civilized ku # 1013 ~ The Print
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 10:28AM 
Boat launch ~Blue Mountain lake, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenFor those of you not in the know, the title of this entry, "The Print", is a tip of the hat to Sir Ansel and his book of the same name. Not that I have read it, only that I know it is the bible - perhaps, at this late date, the Old Testament version - for those who want to make finely crafted BW prints. Or, as they have been labeled on TOP, those wanting to make prints using the Classic Printmaking technique - aka: film + the wet darkroom.
Setting aside my wonder regarding why anyone would want to do "Classic Printmaking" - other than the desire (and some might say "satisfaction/pleasure") to use your hands for something other than pounding on a keyboard - there was, of course, (even though the author, Mike Johnston, advised against it) at least one commenter who stated:
...I have yet to see a digital print that is the equal of a good chromogenic print. Maybe I haven't looked hard enough...
I was first to step in and refute his ill-formed and un-informed opinion. A few others later followed suit. It was some of the others who suggested he was mostly likely viewing digital prints that; 1) looked exactly like the picture maker wanted them to look, so called "flaws" and all, or, 2) the prints displayed less than the best the digital print medium is able to produce.
In either case, the commenter must have had a reasonable amount of exposure to good chromogenic prints (aka: "C" prints, the most dominant color printing process of the last century - drugstores to the finest custom labs) in order to have a basis for his comparison. It is open to question, by his own admission - "Maybe I haven't looked hard enough ...", as to whether he has had sufficient exposure to good digital prints on which to base his judgement.
IMO, he does not.
I base my opinion on 30+ years of making 10s-of-thousands of C prints. C prints that many of my commercial clients thought were so good they could have been called "kissing cousins" to dye transfer prints. And, just in case you haven't been around The Landscapist long enough to know it, one of my long term clients was none other than Eastman Kodak - some of my clients there wanted my C prints rather than those made in-house.
But enough self-aggrandizement. Let's get on to the reason I brought you all here today - digital printing.
Caveat: Before going on, let me state that using C prints as the basis on which to judge whether a digital print is good or bad is, IMO, a very valid criteria to use. Finely crafted C prints (made from color negative film) - C prints being by far the most commonly used color printing medium - are things of beauty - smooth, extended, and natural looking tonal and color (such as it is capable of) rendition is their forte.
I have come to the realization the reason why I make digital prints which can pass as traditional C prints (tonal characteristics, not color characteristics because, as any experienced and observant viewer knows, the digital print medium can produce colors and shades of colors heretofore impossible to achieve with the C print process) is, apart from my mastery in Photoshop, after 30+ years of making 10s-of-thousands of C prints I know exactly what a very good or exceptionally excellent C print looks like.
What I have also quite recently come to realize is I am in my 64th year on the planet and there are probably not all that many still hanging around who have my extensive C print making and viewing experience and expertise. And, fewer still who have made the successful adaptation to the digital print medium, finely crafted prints wise.
I am, arguably, a relic of a bygone (or going fast) era.
However, that said, my relic-ness is based upon some very still-pertinent/ valuable knowledge. I may be going out of date but, IMO, the knowledge and experience I possess, re: the C print making process as it applies to the digital print making process, is not. Unless, of course, the beautiful quality of the finely crafted traditional C print is destined to become a lost art.
Which, in any event, may be the case if for no other reason than the act of printing pictures by any means - low quality, high quality, finely crafted or not - seems to becoming a lost art. I am not aware of any study which has tried to quantify the number of former wet darkroom print it yourself-ers vs. the number of current crop of digital print it yourself-ers but, be that as it may, on the whole of it, to include the family / friends /neighbors style picture makers, far fewer of them are making prints.
All of the above said, here's what I am wondering - how many of you have had any experience making C prints? how many have had the pleasure of viewing colors prints (C prints or dye transfers) by any of the acknowledged masters of contemporary (1970 - present) fine art color picture making - Meyerowitz, Shore, Eggelston, Wall, Gursky, Burtynsky, and the like? how many feel you even know what a finely crafted C print looks like? Even seen a dye transfer print? have you viewed a finely crafted print (C, dye, digital) of any of your own pictures?
Or, perhaps more to my inquisitive point - how many of you even give a tinker's cuss about any of the above?
PS - stay tuned, tomorrow I'll debunk what is the greatest cliched misconception, re: the making of a very good digital print, or, for that matter, the making of a very good C print.
Reader Comments (6)
I used to make B&W, C Prints, and even worked in a dye transfer lab (nobody can actually say they alone made dye transfers - pretty much a team effort) in NYC up to the early eighties, and then I witnessed a Hell Chromacom system demoed one day around '83, and never looked back. Jumped on board the computer revolution and never missed chemicals for one second. The dye transfer process was particularly toxic and worry-some - the air conditioning ducts had to be replaced every three to four years. But, man, a fine dye transfer was just something to behold, and very permanent - had at least a century long archival rating. But, the industry was destroyed in the span of a few years by the new computer systems. I'm not even sure there is anybody making them today. Now, the C printing industry is almost dead - why bother, when "glicee" printing is so advanced and somewhat affordable, and archival ratings can be as high as Dye transfers or Cibachromes. No nasty chemicals, either.
Do you use an Epson printer of some sort? I've worked with the 7800, 9800, 9900s for the last eight years, and they are quite the charm, if run a lot. A major improvement over the Scitex beasts.
Don't be expecting a tinker's cuss any time soon.
What's wrong with anyone pursuing something important to them, even if it is an anachronism? If they achieve results that they can't (or at least haven't) using a computer, let them do it and appreciate the results. I'm not likely to carve a statue out of marble with a chisel, but I admire anyone who does, if they achieve something meaningful.
Well, having a good print of any picture in my hands (better than on a museum wall, especially if under glass) is a completely different experience than the same image on a computer screen. Yes, I do visit galleries and museums to indulge in my passion for beautiful images.
But for my own picture-making I have to admit that for a long time I had forgotten this, in spite of many years in my own b&w wet darkroom. Color darkroom was out of reach for me in those times, so my color work I did in slide film, only too often having to realise that the soft rendering especially of the highlights was much nicer with CN films.
Entering serious photography with digital again, I mainstreamed too long in the many frames no/prints fraction. But meanwhile I have set myself a goal of 10 beautiful prints/month, meaning a reviewing/selection/meticulously editing process before I send my files to a lab that makes digital - C-prints! As they do it with profiled machines (and make the profiles available) I have a pretty good control over the results, at still marginal time and cost effort.
Yes, image making for me is tightly connected with prints - the photographic (aka "exact") rendering of a frame of the real world onto a two-dimensional surface. I don't get that completely on a computer screen only.
Well, to give you a direct answer to your questions, yes I have seen what I thought were excellent C prints and no I've never made any myself. I've had Cibachromes made made from my transparencies by respected printers in the UK, some of which still adorn our walls. However, I have to say that I can now look at them and say to myself "today, I could make a better interpretation of them using Photoshop and my own inkjet printer". I have to say though that making prints is still an extremely important part of my photographic journey. I'm not sure that I do care about "the above", except in passing interest as I try to maintain a mindset that keeps me in the here and now.
I did make a few small c-prints while in college many years ago, but the equipment, paper and chemicals were expensive so I stuck with B&W in my darkroom.
You are undoubtedly right about the skill and process becoming obsolete. And it is not the kind of thing someone could do without the materials... you can't make it yourself. For awhile I experimented with making gum bichromate prints. It was simple to make the emulsion and coat your own paper... but that certainly is not the case with chromogenic paper.