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Printing
B&W in a wet world never had the problems that the digital world
has.
In
the digital world of Black and White, things are not always..well..
Black and White.
Executive
Summary
What
is Tested and How
The
Printers
Black
and White:
Printing
BW
First
Test
Lyson
Ink Experiment
Silver
Paper
Print
Compare Page
Executive
Summary
The
problem with inkjet black and white is that it doesn't often come
out black; the white part is easy. The native whiteness of the paper
will determine that.
The
black part is hard. The inks are not really black and different
papers absorb ink differently based on how much ink is being laid
down, etc. And the inks may change color depending on what the viewing
light source is. Most of the results look pretty good under window
light; but they tend the change under tungsten and fluorescent.
See Print Comparison page.
I
have made digital negatives for contact printing of classic silver
gelatin papers using the procedures developed by Dan
Burkholder. The results are very exciting. See section Silver
for results.
What
is Tested and How
This
page is to share my experience with three inexpensive printers,
Canon S820,Epson 820, C84 and an expensive Canon printer S9000 printing
Black and White.
These
are non-rigourous tests. They don't have resolution charts, color
fidelity measures, gamma range measurements, or anything else that
might quantify the results.
The
Printers:
The
Canon 820 and the S9000 have six individual ink cartridges and the
Epson 820 has a color cartridge of 5 inks + a black cartridge; the
Epson C84 has three individual color and one black.
Each
one produces very good to spectacular color prints. There is no
discernible grain and the color range on all printers is extremely
good.
Black
and White:
There
are number of ways to get black and white. You can print it on paper.
Or you can print a negative and get wet again, using the negative
to contact print on your favorite silver paper.
Printing
Black and White
Printers
can make gray toned prints in three basic ways:
1)
Color Ink Method:
The
printer can use all the color inks to blend together to make a
neutral graytone. You leave your image in RGB mode and send it
to the printer. The print driver blends the inks together to get
gray.
The
color ink method requires you to calibrate your printer to your
monitor and to neutral tones. {Outline of this procedure soon}.
Using color to make black and gray is fraught with the possibility
of error. Some clients tell me that my filters are making pink,
or violet, or green and white images. The output of SilverOxide
is graytoned(R=G=B). When printed it may look green or pink,
but in the computer it is gray. The printer needs to proportion
the ink being laid down and the paper needs to absorb the ink
the same for all the colors.
2)
The Black ink method:
The
printer can only the Black ink, the file can stay RGB, and the
driver switched to black only. The driver makes halftone using
only the black cartridge.
3)
You can get ink cartridges that contain shades of gray. This method
should produce the sharpest prints, because minimal halftoning.
But the Lyson inks were not pure gray but were a purple for some
of the cartridges.
First
Test
I
took several NYC scenes that looked very good on the screen. I then
printed them with various papers and inks. And I got several shades
of black. See the samples page{on line Feb 18,2004} for scanned
copies of my results. Although interesting, only one came close
to what I was expecting, and that was Canon black ink only on Canon
Pro Paper.
Silver
Printing
I
have made digital negatives for contact printing of classic silver
gelatin papers using the procedures developed by Dan
Burkholder. The results are very exciting.
Dan
sells, in addition to his book, an Inkjet Negative Companion for
$15 to download or $22 + shipping for the CD. Within this gem of
a download is a psd file that is a template for making a negative.
Within this psd is a set of layers that have curve sets for using
Epson printers with Silver papers. My first tests gave me outstanding
results with the 1280 curves on my Canon S9000. I printed on Pictorico
OHP ink jet transparency material.
Dan's
book is an invaluable source of Photoshop expertise and worth getting.
The inkjet companion is a gold mine and worth about 10 times its
cost. It allows you to start at a place without doing tens of hours
of testing. It even tells you how much to vary the curves when trying
for better results.
By
generating an 8X10 digital inkjet negative, going into the darkroom
and contact printing you can use your wet knowledge to a great extent.
I put a #2 multicontrast filter in place of the negative carrier
in my enlarger, diffused the focus and made a contact print that
was very good. And I was using Kodak Polycontrast RC paper with
results that didn't vary from tungsten to daylight to fluorescent.
More
to Come!!
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