[Leica] The death of the silver gelatin prints

[images at comporium.net (Tina Manley)]

Paul is the expert in digital printing.  You have to see his prints in
person to believe them.  Absolutely gorgeous!

Tina

On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 12:45 PM, Paul Roark <roark.paul at gmail.com> wrote:

> I tried and used all sorts of inter-negative approaches to silver
> prints for several years before inkjets were any good.  Some were OK,
> most were not, and all added a few steps of frustration, cost, and
> compromise.  Having now gone through the various stages of inkjet
> development, and having studied the alternatives to death, I must say
> I have no desire to do silver printing any more.  Aside from the fact
> that some collectors may prefer them, they are inferior to what we can
> now make with the best inkjet technology.
>
> The inkjets can not only look better, but they can also be more
> "archival."  I've concentrated on the longevity factor because that
> was the assumed (correctly) weakness of the early inkjet products.  My
> hope is that all of the testing and work to get the longevity of the
> best inkjet prints up to and beyond the silver print level will
> ultimately lead to their being more accepted by the collectors, but
> it'll take a while.
>
> Note that what I'm talking about here is beyond what most need for
> their B&W work.  The OEM approaches and third party B&W inksets are
> fine for most uses.
>
> At an rate, for the highest end fine are and museum work, the 100%
> carbon pigment inkjet alternatives available today are close to being
> fade free.  In http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/ testing, a 100%
> carbon pigment print on Premier Art Smooth 205 (aka Epson Scrapbook
> paper) at 100 megalux-hours of exposure (51 Wilhelm years) had a 50%
> density test patch delta-e of 0.1.  That is, virtually no change at
> all.  The natural, non-OBA paper delta-e was 0.5.  The 100% carbon
> pigment test prints are achieving results that are many times better
> than the best OEM approaches, and in the real world of unknown fade
> factors, all of the approaches that use blends of carbon plus color
> are at risk of differential fade of the color pigments.  This causes
> the print colors to go in directions we might not like -- e.g.,
> turning green.
>
> The limiting factor in longevity when 100% carbon is used is probably
> the paper.  Buffered cotton paper has a huge advantage over our old
> wet darkroom paper.  The silver print paper cannot be buffered due to
> the acidic processing chemicals.  Airborne acids are attacking them.
> I have prints that have been in a metal cabinet since the 1980's where
> I can see the yellow on the paper backs.  it's greatest at the edges.
> It is totally consistent with airborne acids diffusing in from the
> edges of these stacked silver prints.
>
> Beyond that, in my digital restoration work, I find the vast majority
> of very old prints are having microcracking of the emulsions.  Some
> conservators believe that all laminated or coated media will
> deteriorate due to cracking or separation of the layers.  The
> differential expansions/contractions due to humidity and temperature
> changes are inevitable.  This, of course, also affects coated inkjet
> papers.  That is why I increasingly think that 100% carbon pigments on
> Arches watercolor paper is our ultimate medium from an archival
> perspective.  The 100% carbon pigment on Arches prints I have on my
> walls are among the very best prints I've ever made.  True, up close a
> coated inkjet paper can be smoother, and the best coated inkjet papers
> can get a better dmax, but in display size prints in real world
> display conditions, these make very beautiful B&W prints.
>
> Note that on the wall in normal lighting, the depth of the matte black
> is usually deeper than the depth of a glossy black due to reflections.
>  For example, in my home environment, where I have 2 spot lights on
> the prints, but also have normal room lights and light walls and
> ceiling, when I put 100% black matte and glossy test prints under
> glass at the place where the prints would usually hang, and I use a
> spot meter to measure the depth of black from the normal viewing
> positing, the matte blacks win.  The "superior" glossy blacks are only
> better with very good lighting -- as used in the spectros we use to
> measure the test strips.  In the real world, reflections make all the
> difference.  That, I believe, is the main thing that attracted people
> to platinum prints.  Even their very modest dmax looked good when
> there were not reflections off the surface.  Once I see a surface
> reflection, the illusion of depth in the print disappears.  Suddenly
> I'm just looking at a piece of paper.
>
> Nonetheless, I've lately been trying to develop the best neutral
> glossy inkjet approach -- using the most carbon possible as well as
> the best and least amount of color pigments.  The glossy carbon
> pigments are very warm, so it takes a lot of color to cool them to
> neutral.  The OEM "gray" inks are all blends of carbon + color.  So,
> for example, your QTR ink loads of the color needed to cool down the
> OEM gray inks do not tell you how much total color is in the mix.
> While the Epson M and C pigs appear to quite good, they ultimately
> will fade and probably at different rates, causing the image to change
> colors.  (The third party color pigments are terrible, including those
> blended into the third party neutral B&W inksets, the ones I designed
> and sold by MIS Associates/inksupply.com included.)  While we can look
> at the Aardenburg Imaging tests to find the best matched M and C
> pigments, that is under ideal environmental conditions and that
> particular light source.  We simply don't know what gas attacks and
> other factors might affect real world differential fade, which is the
> major risk with these types of B&W prints.  From what I've seen in my
> development of what should be the best possible neutral glossy inkset,
> I doubt current technology can make a good glossy print that I'd
> consider museum quality.  The OEM colors are good enough for most
> purposes, but if museum quality is the goal, I'd stick to 100% carbon
> on matte paper, with Arches probably being the ultimate photographic
> medium.
>
> Note that I was able to make a 100% carbon neutral glossy print, but
> it takes using un-diluted MK in a 1.5 picoliter printer, which is
> still not very smooth.  It also takes a lot of acrylic spray to nail
> down the MK pigments.  It's not worth the effort.
>
> My B&W printing views are summarized at http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/
>
> Paul
> www.PaulRoark.com
>
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>


-- 
Tina Manley, ASMP
www.tinamanley.com