Toronto Photography Meetup Group

I was wondering about Gicl

[quote="mike"]I was wondering about Gicl

Thanks Ken!

Just a fancy word for inkjet printing, but using specialty papers for fine art prints. There's a whole lot of paper out there and each one yields its own distinct feel to an image. Add B&W printing to that and its different as well.

Moab, Canson, Red River, Ilford, are more popular fine art paper brands and generally are sold by sheets (10, 15, 25, 50) or by the roll and they are pricey .

In a nutshell, a simple workflow from image to print is:

1. negative - RAW, Adobe RGB
2. Monitor - calibrated
3. Editing - Colorspace Adobe RGB or ProPhoto
4. Paper - profiled
5. Printer - calibrated

It's hard to judge how the crop will affect quality from percentages but I have printed at that size using 8 MP from a 20D and no problems.

I generally print using PSD and here the reason why. (TIP) when the image is ready to be printed, I duplicate the file and put them side by side in CS4. The original would be the control, the duplicate I would open under VIEW - PROOF SET UP - DEVICE TO SIMULATE enter the paper profile of the target paper. You can now compare your control image against a proof.

Hope this helps.

Besides what has been already said you might find it's worth while to go to a place like pikto to tryout the different papers. I've seen a red violin that had so much depth and colour realism on one paper but looked flat like water colour on on another paper. Matching the paper with the subject can make or break the result.

Thanks for the tips everyone.

Another question

Inks from Epson on the model I use are guaranteed (according to them) to last 75 years or more. B&W's are 100+ yrs, but taking care that you use measures to protect them from extreme heat and cold and direct sunlight and use materials that are acid free.

An archival point to consider this time on the paper itself are OBAs (optical brightening agents) as coating or within the paper itself. Brightening agents make your paper appear white. It is already a fact that OBAs will fade in time and this is the reason why your old photos turn yellow. It is simply the paper going back to its natural base color. http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/news.18.html , http://www.outbackprint.com/printingins ... essay.html To go OBA or OBA free is a personal choice and one you should be aware.

Matching your image with the paper will require experience ( from a printer) or several print tests if you're doing it yourself to get what you really want. I follow printers who have tested a particular paper I'm interested in otherwise it will be a very expensive experience.

If you want a truly archival print make a toned (selenium/sepia) B&W silver gelatin print on fibre base paper or if you are able to contact print, make a platinum/palladium print.

NONE of the commercially available colour prints are truly archival. However, if you don't care if your prints retain their colour fidelity for more than 30-40 years then you're probably best off using a lambda or lightjet chromogenic print or a high quality giclee prints on the best paper that suits the aesthetic you want to achieve.

The only archival colour prints are carbon pigmentation prints and tri/four colour gum prints. Cibachromes when they were available were probably the best colour prints but still not truly archival.

AIPAD has a glossary that you may find interesting:

http://www.aipad.com/glossary/

Also see:
Paul Messier's site on photographic conservation - particularly "Colour Photographs: A Timeline" in the list of links on the page below:

http://paulmessier.com/pm/papers.html

wow. Thanks for all the info!

I think at this time, I'm still not making pictures destined for very long term display or storage. I suppose something like cheap-ish (in comparison) Epson inks, 20-30 year colour longevity is good enough(?)

On second thought, there are a few baby photos which would be good to keep for a long time, if only because they were the only records of the moment.

Where's a good print shop to get these things done? I'm leaning towards Pikto to get my feet wet with prints, but don't know any others.

My feeling is that if it's worth printing (whether for personal, commercial or strictly archival intentions) it's worth printing it to the highest quality available given current technology. You pay a premium but if the print is significant to you, then it's worth it. Think of it this way, even if you're a hobbyist you've probably invested at least a thousand dollars (if not a few thousand as many on this forum have) on a decent/mid-level dSLR and lenses to obtain the highest image quality you can reasonably afford. Does it really make sense to then save a few bucks on the final print which is the manifestation of all the technology, your skill and personal aesthetic?

I've used torontoimageworks, pikto (years ago) and have had mixed and sometimes very disappointing results. Most recently, I've been doing all my printing at elevatordigital.ca - they are out of the way but the quality is worth the drive and collaborative approach they take is more than worth the premium.

Once you get your home computer/screen calibrated you can use their bulk printing option and they will mail the prints to you if you don't need them mounted.

What paper you use for what aesthetics I really can't help you as it is a personal choice.

As Ken has said Elevator is an excellent printer, if you can use their bulk printing then you get the best of both worlds excellent printing at relatively low cost. Unlike TIW who only has one they have 3 choices of photographic paper plus some Gicl

Unless an artist can control the storage/presentation of a print, I think it is best to avoid making the claim that any print is "archival".

Two separate issues here - the print and the storage/presentation. While archival may seem to be a nebulous term, there are widely accepted standards for quality. No print will last forever however some prints are more permanent than others.

An artist can certainly claim a print is archival/high permanence if it is produced using archival materials vs one that uses less than archival/permanence materials. It is relative, not absolute.

How an owner chooses to store/present it is up to him/herself, however the artist is obliged to educate the buyer/owner about the relative advantages and disadvantages of different methods.

A chromogenic print is not archival (widely accepted fact in the photographic art world).

Henry Wilhelm of Wilhelm Imaging Research states that

Thanks for the links.

On http://www.shutterbug.com/industryvoice ... ndex1.html

There is a handy table for inkjet prints on the link above. Seems like the easiest way to get the most longevity out of your prints (regardless of what type of printing is utilized) is to have it properly framed under 100% UV filtering glass, which (if I'm reading it correctly) implies a 4x increase in lifespan vs. the standard used in paper dating generally (which is behind 30% glass).