LF darkroom enlargement vs scanning

[Dave Tolcher]

You mention something that I worry about - if you frame a print does this level the playing field to some extent ? Certainly where I have had a nice gloss print done, behind glass I may as well not have bothered. If a fine chomira print... do you have to fork out the £100 or so for pilkington water glass to get the effect ?

[Steve Gledhill]

...
The traditional wet darkroom prints have a feel and a quality about them because the print is IN the paper (stated elsewhere in this post). Inkjet prints (or whatever you call them) rely on the ink sitting on top of the paper in whatever form.
...

Most papers/ink that I've seen do exhibit to some degree the ink being on paper in the way that you refer to. However there is one paper/ink combination that emphatically does not. With Epson Ultrachrome Inks and Harman FB Al paper the ink definitely sits IN and not ON the paper, and as such is a great advance on some of the other papers. I am assuming this is a paper thing (rather than an ink thing) as I've used the same inks on several other papers and the ink is more ON than IN with them.

[richard littlewood]

In the end it seems to me the digital route is a good thing because the darkroom puts off a great many people, especially doing big prints, and big prints come easy digitally - all you need is a prepared file and a decent printer.
I'll carry on doing darkroom work as long as I can for many reasons. Yes, 'wet' prints do have a loveley quality - although dry mounting and glass frames can render the subtleties down a lot, but for me the main reason is in the actual printing and the way no 2 same prints are alike. I do a fair bit of toning and to start with a straight b+w print and to then tone it can turn something good into something rather beautiful. Same goes with trying different paper types, different developers, alternative processes etc. There is still a lot going for the darkroom, it's not all about ease and predictability, and all that modern stuff, although as I said I'm glad it exists because it allows prints for those that find the darkroom difficult or just off putting - or non-existant!
I've also seen many digital prints, some are great and some are awful, but the best compare well with good darkroom prints and no doubt visually the gap (as such) will narrow, but I would not like to see the craft skills of the darkroom vanish to be replaced by yet more computer work.

[timparkin]

Hey, is it O.K. if I put my 4 eggs in.

There's quality prints, and then there's QUALITY prints. The GREATEST QUALITY print currently available is on a profiled Chromira printer using Fujiflex (similar to Cibachrome) material. To get to this you need a high quality master from either a properly profiled drum scanner or, a betterlight scanning back. I've seen these prints in the flesh, and to put it on a scale, an Epson 3880 print on Exhibition Fibre Paper is at 1 the Chromira on Fujiflex is at 100. 3 dimensional would be a word I'd use.

This post has highlighted 2 distinct factors with prints. Look/feel & resolution. The traditional wet darkroom prints have a feel and a quality about them because the print is IN the paper (stated elsewhere in this post). Inkjet prints (or whatever you call them) rely on the ink sitting on top of the paper in whatever form. Inkjets have greater resolution, but darkroom prints have a greater substance and quality to them. Chromira prints are all the best things about the wet darkroom with the resolution of an inkjet. And just so we're on the right tracks here, I'm not talking about DURST Lambda prints made by Peak Imaging/similar or, OCE 5000 lightjet prints made by companies such as Spectrum Photographic in Brighton. I'm talking Chromira prints, look it up, spend the money, see for yourself!!!!

Hi Ian,

Can you recommend somewhere?

[uniB]

Hey Tim,

just did a search and it seams Palm Labs in Birmingham do them – isn't that the place Jenny uses for processing?

www.palmlabs.co.uk

Dav

[timparkin]

Hey Tim,

just did a search and it seams Palm Labs in Birmingham do them – isn't that the place Jenny uses for processing?

http://www.palmlabs.co.uk

Dav

Cheers Dav

[DJ]

The place I know of who do the best prints are located in California, called West Coast Imaging (http://www.westcoastimaging.com/), they use a Chromira and they really are very good and very on the ball with their systems and colour management etc, and make excellent prints, they do the Fuji Supergloss and the Fuji Pearl regularly. The downside of course is that they're in California, and the shipping costs to the UK can be high...

If there's a company in the UK doing similar I'd be like to know who they are, nearest I've seen is Spectrum in Brighton, though I've not tried them personally.

[Dave Tolcher]

All my dealings with Spectrum have been excellent. Good prints - albeit only the giclee service so far.

[gari]

You could try Elevator in Canada, they are a print output service that uses a Lambda machine as well as chromira/lightjet.

As an aside, I am just about to move into new premises with a darkroom for alt printing and will have a digital printing room in there too. I plan to start a printing service using a LF printer in the next few months, I plan to look into the level of interest during the set up period so anyone interested feel free to contact me, it would certainly help me to gauge interest.
I am aware that there are several places to get prints made but I have the ability to print and mount/frame onsite too. As I say, I shall post in the announcements thread once I have got a final plan etc, folks can PM me if they want a broader view.

Cheers

Gari

[Charles Twist]

RGB Labs in Middlesbrough have two printers: a Chromira and a Frontier. You can specify which you'd like them to use, but bear in mind that the Frontier is faster and if you have a big jb, they prefer to use that one. They apparently have the Chromira Labs, which is an all-in-one, top-of-the-line machine. The prices are reasonable and I for one like the quality. Especially nice, is the fact you can upload your scans by FTP. They're tearing the website down this weekend and putting a new one up, so you may have to be patient. Contact Graham if you have any questions: he's very approachable.
Hope that helps.
Best regards,
Charles

[uniB]

Thanks for the recommendation Charles, have you been able to campare a Chromira print with an inkjet from a Epson or similar? If so, is there a noticable difference that you think would justify the cost of a Chromira print?

Dav

[Charles Twist]

Hello Dav,
I presume you mean home printing. I don't have an inkjet printer as I don't fancy the initial outlay and ongoing ink costs (I only do short print runs) not to mention the space it would take. The depth of the gloss on the Chromira is really pleasant and the detail looks very crisp and natural. Plus the price is very reasonable compared to the home print for the size of runs I do. I will add that Graham at RGB Labs said that there is very little difference between the Frontier and the Chromira and 99% of people wouldn't spot it (he reckons that the former over-warms the warm tones a bit). The other good thing with the Chromira set-up at RGB is the ability to do any size of paper (within the web width which I think was 40" or 50" (?)) and be priced per sq. inch; for fans of 4x10, 6x17 and other unusual formats, this is ideal.
I have seen other people's home-printed work and I don't like it. I think it's extraordinary what can be achieved at home (I remember the bad ol' days of the 90's) but I don't like the look of the prints: it doesn't suit my style. I find the home results to be a bit washy and lack that in-yer-face punch for which I hanker (I must have an insecurity complex). That could be due to their using a digital SLR vs my Velvia 50 but not in all cases. If you have an ink-jet printer, I can send you a file of a picture and we can do an A-B comparison. Just drop me a pm.
I think there is a place for home print: painters use them for "giclee prints" which they sell at a premium and one local chap around here does arty cards of heavily photoshopped photographs made to look painterly, which are very nice indeed.
Best regards,
Charles

[jennym]

Thanks Dav. Palm labs in Birmingham is the lab I have mainly used for my film processing. I'm not really qualified to comment on their printing, as to date I haven't really had any prints made from my 5x4 images. The one image I had printed to 10x8 I was very happy with, but it wasn't done on their Chromira printer. I did speak to them today about their Chromira printing, and they confirmed they have a Chromira LED printer (as well as optical printing from negatives) which does images up to 96" by 48" on gloss, matt or metallic Kodak Endura paper. The samples they showed me looked pretty good, but the originals themselves were a bit variable.

One advantage of Palm labs is that there are only two people working there (Steve and Simon) and I have found that they appreciate personal comments and feedback. So if you are thinking of getting prints done, give them a call and speak to Steve (the boss), and he will try his best to give you what you want. The down side is that when they are busy, they may not have much time for attention to small details.

I have used them exclusively for a year for my developing, as they are local to me, and I don't have to risk my images to the post. Recently I have also tried both The Darkroom and Peak Imaging. When I have compared labs, I have sometimes preferred the image from one lab, sometimes from another. And all labs have had variability in processing the same image. I'm not personally convinced that one lab is consistently better than another.

Steve did say that if you have a Chromira print made he often comes to an arrangement over the price of scanning the image as well. So if you are considering a print it would be worth calling him first!

I'm not sure that any of this is useful. But if you want to try comparing Chromira prints between labs, they may be worth a try and personal contact may be helpful!

Cheers,

Jenny