Having spent rather too much time in the last couple of weeks printing from my black and white negs for the the English Carnival show I was interested to see a feature on Tyler Boley‘s ‘Custom Digital‘ blog, B&W print quality which compares some of the best currently available printing systems with conventional silver printing.
Boley’s feature has its limitations; for one thing it looks at inkjet systems for printing on matte paper (Hahnemuhle Photorag 308g) , although it does include Epson’s ABW which will also work on gloss papers. I actually like matte prints, but their qualities are rather different from those of glossy prints (and matte inkjet prints are rather different and generally tonally superior to matte silver prints) although of course these differences are reduced by framing under glass.
Despite these, the results are really interesting, and clearly show the superiority both of prints produced using the latest rather pricey StudioPrint Rip with a dual quad ink setup and the more “off the shelf” and considerably cheaper QTR (Quad Tone Rip) used with the Selenium K7 inkset from Jone Cone, which proves to be the ultimate currently available inkjet solution (and there is a special edition for the low-price Epson 1400.)
What is also clear is that a contact print from the silver negative still has a considerable edge over ink when examined at a micro level (on the linked page with larger examples, a 0.24 inch wide section of the print displays at around 8.5 inches – around 35x magnification). Boley asks if these differences matter, if we can actually see these differences viewing the actual print and his answer is: “I think you can, given certain images, and viewing conditions, and eyesight.”
Looking at my actual prints on the exhibition wall, where they are shown along with the work of two other photographers printing on silver, my own conclusions based on prints produced by the most primitive of the methods Boley compares, Epson ABW, is that, for at least the kind of photography we do, the differences are not important. My prints stand comparison – at least in terms of print quality. Everyone I’ve talked to has been surprised to be told they are inkjet.
Looking at Boley’s results, the most surprising difference to me is actually between the drum scan and the contact print. As he notes, the scan has more detail but also considerably enhanced local edge-contrast, which he attributes to the highly collimated light source.
The silver print used in the comparison was a contact print, which might make sense for photographers working on 8×10 film, but perhaps not for the rest of us (I have shot only a handful of 8×10’s and none that produced a picture I would ever want to print.) Typically I’m working with 10-15x linear enlargements from 35mm film (and scans at a slightly higher resolution than Boley used) and I suspect that this makes the difference between inkjet and silver print considerably less – even when looked at highly enlarged.
So, I’ve just taken two prints from the same negative, both 15×10″ prints (I made the inkjet to fit the same overmat) and scanned a small section of both at 4800dpi (the highest optical resolution of my flatbed.) The prints were not made to be identical in contrast or density – but printed as I felt the negative should be printed roughly 10 years apart. The silver print was on Ilford Multigrade Fibre-Bass glossy and air-dried. The inkjet was printed using an Epson Photo R2400 using the K3 inks and Epson ABW printing on Permajet Fibre Base Gloss.
The differences between the two scans are noticeable when viewed at full size on my screen, equivalent to viewing the full print at billboard size from a couple of feet. Viewed like this, the inkjet image is slightly dottier and less sharp, but there is little difference in detail.
Reducing the image to a size so that the whole 32mm height of each scan will fit on the screen, here’s what I saw – remember the contrast and density differences were deliberate:
Detail: Epson ABW print (original 32mm high)
Detail: Silver print (original 32mm high)
There are small differences in detail in favour of silver, but they are relatively small (and on my screen I’m still looking at a 5x linear enlargement of the print) and not visible at actual print size. Because I had deliberately chosen to reduce the contrast of this area of the print when making the inkjet it’s perhaps hard to decide whether there is any real difference in sharpness, but again I think there is very slight advantage to the silver print. It’s also difficult to be sure that the slightly smoother appearance of the inkjet is also simply a matter of contrast.
It would have been better to choose an example where I had produced a print that more closely resembled the silver print, but those are mainly up on the gallery wall. But the real point of these two scans is not the minor differences but the close similarity. Without the contrast differences I would have been hard put to decide which was from the silver and which the inkjet print. Viewed at normal size, holding the prints in my hand there are no real quality differences, and I’m not sure which I prefer.
Boley’s is a considerably more careful study than my brief couple of scans, and clearly shows the superiority of the Cone K7 method over the Epson ABW (which seems to be gaining acceptance as some kind of fine-art inkjet standard.) If you want the highest possible quality matte black and white prints, K7 (K6 on six ink printers) is the current ‘state of the art.’ Cone inks for use on glossy papers are promised but not yet available. Epson ABW may not reach quite the same standard in several respects but produces excellent results and can give great prints on glossy papers as well.