Vladamir30 wrote:

Very likely true, maybe in boxes from China. I see nothing wrong with
scanning, or digital printing, except for B/W.

Possibly you've never seen a digital black and white print made by someone
who really knows what they're doing, e.g. George DeWolfe.

Yes, I have. While it is definitely my opinion, I still feel that these prints
are not the same as true B/W prints. Bottom line on this is that I do not like
the quality of the prints, and I will not mistake them for true B/W prints.

That is not to say that they cannot be very well done high quality images. On
the contrary, I find many of these digitally printed B/W images to be very
aesthetically pleasing, and very nice compelling compositions. The method of
printing does not invalidate the fact that I like the images.

Since taking
George's digital black and white printing course at the Palm Beach
Photographic Workshops a couple years ago I've been scanning my 4x5 and 8x10
negatives and printing B&W digitally. I do the same with my 6x7 negatives
if the print won't be larger than 8x10, hardware limitations of my
relatively inexpensive scanner prevent me from making quality prints larger
than that from 6x7 so I still use my traditional darkroom for that very
limited purpose. I think the greatly enhanced control, the ability to make
tiny changes impossible in a traditional darkroom, the ability to easily
experiment and see different possibilities instantaneously on the monitor
all add up to a preferable way, for me at least, of making black and white
prints. I participate in a group of large format photographers that has been
meeting once a month for 8 or so years now. Three years ago only one person
in the group printed black and white digitally, today only one person
doesn't.

I took the Dan Burkholder digital negative and platinum printing workshop in
1997. I don't see anything wrong with those techniques, of others using similar
techniques.

I also do pre-press preparation as part of my work (I am not just a
photographer). I have seen incredibly well done offset and gravure prints done
from scanned B/W images, many that I have prepared for publication. I even have
several samples done using four to eight Pantone inks (all blacks), and those
are amazingly good.

Despite all those quality examples, I still like true chemical B/W prints. I do
like the Burkholder method of creating digital contact negatives, and I have
used that for some of my images. I guess I just like true B/W prints so much
that they are always my first choice. Inkjet or Gicleé B/W is far down my list
of choices.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio
http://www.allgstudio.com