Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/02/25
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]"It used to take me 30 minutes to Ilfochrome a slide or 45 minutes to print a negative; now, I can scan and print within 5 minutes. I will keep my darkroom up for the critical work but I doubt if I'll be doing much of my routine work there. I really have been impressed by the quality of the prints. Marc" ...................................... Marc, welcome to the revolution! I haven't wet a print in two years. I have four enlargers gathering dust. I will never process RA-4 again, but I'm reserving judgement about B&W because I haven't been able to make a decent B&W print with inkjet, yet. The old slide collection has become a treasure trove of usable images from my life. I had the Epson 1640 with TPU, now the 3200 TPU. I scan 645 negs and slides to 16 bit 220 M files. After PS and conversion to 8 bit I print up to 13X19 on an Epson 1270 or send the files by ftp to pictopia.com for printing 16X20 and up by laserjet on Fuji Crystal Archive RA-4 paper. In my home I have framed and matted 645 Reala images printed in the darkroom, on the Epson 1270 and from pictopia.com. Nobody, even photographers can tell the difference. Now Epson had a new flatbed 4800 scanner with true Digital ICE which is amazing at the price. I use a Nikon 4000 for 35mm, but some comparison tests betweeen the Epson 32200 and the Nikon set at 3200 are sobering. The can be pretty close when you spend a lot of time optimizing the flatbed scan. I have some top quality drum scans (Tango) of Reala 645 negs that are beautiful. The same negs scanned on the 3200 are distinguishable mainly by blown out hilights and fine resolution. However, most of my images seem to scan well on the 3200. Same goes for transparency films. I don't have a website but I could send you some jpegs if you like. I've heard rumors that HP has inkjets that will make beautiful B&W prints. If true, I'll probably donate the enlargers to a school. Regards, Bill Lawlor - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html