[Leica] The Slippery Slope

[richard-lists at imagecraft.com (Richard)]

At 06:58 AM 11/9/2005, Walt Johnson wrote:

>Richard:
>
>I have a question about your darkroom plans. WHY? Adobe Photoshop and a 
>$300 dollar Epson 1280 would allow you to make better images. Darkrooms 
>are wet, smelly, expensive and sometimes caustic. Additionally, they are a 
>pain in the ass.

Well, I am doing that digital darkroom now - I have both the LS-4000 and 
the Minolta Elite scanner and I have been scanning B&W negs and printing 
them with the 1280 and the HP 7960.

The thinking goes like this - the 1280 with the UT-FT2 inks makes quite 
good B&W prints, but wouldn't it be fun to try making digital negatives and 
then make contact prints on fiber paper or other alternative process... 
That doesn't seem much of a stretch.

Then I say, wait a minute, but I really don't use Photoshop much anyway 
except for cropping, which can be done on an enlarger easily, and minor 
curve adjustment, which is somewhat handle by contrast and different grade 
paper... so if I get enough stuff for making contact prints, then I can 
just get an enlarger and be done with it...

I expect most of the prints will still be done using the digital darkroom...

// richard (This email is for mailing lists. To reach me directly, please 
use richard at imagecraft.com)