[rollei_list] Re: Enlarger versus printer?
- From: Kirk Thompson <thompsonkirk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Rollei List <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 29 Oct 2011 17:46:56 -0700
A few thoughts; some may have better ideas:
1. To some extent, what you observed is just a difference between BW & highly
saturated color. Large areas of saturated color will force you to see an image
in a more 2D way, as if it were an abstract expressionist painting.
2. Also it's about the combination of film and printing process. Don't expect
too much from hyper-color films like Velvia & Ektar 100 with inkjet printing.
These films generate more color saturation than most of us are aware of in the
mind's eye. As the Wiki puts it, Velvia 50 'has brighter and generally more
accurate color reproduction (though many see its high color saturation as
unrealistic).' That's why some folks call it 'Velveeta.'
Highly saturated images push scanners and inkjet printers to the limits of
their gamut or beyond, especially in the hands of commercial or amateur
printers. At that point, tonal differentiations collapse into relatively
undifferentiated blobs of color, and the sense of 3-dimensionality contributed
by gentler tonal shifts is reduced.
To make color film and printing work together as a system, one has to work from
the strengths of both. Slide film has a greater Dmax, because you don't print
from an orange film base. With reversal film, Ciba/Ilfochrome was
complementary in the sense that what you saw in the slide seemed to be carried
out in the printing process. But inkjet prints from scanned slides don't
always give that satisfaction.
Inkjet/giclee printing has other strengths, especially in the midrange of
saturation. An inkjet printer can produce subtle colors and tonal gradations,
but these will come from a color film that 'wants' to be treated that way, for
example the new Portra negative films (supposedly improved for scanning).
Color negative films, with more latitude but less Dmax, can yield great inkjet
color prints. If you put a gentler film together with the subtler printing
process, you'll get smoother tonal gradations and more interesting colors (from
some people's standpoint); and also you'll maximize the 3D appearance of your
prints – though it may still not match what you appreciate in BW.
3. For high saturation you could try Type C color prints. The late Galen
Rowell used Velvia and ended up having it laser-printed on Type C Fuji Crystal
Archive paper by Pictopia.
Kirk
> Subject: [rollei_list] Enlarger versus printer?
> From: starboy0@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Sat, 29 Oct 2011 15:57:53 -0500
> To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> So I have now sent 7 rolls through the Rollei TLR. 6 rolls of black and
> white and 1 of Velvia 50.
>
> I have a number of full frame prints from those rolls on 11x14 fiber paper.
> I have noticed something quite different between the black and white prints
> and the color prints. I'm wondering why? And if it's just an incorrect
> perception.
>
> The color prints made from the slides are technically perfect: colors spot
> on with that Velvia saturation and the resolution perfect. But I think these
> were printed with ink and to me there is a flat look to them.
>
> The black and whites were printed with an enlarger and have a luminous
> quality that the color prints don't. I'm wondering what is causing that
> perception? Something real or just expectations.
>
> I have been in and out of photography since the 60's and one of my "out"
> phases was just recently when digital took over. I am completed ignorant of
> the differing technologies used to make prints these days.
>
> In any case I just got a Rollei for that bigger negative size and of course
> it is a camera I have dreamed of having since I was a little kid.
>
> Take care,
> Bob James
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