The cost isn't bad. Likely as not less than wet darkroom. It's certainly
cheaper to maintain my digital darkroom than it would be to build and maintain
a wet one. The skill level is something else entirely. It takes a good bit of
skill to produce really nice black & white prints using either method. (I
started to write "methodology", but then stopped myself because I knew Chris
Barker and Andrew Fides would be in a race to see which could take me to task
first. <g>) (Digressing a moment on methods, I've found a paper, Canson's
Baryta Phtographique, which just tickles my fancy no end. It is a superb
surface for black & white, and has taken me another step in the direction I
want to go. My only objection is that while it says it's a 310 gm paper, it
acts much thicker, so much so that I have to fiddle with the transport spacing
in the 3880 to get it to print without scratching the surface. But it's worth
the hassle.)
I make no claims to having any special expertise at digital black & white. I
know there are people out there, especially people like Vincent Versace, who do
a whiz-bang job such as I would be lucky ever to emulate. My particular kink on
the whole thing--and it's being validated by customer comments--is that I'm not
trying to duplicate the look of a wet darkroom black & white. I'm working in
black & white to bring forth an image that suits me. "Suits me" in this sense
meaning that rings all the right bells and blows all the right whistles. Now,
we shall see this summer whether customer comments translate into customer
cash. <g> I hope so, because I'm enjoying the view from black & white. I
haven't posted nearly enough of it, and will try to do better in the future.
--Bob
On Mar 20, 2013, at 10:36 AM, Ken Norton wrote:
>> Someone more accomplished than me could make black & white prints on that
>> paper that even AG couldn't tell didn't come from a wet darkroom. <g>
>
> Please excuse the delayed response...
>
> In your statement is the truth to this whole thing. It takes an
> accomplished individual to produce B&W digital prints that rival what
> comes from a wet darkroom. The technology is most definitely here now.
> But at what cost and with what skill level?
--
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