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Author Topic: Greenhorn on printing  (Read 1376 times)

Gigas

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Greenhorn on printing
« on: September 18, 2020, 12:32:05 pm »

Hello from Sweden! Thank you for letting me be part of this fine group of dedicated people. I got some black & white negatives from 1978 that I took on a tour in Israel. My camera at that time, was a Leica M-4 with 35mm Sumicron and a 90mm Sumicron, the latter made in Canada and Kodak Tri-X. Just turning 70, so I decided to get my self a new printer for printing som old and new images mostly in monochrome. I have been looking at Epson SC-P700 as a possible model as A3+ will be plenty for my needs. For paper Epson Premium Luster Photo Paper or Canson Infinity Baryta Photographic II. The quality of the pictures are not very good but for me, they are a little reminder of the old golden days. Is it difficult to get a decent result from what I have and will have?
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Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: Greenhorn on printing
« Reply #1 on: September 18, 2020, 08:38:24 pm »

If you have already had the negatives or darkroom prints from them scanned, the P700 should do just fine with either of those papers. If you just have negatives or darkroom prints, you will need to have them scanned. Epson printers can only print from digital images, passed to it from an image processing program, such as Photoshop or Lightroom (for your purposes a much simpler one should suffice.)

If you don't have an image processing program, try Googling "simple alternatives to Photoshop or Lightroom" for many suggested cheaper and simpler alternatives.

Good luck!
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-Eric Myrvaagnes (visit my website: http://myrvaagnes.com)

Gigas

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Re: Greenhorn on printing
« Reply #2 on: September 19, 2020, 03:58:05 pm »

Well I did use my camera and took pictures of the negatives because I do not have a good scanner. The quality looks good for me and change the negatives in SilkyPix 10 to a positive image. I wonder if there is a quality change between this way compared to scanning.
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langier

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Re: Greenhorn on printing
« Reply #3 on: September 19, 2020, 04:28:42 pm »

I helped a colleague shoot his father's negs and large-format color transparencies a few years ago with a D800. He was paying to the nose for drum scans and in a day or so we had digitized maybe 120 of the work for "smaller" prints. Up to 30x40 prints he was quite happy of the quality, but thought for larger, the drum was the better way to go, but for 95% of the time, using a light table and digital camera would do the job quite well.

A few months later when I "rescued" a collection of M4 and M3 bodies and lenses, I got a couple of bricks of Tri-X and had a blast shooting with several of the lenses.

After processing the film, I digitized the film chips complete with sprockets and printed a bunch on my Epson 9900 on Premium Luster, most as 24x24 prints. I could probably never have equalled the quality of these prints in the darkroom, though I have nearly 40 years experience printing. Best of all, I didn't have to spend the day and several sheets of paper to craft each image.

Though it's not the same thing as silver-gelatin print, I think they are better than what I could ever print in the darkroom.

With a little work, I'll bet you can improve your images from what you remember from years ago and will be quite pleased with your results. I know I was happy with the results I got!
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Larry Angier
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Gigas

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Re: Greenhorn on printing
« Reply #4 on: September 19, 2020, 04:55:39 pm »

Thank you Eric and Langler for your comments. I found an old Olympus slide copier and rigged that one up. I got no macro lens that will go that close for copying 24x36mm so I tried my 135mm Zeiss Apo Sonar with a achromatic lens in front of the Zeiss and i looks quite ok to me. Maybe a good 135 film-scanner would do even a better jobb but this is my limit today.
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Gigas

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Re: Greenhorn on printing
« Reply #5 on: September 27, 2020, 08:55:12 am »

The fact is that the new Epson SC-P700 is not I stock and it will take at least another month before delivery. I am thinking about another route to go. What I like to print is only monochrome, black and white images but with very nice grey tones. There is some printers with 2 blacks and 2 grey and even 3 grey cartridges. Is it possible to maybe find a Epson 600, 3000 or 3880 and get hold of inc for black and white only. Also a software for the ”new” type of printing. Is it possible way to go, what do you think?
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Gigas

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Re: Greenhorn on printing
« Reply #6 on: September 27, 2020, 09:18:19 am »

Sorry Epson SC-P600, Epson Stylus Pro 3800 and 3880 it is!
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Gigas

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Re: Greenhorn on printing
« Reply #7 on: September 28, 2020, 12:38:28 pm »

Thank you all and I got a Epson SC-P600 for my black and white prints.
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