Digital negative questions. What is the resolution bottleneck?

[Alex W]

Hi folks,
Being a photographer by trade I'm going to be pretty quite this year. I've always loved alternative process and contact printing but really enjoy the flexibility of a digital camera. It seems like with digital negatives I can have my cake and eat it too!

I have a couple of basic questions.
I own an Epson P600 and will upgrade to the P700 where you no longer need to swap in the black inkset apparently. Is this Epson monochrome ink set good enough to print high quality digital negs for 8x10 contact printing or do i need to investigate all the other options like Piezo?

I use a Nikon D850 for work and am currently looking at both the Fuji GFX and Z systems. Assuming that the next Z gets the 61mp sensor from Sony which is simply scaled up to the 100MP GFX sensor, will i get the same negative printing good files from either cam? Is the limiting factor of the final 8x10 the paper, the printer or the camera?

[ColourPhil]

I think that the Black inks are changing for the P700/900. Epson are claiming a higher D-max, and some kind of 'overprinting' technology.
Cheers,
Phil

[nirpat89]

Are you planning to do commercially available silver gelatin or hand coated processes like platinum, gum etc.  Either way though for 8x10, all of the cameras cited would be more than sufficient if not an overkill. 

P600 has been used quite successfully for a myriad of alternative processes so you should be fine with that too.  Depending on the process if the black ink is not sufficiently dense, you might have to use the colorized approach.  Again for 8x10, if you are happy with the physical inkjet print, digital negative is no different.  Contact printing if done properly should result in little or no loss in resolution for glossy silver gelatin, as far as I know.  For hand-coated prints, the paper and coating plays the dominant role - which will be the obvious bottle neck in terms of resolution.  But then in making alternative process prints, resolution is not of utmost importance for most people. 

I guess the best way to see is to try out.

:Niranjan.

[aaronchan]

I do alt process, platinum & palladium for living.
I have tried all Piezography Pro ink, Piezography K7 and Epson OEM inks and Piezography does the best job.
But here is the thing, when I say the best result, i mean the resolution on the negative, not on the print.
I have done some test by printing a resolution chart with different printers and different ink combination on pictorico trans film.
Piezo K7 and Piezo Pro are very close, and the OEM inks is the last.
BUT, on the print, they all look pretty much the same.
Yes, the P600 is a little bit finer than my other big printers since P600's head can spray out 1.5pl rather than 3.5, but like what I've said, all the prints are pretty much the same.

If you really wanna go for ptpd prints, go get Richard Boutwell's software, the hardest part is the get a right curve for your negs which his software could do all of them for you.

aaron

[MfAlab]

If the resolution difference could be seen on films but not on prints, maybe you should improve the contact print process. mostly, vacuum pump and UV light collimation

I do alt process, platinum & palladium for living.
I have tried all Piezography Pro ink, Piezography K7 and Epson OEM inks and Piezography does the best job.
But here is the thing, when I say the best result, i mean the resolution on the negative, not on the print.
I have done some test by printing a resolution chart with different printers and different ink combination on pictorico trans film.
Piezo K7 and Piezo Pro are very close, and the OEM inks is the last.
BUT, on the print, they all look pretty much the same.
Yes, the P600 is a little bit finer than my other big printers since P600's head can spray out 1.5pl rather than 3.5, but like what I've said, all the prints are pretty much the same.

If you really wanna go for ptpd prints, go get Richard Boutwell's software, the hardest part is the get a right curve for your negs which his software could do all of them for you.

aaron