August one day print for all

image by: Gary Noel • www.garynoel.com

We had a great turnout for our 60 Minutes of Printing for $60 event. Some very talented photographers/artists showed up to take advantage of the program. It was nice to make some BIG prints for artists/photographers projects that had great merit, but needed their own financial stimulus plan. Often times photographers are cost conscious and therefore limit the size of their prints even though they know a certain image will look better larger. By charging a flat rate for the hour most photographers opted for large prints and took full advantage of their one hour time slot; And in Karen Fuchs lucky position, where the appointment after her was a no show,  she had a 2 hour time slot in which she printed 6 30” x 40” prints! Some of the images we had the privilege of printing:

image by: Karen Fuchs • www.karenfuchs.com

“am in love with my prints, and so excited to finally have something for my own walls!”

image by: Erica Simone

image by: Erica Mcdonald • www.ericamcdonaldphoto.com

Ken Allen Digital completes exhibit for the House of the Americas centennial exhibit.

http://www.museum.oas.org/exhibitions.html
House of the Americas Turns 100: Paul Philippe Cret and the Architecture of Dialogue An exhibition on the Organization of American States (OAS) Headquarters Building

Ken Allen Digital located in Alexandria, VA recently completed the printing, fabrication and installation of the graphics for this centennial celebration. Working with Pure + Applied, a design firm in New York, the exhibit transformed the entire first floor of the Art Museum of the Americas located at 201 18th Street, NW Washington, DC.

12 foot by 25 foot wall graphic

Full-size wall graphics reproduce the original building plans on a large scale – 12 feet tall and up to 25 feet long – to dramatic effect.
This exhibit is one of the first using a new medium that has better density and color than the standard wall vinyls. Seams are more invisible and the polypropylene base is uniquely strong for its light weight, allowing for greater versatility and better installation results.
KAD began the project by digitizing and retouching almost 50 vintage photographs from the collections of OAS, setting up a temporary digitization system on-site in their library. Photographs were scanned at a very high resolution of up to 1200ppi to allow for extreme enlargement and rendering of all photographic details.

Scholarly Paper on modern aspects of the art book

This free access article is a good, thought provoking read for any of you photographers publishing art books:

Catherine M. Soussloff and William Tronso, The Aesthetics of Publishing: The Art Book as Object from Print to Digital

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a791584676

Bamboo Paper

Bamboo

In a continuous effort to keep our studio green, we now stock:

Hahnemühle’s new Bamboo Paper 290gsm, 90% Bamboo Fiber, 10% Cotton Natural White

Bamboo is the world’s first digital fine art inkjet paper made from bamboo fibers with resource-saving paper production.

We are starting to test this paper and are very happy with the results.  Call us or stop by to give this paper a try.

All my best and keep it green.

Ken

Pigment Ink Prints vs. C-prints

For the past decade, digital c-prints have been accepted as the standard for color fine art prints. They produce a print with rich color and soft tones. C-prints have been used by the best fine art photographers, including Richard Prince, Andreas Gursky, and Cindy Sherman. With the rise of the fine art photography market, prices for fine art prints are soaring, but even the most recent Fuji c-prints only have a longevity of 40 years displayed under glass. When a collector has paid over $100,000 for a photograph, this is a problem.

In 1991, the first digital fine art photography printing company, Nash Editions in California, opened for business with an Iris 3047. Almost from the beginning, there was a concern about the lack of permanence in these prints. Dye-based inksets were soon developed with improved longevity. In 1999, beta testing was begun for the Epson Stylus Pro 9500 large-format printer which, unlike the Iris printers, were able to use archival pigment inks. Today, the best fine art photography printers, including Nash Editions, use pigment ink printers exclusively.

Depending on the support used, pigment ink prints can last for over 200 years* displayed in frames with a UV filter or in dark storage. Besides increased longevity over other forms of digital fine art printing, pigment ink printing also provides finer detail, smoother gradation, deeper blacks, and a wider color gamut than other formats. There is a wider selection of papers to choose from. With options ranging from bright white to natural, you can create perfectly neutral black and white as well as sepia-tone images.

The only remaining advantage of c-prints is that large photolabs can produce huge quantities of prints faster and more cheaply than most inkjet printers. For short-term commercial applications, c-prints are the best. For fine art photographers however, there is no advantage.

At PhotoPlus 2006, Joel Meyerowitz stated that digital pigment ink printing today has, “Greater capacity to reveal the subtlety of the color image, compared to c-prints …. Inkjet printing has truly arrived.”

– ken

* See http://wilhelm-research.com/epson/11880.html

Next up: Vernacular Photos

Pigment ink printing information

Here’s another great resource to learn about pigment ink printing. It’s rare to find an accurate resource, but so far everything I’ve read on this site conforms with my research:

http://people.csail.mit.edu/ericchan/dp/Epson3800/faq.html

Eric Chan’s comments include, basic printing how to’s, color management and black and white printing information.

-ken

Initial Information On Canon Lucia® Pigment Ink Permanence

I was always looking for a good overview on inkjet printing to help explain how it’s come of age. Especially since many of the old technologies like the Iris prints have had fading and other issues that many of the new inkjet printers do not have.

Pay special attention to the last entries in the history, IE. the Epson Ultrachrome K3 and the Canon Lucia 12 ink printers. The print permanence is beyond previous color photographic processes:

http://www.wilhelm-research.com/ist/history2006.html

Storing Pigment Ink Prints

The pigment ink prints from the latest Epson and Canon printers (Ultrachrome K3, and Lucia ink-sets) that I work with are very light stable, waterfast, and can endure high temperature. But they do have one weakness that the photography conservation community has identified. The receiving layer (the layer on the surface of the paper that holds and binds the ink) remains absorbant after printing and will absorb pollutants exposed to the prints.

Upon a recent visit to one of my clients I noticed that prints were being stored in non-archival cardboard. The cardboard had gotten damp and it caused some yellowing on the edge of the print. the print was acting like a blotter and sucking the extra moister out of the cardboard. To avoid this I now deliver all prints in Polyethylene (PE) bags. Please, if you are storing prints place them in archival bags, or better yet put them in a nice frame behind glass so we can all enjoy them!

Also, when ordering prints in the future, if you plan to store the prints for long term, please ask me for archival packing in addition to the Polyethylene bags. There is an extra charge, but it’s a minor charge to protect these prints that will last for hundreds of years.

Resources:
http://talasonline.com/

Talas Polyethylene Bags

http://www.lightimpressionsdirect.com

Light Impressions Polyethylene bags

Vic Muniz and Collier Schorr conference with Mellon Photographic Conservation group

Vic and Collier were kind enough to enrich our Mellon conference on conservation of digital prints, by discussing their experiences. The photographic conservation community can do more in sharing information. Certainly, we are all concerned about our limited knowledge and the need for additional research, but we have our preliminary information is useful.

I believe it’s important to describe the light fastness of the new pigment ink processes. There is still too much confusion, because of the fading problems of dye ink prints, like the Iris prints. We also have to confront the photo labs that are pushing the traditional chromogenic dye processes which still have fading problems.