I've had a number of "Cibachromes" made through the years. Always have
been impressed with the DMAX of them. In fact, I'd say that the
ability to get inky blacks and seriously hard contrasts with all
colors is the primary reason to use that technology. A well done
glossy print has so much depth to them that you can almost step
inside.
The closest I've seen so far in the world of digital printing is
actually from the original Canon S9000 with Ilford Gallery Classic
glossy. This combination is the best I've seen. Unfortunately, the
inks were dye based so fading potential (seriously overated as all of
my prints done with this combination are still holding up well), was
problematic. Only recently have the pigment printers started to catch
up and my preference is still for the latest/greatest Canons. The
Epsons still aren't quite there with the blacks. Close, very close,
but it takes some very special talent to get that 3D aspect to the
print to come through. Not that the Epsons are bad--far from it!!! But
I'm just talking about getting the glossy beauty which Cibachromes
were famous for. (some individuals have been able to achieve this with
the Epsons, but not without extensive and expensive efforts).
We went through a decade of matte prints not because they are
inherently better, but because that was the best we could do with the
printing technology available to us. Only recently have the papers and
inks caught up where we can get the high gloss prints that look right.
Since Moose brought up Millers, I'll throw my two cents in here.
Millers printing really is designed more for people photography. The
output resolution is right at the limit of acceptability for landscapy
type photography. EVERYTHING passes through their RIP and gets
slightly resized. In the past year or two, they've added the fine-art
printing line, which is a different animal, though. These prints are
pigment-based inkjets. A multitude of choices exist for the printed
surface. Not inexpensive, but very fine quality work. I believe Bob
can make a statement about it. My own non-portrait photography which I
send to Millers for printing is quite good, but sometimes lacks that
slight little edge which the artist and technician in me isn't quite
satisfied with. Their systems are optimized for people pictures, not
extremely wide-gamut, nuance-filled, highly-detailed pictures. Again,
not a bad thing, but for those of us who tweek to the point of
nausiating those around us, we'll find the Millers prints to be great,
but not perfect.
The chemistry-based printing paper that Millers uses is decent enough.
Prints are very deep, blacks and colors are great. But "Cibachromes"
they are not. You can't step inside the prints.
Here at my desk, I'm looking at 9 pictures around me. Three portraits
were printed by another professional photographer through Smugmug. Two
portraits of mine through Millers. One big 24x36 cityscape through
Millers and three B&W prints from the latest exchange. Of the B&W
prints, one is mine of Chalk Lake.
Two of the B&W prints have inky, shiny blacks. Very good Dmax. They
were printed hard, though. Definitely on the edgy side. Basically the
B&W equivalent to shooting Fujichrome Velvia. The third print has a
full gradient from white to black. Is there an inky blackness to it?
Yes, but not in the bold manner of making a statement. The white and
black points establish the dynamic range boundaries for the eye.
Without establishing the white and black points, the eye has no means
of determining the relationship between the other tones. All three
prints have a solid white and a solid black somewhere in the print,
but the rest of the response curves are highly variable.
I mention this because "Cibachromes" were also very good at achieving
and establishing solid tonal extremes. The gradient curves, though,
were not linear and tended to punch of the contrast a lot. Therefore,
to get a delicate print, you had to start with a pretty flat
transparancy. To achieve the same with the digital process is a bit
off, though. A digital file is by very nature quite flat. We establish
the tonal extremes and start manipulating the curves as desired. The
end result is essentially the same as the Cibachrome print, but the
process to get there is entirely different. At issue is the sublety of
tones where in digital there just isn't enough bit depth to work with.
Close but not close enough. By the time you stretch the histogram to
punch up the mid contrast and add saturation to match, the technology
just runs out of gas. In the analog world, we spent more time trying
to reduce contrast (essentially putting more bits into a smaller tonal
space) than increasing contrast (stretching a few bits into a larger
tonal space).
A number of photographers have successfully managed to bridge the gap
and optimise their capture-process-output workflow and equipment to
achieve maximum performance of score, but those individuals and their
prints are outlyers and their work is not representative of the norm.
AG Schnozz
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