Color Pigment Output: Canon IPF-8300 Lucia pigments and HP-Z3100 Vivera pigments:

The color output is set up to produce the greatest possible permanence without sacrificing color gamut. I start with a good scan or direct digital capture, optimize it, and output on custom profiled Canon Prograf 8300 44" wide printer, or the HP Z3100 44" wide printer. Both have the ability to reproduce photographs, paintings, drawings, or other 2D artworks very accurately, while at the same time produce a level of permanence not readily available in a photo or digital process until fairly recently. The kind of color rendition we output ranges from the high saturation high resolution results that supass the dynamic range achieved with traditional "Type C", Lightjet, or Lambda prints, to the soft delicate pastel qualities previously the domain of Iris, platinum, or multi-color silkscreen prints. Both the quality and permanence of these processes are influenced by the type of media used. However, accurate color and tonality can be reproduced (and expanded upon) on almost any coated media we have tried. The Canon has a larger color gamut in some colors for certain applications and is great for major editions due to it's speed and effeciency. The Z3100 uses color and neutral gray pigments that have shown from three major testing facilities to have by far the most lightfast inkjet pigments (for color prints) in use today. It can also quickly profile any specialized alternative media internally with its onboard Eye One color spectrometer within 20 minutes. For more information about this pigment process see our data in Permanence page.

HpZ3100 And IPF 8300 Monochrome

With the HPZ3100, neutral or toned, extremely stable monochrome prints are also possible and this is what I use for monochrome work done on both matte papers as well as the new generation of fiber gloss/semi-gloss papers such as those made by Harmon and and Hahnemuhle. The dmax of this ink set on these papers is exceptional and gray ink only approach with the gloss enhancer channel on many gloss papers is totally smooth and uniform. Depending on the papers used, the image color is either a selenium tone color or neutral color. If color inks are added to the mix any monochrome hue is possible. With this set up we can match specific print color of various darkroom prints if necessary. The color and gray inks of this inkset are designed to fade at the same rate over the very long term in order to avoid any color shifting in the distant future. This longevity equalization is unique to the Vivera inkset

The Canon IPF8300 monochrome output can produce first class black and white prints on all matte rag media. It is expecially innovative on gloss and gloss fiber media like the Harmon Baryta and Hahnemuhle Photorag Baryta that we use to simulate gelatin silver air dried darkroom prints. This capability has come a long way in the last few years, with the Canon Lucia's much improved gloss differiental and bronzing performance. We are now using the True Black and White rip by BowHas for the Canon bw prints that brings a degree of hue uniformity that no oem inkset I've ever seen can equal. The True Black and White rip turns off all the problem color channels, utlizing the gray and black pigment channels for neutral prints but also allows hue toning capabiliy for subtle hue alterations for warmer or cooler prints if you are tryting to match the print color of a previously made analogue print for instance. Neutral prints have no color pigments utlized at all, so no metameriam or potential color shifting in the future will be a factor. With the True Black and White software from BowHaus the surface appearance of the Canon 8300 printer on the Harmon papers, natural white and warm surfaces, render prints that are so close to traditional gelatin silver prints that even while holding in your hands it is difficult to tell they are pigments at all.

Drum Scanning

Why would anyone want to get involved in very high-end drum scanning these days in a world where film and photo labs are vanishing before our eyes. I can think of two good reasons, which is why I decided to continue it.

First, there are still a lot of folks left in this world (including myself) who can not afford the hardware of a very expensive large format digital camera back. And if we could we might be afraid to take it out of the house. So we still shoot 4x5, 5x7, and 8x10 sheet film, or medium format and medium format panoramas that easily fit on the 12" drum. Drum scans from this kind of film can go as big as we can print if they are done from quality film, espeially if it is fine grain film, can even out perform these very expensive large format digital backs and allow prints to be made that are more subtle and larger than you can imagine. There is an art to making great drum scans as there is with great prints and it just isn't a matter of hardware and software, though that is critical, it is also a matter of taking your time and doing things carefully, another thing that is disappearing from the earth.

Second, there exists tons of archived film from photograpers of the last 100 years that is just begging to be scanned, cleaned up and printed or saved for future generations. As a matter of fact, most of the great photography that exists in the world today was captured on film. If that film was color it is already starting to deteoriate if it hasn't already, and it is just a matter of time before it is totally lost. If it was shot on black and white film and carefully processed (rare) there are so many things that can be done to enhace, enlarge, or finesse that imagery these days that many people have not even considered .

Remember when the largest size we would go from a well made 35mm bw negative was about 16x20 inches? Well now scanning it at 8000 ppi optical will allow you to go just about a large as you would want to print it. If the aperture of the scanner is manually chosen, from the evidence of tests, the way I do it, you also have the smoothest grain capture possible. Of course fluid mounting to the drum removes the scratches and any dust is eliminated and the dynamic range is increased. And unlike any other type of film scanner, the film is totally flat on the drum and can't render some areas that are scanned in a different focal plane from other areas. Everything is guaranteed to be the same exact degree of sharpness across the film..

I have offered Howtek 4000 dpi drum scanning to my clients for the last 7 years and we've done a lot of fine exhibiton and portfolio work from these files over the years. These days however, with the prices coming down on the very hightest quality drum scanners, I have added the Aztek DPL Hi-Resolve 8000 scanner to the aresnal. This unit combined with the Digital Photo Lab Pro version software, is as good as it gets for film scanning. Not only am I able to scan transparencies and black and white negative material to very exacting standards, but also unlike the past, color negative film of all sizes as well. This scanner will scan up to 8x10 inch film @ 8000 ppi or smaller resolutions at 16 bit color depth and an aperture down to 3 microns (a micron is 1/1,000th of a milimeter in diameter and can deal with all kinds of film grain types). It can also scan flat art that is not mounted up to 8.5x11inches, renderiing more information that you even relaized was there. The DPL software allows us to produce custom calibration media settings from any film type on the fly, whether the film is still made or not, to render the most accurate color and smoothest tonal range, while giving the sharpest result possible. This keeps you from having to do radical tonal adjustments in Photoshop which can be quite damaging to the file. Discounts are possible for very large scanning jobs such as preserving valuable film archives or smaller drawings, etchings, or lithographs in quantiy for preservation and exhibiton purposes. All scans are produced and given to the client in 16 bit RGB Tiff format.