Digital BW, The Print

> Part of me prefers my old air-dried "glossy" silver-print 
> surface to a matte inkjet paper, but I would not trade away 
> the ability to tape hang prints as opposed to dry mounting 
> them.  I have yet to see a display print on a glossy or 
> semi-gloss surface that did not need dry mounting or 
> something like that.
> 
> Do you think a large display print on this new paper could be 
> displayed and stay perfectly flat without dry mounting?
> 
> Paul
> www.PaulRoark.com 

	
In the olden days, my friends would use tape or mounting corners for their
fiber prints, for "archival" reasons, although I dry mounted.  This made me
think of some of the liberating things of "going digital":  

1. No dry mounting with heavy papers.  Dry mounting was as much fun as
mowing the lawn.

2. No film developing.  See above re fun quotient.  

3. No cleaning up the darkroom.  Now I might wipe a little dust off the
monitor or clean up a ring on the desk from a brewski if I forgot to grab a
CD coaster.

4. No set film speed - just dial in as needed from 100 to 1600 or even more
if needed, watching the histogram.  (The film speeds were different with
film also, but that was because of the exposure or developer used)

5. No tripod most of the time.  Or at least a smaller tripod.  Flying now
with the tripod for the 8x10 camera is interesting.

6. No baggage with tripping the shutter.  With 4gb microdrives and Photo
Mechanic, just take some different views and edit in the PC.

7. The ability to reproduce a print easily.  I store the soft-proof
adjustments and it is just a matter of dropping one into the IP queue until
they change the paper on you.

8. The ability to make great color prints without blowing half a day in the
darkroom.  No filters, just the WhiBal cards.

9. Last, but certainly not least, no changing film holders in the hotel
bathroom when you really want to hit the bar with your friends.

A good time to be a photographer, no?

Regards,

Ken Carney
www.kencarney.com