talent and skill to create than it takes to fake in PS. That's how I feel about it, so I said so.

 

<<<Did you have to walk twelve miles through the driving snow to get to school while these whippersnappers today get to ride on a nice comfortable bus? Would you have them walk so you can feel better about all that walking you had to do? Should we write out math eqautions to "respect" all those who didn't have calculators? Are the answers not all the same? Do those who use calculators "misrepresent" the work as having been done by pen and paper?>>>

 

How trite and predictable. Painting the situation in such extremes might be your bag, but there are many ways to look at things and I am not a one or the other kind of person. Georgi is free to do things how he wants, I don't care....but one thing that I do care about is the phenomenom of future photographers/artists not caring about history of their own craft and being satisfied with their own ignorance. People rely on digital to make up for all kinds on ineptitude in their work and feel fine mimicking the higher aesthetics of handcrafted art and it makes me laugh!

 

Digital is _both good and bad_ for photography, I chose to emphasize a pitfall of it in this particular post.

 

<<<You seem to resent others for creating art simply because you do so using a process that is difficult and challenging. It's as though how something is made is more important than to how it appears. Art is art. Its not like anyone is stealing your images or copyrights. Are digital photgraphers unworthy too when their images look like they may be made from film?>>>

 

I find this paragraph ridiculous. Saying that the process and technique of a piece is secondary to the piece itself is laughable. You have a lot of expereince in the art world I'm sure....

 

Nevertheless, I wouldn't argue for one against the other; I would say that BOTH are equally as important! Having said that, art itself goes nowhere unless dedicated artists commit themselves to their craft and expand upon the pioneering work done by others. Innovative technique and process is paramount to this and a requirement of any fine artist. Now obviously many people couldn't care less about these things and more power to them, but to deny that they matter shows the shaky ground you stand on my friend. Perhaps you are a little challenged by people who have the capacity and drive to understand the mechanics of what they are doing instead of clicking a button in a computer program and watching their snapshot look really cool and moody with that new auto-border filter they bought online.

Hi Georgi. I guess it annoys me a little being someone who actually does alt processes and resents people misrepresenting their work as such; but I do have a suggestion:

 

How about creating REAL alt photo prints, and then scanning those borders and layer that into your PS document? You can expand your skills and knowledge and maybe gain some respect people who take the time to create the genuine thing.

Hi Damon.

 

To really answer the question, you have to supply a lot more information.

 

1) What kind of negatives are you using? What is the density of the negatives?

 

2) What VDB formula, how long are you exposing after coating? How old is the VBD solution?

 

3) What kind of UV light setup do you have? How far away is the print from the lights?

 

Generally speaking, low contrast and muddy prints are caused by a negative with too LOW density. I shoot for 1.8 on most VDB I do. If the dark areas aren't exposing to dmax, perhaps the print isn't close enough to the light. On my setup (48" BLB 30 watt) the print is 2-3" from the lights and I expose for 4-9 minutes. Have you tried exposing a clear piece of film or just the print to UV and print test strips to detemrine dmax time?

 

Now the tap water....definite no-no. The silver nitrate can precipitate out of solution with tap water. Never mix solutions with tap water. Some might say they do fine, and I am not saying they aren't, but tap water is quite variable and causes a lot of problems in photography generally, moreso in alt! BTW, I have even bought cheap distilled water and seen the silver nitrate precipitate out. Curiously though, the prints look fine!

 

-Joe

I have a MultiPro and scan alot of B&W.....

 

without knowing what your workflow, film, software, etc. is, I can't know for sure what's wrong. But if I had to guess, I would think you are scanning as B&W negative in the Minolta software. If that is the case, my experience scanning that way always resulted in unacceptable clipping in both the shadow and highlight values. The way you know for sure that this is happenning is to look at the histogram, per the last response. I don't know why Minolta, Nikon and most other prosumer scanner manufacturers make such crap software for their pretty good hardware, but they do and the solution is to get a third party application.

 

My suggestion, as well; is to get Vuescan (www.hamrick.com) and use that. It doesn't clip any detail, and the manual focusing results in much sharper scans, in my experience.

 

I typically scan as 48bit RAW, slide; open in Photoshop, apply the Multi Pro linear ICC profile to the RGB scan profile, look at the three channels and determine if I want information from just one or a mixture of them (which would be accomplished by Channel Mixing) convert to greyscale and apply any necessary tonal adjustments via curves.

 

It is actually pretty routine with some experience, but I had had alot of graphic design experience before pursuing photography, so it might just seem that way to me.

 

If you'd like Miguel, I would be happy to help you out with any more questions, drop me a line @ jtait3@houston.rr.com

I have an S9000 and believe I have isolated the periodic banding I was experience to the lack of extra paper padding in the paper tray. Pretty simple thing to try and someone else on the forum mentioned the same solution. I usually make sure to keep about 2/3 of the tray full with paper because too much and too little both seem to cause the faint banding I was experiencing.

 

The other thing to due is to print frequently. I work in a sign shop and work on LF inkjet machines all day and that truism really holds; infrequent use causes banding. Dye machines are less problematic, but I make sure to print on the S9000 at least 3 days out of the week. I have an Adobe Illustrator file I created to make sure I am using the same amount of ink in all primaries and it works well.

 

-Joe

Hi Reinier.

 

You are not quite correct in your comments on Kallitype. It requires a developer (many choices, PtPd developers are very popular these days) and fix (sodium thiosulfate), as well as usually a wash in hypo-remover as well, so it is more akin to darkroom gelatin silver development than other alt processes.

 

For water development only, your choices are pretty simple. Gum bichromate and cyanotype both only require water for development. VDB, or Van Dyke Brown, is a variation on the Kallitype process, and is also developed in water; but requires a sodium thiosulfate wash to fix.

 

http://www.alternativephotography.com/ or http://www.usask.ca/lists/alt-photo-process/ will get you up and running with specifics.

 

Good Luck!

 

-Joe

Sort of taking this in another direction, but after reading David's original post, and the range of good responses to the theme, it makes me think about how I really love where art is today. Sentiments similiar to the one expressed by Jim Galli sort of crystallized for me exactely how I don't want to approach photography. I'm not trying to single him out, or define what photography is/should be; but trying to pretend like art/photography is on some sort of linear progression is nonsense. Leave those kinds of delusions for the galleries, critics and bottom-feading dealers who need to assign some sort of importance to anything so as to keep themselves employed.

 

There's nowhere for art to go. We are in such a post-post deconstructive regurgitative phase and 99.3% of any piece of art inherently draws on some prior movement, or combination thereof. And it's defintely not a bad thing! I actually see it as liberating. Artists today don't have to find themselves as reacting to the dominant movements of the day, as had been the case for a good chunk of the last century (not that it wouldn't have been exciting to have been a part of modern art's beginning and maturation).

 

But look at the overwhelmingly large body of past work that we can reflect upon and honor! Today people can look objectively at any approach in photography and see validity in any honest endeavor. I think that the great opportunity out there is to cultivate a refined blending of approaches and do it for the sheer personal exploration, the catharsis. I myself like to use lo-fi for many ideas, and like a previous poster, have found that a lot of people tend to react more strongly to those types of pieces. That's a good thing, photography should engage a general audience!

 

I think that the people who _vociferously knock_ the lo-fi aesthetic are primarily technofags who have no vision and who rely on the most accesible and overdone of subjects. That's not to say that the lo-fi look doesn't have a legitimate stigma attached to it. Anyone CAN do it. It IS overdone, so is everything else. SO WHAT. Thinking you are original in anything you do is just egotistical BS. Artists know whether or not they have any integrity, and so do other fellow artists and that's all that's needed.

you need to choose a film and developer combination that results in a high density neg, say Tri-X & PMK/Pyrocat or HP5 & Pyrocat. most people say a 1.4 density is what you are looking for in you negs for platinum, gum will work well for that, and slightly less as well. if you use a staining developer (pyro or catechin) the spectral density can be quite a bit more than the physical density of the silver. you need to just go through trial and error if you aren't able to do measurements with a densitometer, there's no real way around it. I would establish your effective film speed before adjusting develoment for UV contact printing.

 

the more important thing realize is that you can get a good densitometer, USED; for a couple hundred bucks. buying new doesn't make any sense for anything other than a business environment. got to X-rite.com and look at their literature to get an idea on what model you want, and then search the web/ebay for a deal!

Lets see here:

 

Mendel Leisk: "You refer to raw scans, are you talking about Vuescan raw files?"

 

Most definitely.

 

Mendel Leisk: "Regarding outputting positive color image for black and white negs, I've found little benefit, with Vuescan at least. The inverted results seem washed out and lack punch, regardless of brightness. I prefer Ilford XP2 profile, or Tmax400."

 

I have had the exact opposite experience, and get punch with scanning as pos, totally washed out scans if I try color/b&w neg setting with b&w negatives using Vuescan and the Minolta Multi Pro.

 

 

a mag: But again, what soft and scanner do you use? What does "better resuts" mean?

 

I am using Vuescan and the Minolta Multi Pro. Better results means to me smooth tonal renditions and rich, smooth shadows. I am somewhat lacking in both when using the Multi Pro and scanning a lot of my older b&w 120 shots; mostly HP5 & TMAX 400 developed in Ilford DDX 1:4. In particular, deep shadows are very posterized, and there is a general roughness to the tonality.

 

You mentioned the various DR & dmin requirements of films, but can you draw it together for me in how that helps an operator makes better negative scanning on a slide scanner? Knowing this, how do you adjust your scanning technique to optimize B&w scanning?

This kind of thread has come up ad nauseum, but I think I haven't

heard these aspects of the issue clarified quite as much.

 

I understand that slide scanners are intended to deal with film

densities far beyond what negative film is capable of. Nevertheless I,

and many people on this forum have expressed getting better results

scanning neg film as slide film, irrespective of scanner/software.

 

What is actually happenning with the software/hardware when the

operator tells the scanner to adjust for neg/pos scanning? And if most

people are finding that they get better neg scans with a slide

setting, why?

 

Also, say I do raw scans when I scan negatives, and I am using a slide

setting, and I know that I have a lot of choice where on the tonal

scale I want to place the neg scan via exposure (no curve adjustments

on the scan). Should I bias it in a particular way (low on the scale,

high, in the middle)? Is the least exposure necessary going to get the

smoothest tonal rendition? Do you make those decisions based on the

dmax/min of the scanner?

 

For those shooting/scanning a lot of B&W films, are you getting better

results using high contrast/staining developers such as Pyrocat/PMK

and the like? If you use those developers, are you scanning RGB and

then channel mixing, are you scanning RGB and then picking a channel,

or do you set the scanner to B&W at the outset?

 

-Joe

Peter Nelson Wrote:

 

<<Whether it is in Epson's business interests or not to prevent 3rd-party inks or cartridges being used in their printers should be for Epson and only Epson to decide.>>

 

In theory I agree, but how many instances can you come up with where existing products are modified/accessorized in our economy? Cars, cameras, computers, just to name a few. The beauty of our capitalist system is that those "third-party" products ARE allowed to proliferate. Epson has a case, but I prefer the option as a consumer.

 

<<<Laws by the EU requiring printer makers to allow 3rd-party consumables are nothing but socialist meddling in the business decisions of private companies. These decisions should only be made by companies and enforced by the market. If NOT allowing 3rd party consumables is a bad business decision that will result in Epson going the way of Amiga and Commodore then consumers will vote with their wallets. The government should keep its nose OUT of these things.>>>

 

I definitely agree with most of what you say there. But both sides (consumer advocates/private companies) should and do lobby for their interests. The sad fact is that politicians are more than willing to stick their nose in business, and as consumers, we have to ask where we stand on this issue. It could very well be that Epson, or any company for that matter, could create an unreasonable balance between protecting their intellectual property and choking off a consumers ability for choice. I mean really Peter, where do you draw the line with wholly supporting Epson on this? Should they be able to decide what kind of paper you do put into the machine? Should they be able to decide what kind of things you print or what computer you print from? These are gross exaggerations but it is well within reason to question at what point do companies relinquish their control of the products they sell. In my mind they sell me a printer, and just that, a PRINTER. Ditto to the whole "media rights protected" hard drive issue, and any number of such examples. These companies have real issues to deal with and I understand their positions, but there is legitimate debate to be had on the other side too.

 

<<<The other thing to keep in mind is that the whole REASON we have huge bloated governments and high taxes is because we expect government to fix every little complaint we have. The same people who applaud the "wisdom" of this particular government meddling will turn around and tell you (correctly) what idiots, morons, and clowns the US Congress and European Parliament are in regard to other things. If you look at the performance of the European economy or their unemployment rates you can make a pretty good guess about how much they know about what's good for business.>>>>

 

Couldn't agree more.

 

-Joe

Jim Galli so wisely wrote:

So if you're not a "bad guy" what is there to worry about. I'm all for rounding up the likes of O. Winston Link's ex-wife/ theif. And what about that guy in Texas that kept selling the same 5X12 Korona from places like Italy and Ukraine. Good riddance I say. The balance of freedoms rests on morality. As a society becomes more and more immoral it has to expect to see it's freedoms erode. We're lucky we still have what we have.

 

I would gladly spit in anyone's face who espouses such swill. Liberty actually means something to me, and having it isn't about luck, but about inalienable rights which our founding fathers clearly understood. Too many people so unashamedly abandon it for this or that reason, and it scares the hell out of me.

 

That being said, we are talking about privacy here, different from freedom/liberty, but nevertheless related. Some level of compromise has to be reached. eBay IS wide open to fraud and cooperation with law enforement is undoubtedly necessary, BUT the overall tone of Sullivan's comments, if quoted accurately; are disturbing....that anyone would be so casual about granting access is bordering on criminal. Anyone could easily use those channels to commit MORE FRAUD via eBay if those are in fact their policies.

 

Thanks for the link Tim!

The statement by Ake: "Fuji Crystal Archive is NOT an inkjet type paper! The reason you get the stunning results is goold old fashioned silver based, wet method magic" is not entirely incorrect. Fuji Crystal Archive is available for digital printing for such higher end processes as LightJet. And the results are pretty amazing." so says Dan Medgna....

 

that's because the Lightjet uses RA4 photographic color paper........same paper product, but the Lightjet uses LED exposure instead of enlarger.