[Leica] Film recorder services

[hlritter at bex.net (Howard Ritter)]

Thanks to all who answered. I appreciate the link to the Saloon Keeper's 
talk. Even if I were as compulsive as Brian is, the process would still stop 
when I can't move a mouse or speak to my computer any more, and I still like 
the idea of preservation on an archival analog medium. If there's no 
practical way to get digital files printed to silver emulsion any longer, I 
like the idea of making the best possible inkjet prints in the largest 
format practicable and storing them dark and dry. If the object is to make 
another print, not much would be lost in very carefully scanning an 8 x 12 
print made with excruciating care, or even taking a photo of a 20 x 30 
print, and then printing it, exercising great care and technical expertise 
at every step.

Another possibility, along the lines of the film recorder, is to display the 
image on the highest-quality monitor possible and photograph that on 35mm 
Ektachrome or color negative film using the lens best suited to 
high-resolution, distortion-free close-range work. The highest pixel count I 
know of is the MacBook Pro 15" laptop with Retina display, which has 1800 
pixels along its short side. A full-screen display of a FF image would have 
1800 pixels per inch of the camera's sensor. This is well short of the 4000 
or so that a film scanner and the M typ 240 give, and in theory short of 
what an 8 x 12 print at 300 dpi has, but the greater dynamic range of a 
contemporary LCD screen might be a good tradeoff with respect to the print. 
And eventually Retina technology will make its way to the Mac's biggest 
display, so the count should go up to the equivalent of 2500 dpi or so, 
around 10 Mpix for the whole image, making for a very decent rendering to 
photograph.

Someone should offer silver-emulsion archiving online. Any venture 
capitalists on the LUG?

?howard


On Mar 26, 2014, at 8:32 PM, Ken Carney <kcarney1 at cox.net> wrote:

> Howard,
> 
> My only experience has been using an imagesetter for making films for 
> pt/pd printing (ancient technology, not good) and inkjet films for same 
> (borderline OK for pt/pd, not for silver really).  I'm sure people like 
> Salgado have more advanced procedures available.  But, it is a good 
> question.  My grandchildren will probably ask, what was wi-fi and why did 
> grandpa need a separate device of some kind for the internet?  I would 
> probably look into dark storage for an inkjet print with non-destructive 
> inks.  Just a good letter-sized print will probably produce a great 
> wall-sized reproduction 100 years from now.
> 
> Ken