This week I went down to Weldon Color Lab in Culver City, and had a test print made from a digital file via the Lite-Jet onto analogue paper.
Weldon Color Lab: http://www.weldoncolorlab.com
The Lite-Jet is basically a digital enlarger that projects a digital file onto fiber base paper. They use Ilford paper, then processes it though a B+W chemical bath, then dried and flattened. The print came out extreme fine quality, there was detail in the highlights and the shadows, and it looked exactly the way it looked after I had worked on it in Lite-Room and Photo-Shop. It was a pure monochromatic image, slightly warm in color [due to the paper] and looked fantastic. Even though I will do some printing in my darkroom, fiber base paper is very difficult to get to dry strait, unless one has very expensive driers, also the maximum size I can print is 20X24. So I may have my images printed a Pro Lab, but will see how the module progresses. I’m a pretty good printer, however, I would like to experiment a lot more in my image construction process. I have been to many exhibitions, and even though the digital reins are very good, they lack the aesthetic of Fiber-Based paper that is chemically processed. I am at the point in my practice, that I like to mix digital and film in my work, and this seems to be the perfect medium for me. I photograph of film and or digital, scan my film negs and with the digital files import it into lite-room. Post in Lite-room and Photo-shop, export it to a TIFF file and take it for printing.
Ordered some Svema 35mm negative film, from a online photo store that specializes in these types of specialty films. https://filmphotographystore.com/collections/svema-film
I am interested in experiencing the look of two of their films. The first is what they call Red Scale film the image has a “red” hue to it.
The second Svema Color Negative, the color is very pastel and desaturated. I would like to see how this film can be used in my image making process, so still waiting for them to arrive.
