Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/02/25

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Subject: [Leica] Re: It's so easy..
From: Bill Lawlor <wvl@infinex.com>
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 11:53:19 -0800

"It used to
take me 30 minutes to Ilfochrome a slide or 45 minutes to print a negative;
 now, I can scan and print within 5 minutes.  I will keep my darkroom up
for the critical work but I doubt if I'll be doing much of my routine work
there.

I really have been impressed by the quality of the prints.

Marc"
......................................

Marc, welcome to the revolution!
I haven't wet a print in two years. I have four enlargers gathering dust. I
will never process RA-4 again, but I'm reserving judgement about B&W
because I haven't been able to make a decent B&W print with inkjet, yet.
The old slide collection has become a treasure trove of usable images from
my life.

I had the Epson 1640 with TPU, now the 3200 TPU. I scan 645 negs and slides
to 16 bit 220 M files. After PS and conversion to 8 bit I print up to 13X19
on an Epson 1270 or send the files by ftp to pictopia.com for printing
16X20 and up by laserjet on Fuji Crystal Archive RA-4 paper. In my home I
have framed and matted 645 Reala images printed in the darkroom, on the
Epson 1270 and from pictopia.com. Nobody, even photographers can tell the
difference. Now Epson had a new flatbed 4800 scanner with true Digital ICE
which is amazing at the price.

I use a Nikon 4000 for 35mm, but some comparison tests betweeen the Epson
32200 and the Nikon set at 3200 are sobering. The can be pretty close when
you spend a lot of time optimizing the flatbed scan.

I have some top quality drum scans (Tango) of Reala 645 negs that are
beautiful. The same negs scanned on the 3200 are distinguishable mainly by
blown out hilights and fine resolution. However, most of my images seem to
scan well on the 3200. Same goes for transparency films. I don't have a
website but I could send you some jpegs if you like.

I've heard rumors that HP has inkjets that will make beautiful B&W prints.
If true, I'll probably donate the enlargers to a school.

Regards, Bill Lawlor


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Replies: Reply from "Gerry Walden" <gwpics@aol.com> (Re: [Leica] Re: It's so easy..)
Reply from Peter Dzwig <pdzwig@summaventures.com> (Re: [Leica] Re: It's so easy..)
Reply from Tina Manley <images@InfoAve.Net> (RE: [Leica] Re: It's so easy..)