Is it possible to make "decent" inkjet and/or laserjet prints of scanned 4x5 negatives. It will be awhile before I can get an actual wet darkroom set up again. I know some of the newer flat bed scanners can do a respectable job on 4x5 trans and negatives, but I am interested in B&W prints from negatives to start with. I have to purchase a new printer for my computer soon anyway, so I hope to get one which will at least allow me to print some of my negatives as well as the usual text output.

Thank you for any responses.

Martin VanMeter

-- Martin VanMeter (mvanmeter@qx.net), April 18, 2001

Answers

Yes. Buy an Epson 1160 and put in bulk quadtone inks. Get a continuous inking system from www.nomorecarts.com. Or, if you're willing to spend a bit more money, but get what is reputed to be incredible results, buy Jon Cone's piezography setup which I believe includes one of the nomorecarts continuous inking systems. The 4 color printers are better than the 6 color ones for black and white.

-- Howard Slavitt (info@enaturephoto.com), April 18, 2001.

Martin, Take a look at the new Olympus dye sub printer. I believe it is the 3000. Just unbelievable sharp continous tones. They run about a grand so they are not cheap. The Epson photo printers are nice also but they are ink jet. If you are looking for a scanner also check out the epson 1200u photo scanner. For about 300.00 they have a neg/slide scanner lid that gives you 1200 true dpi as well as standard flat bed for photo or literature. I have the 1200U phot scanner and do 4x5's negatives on it and they are really nice. Good luck and let us know what you get and how it works out. Doug

-- Doug Theall (rooster_two@yahoo.com), April 18, 2001.

I second Howard's response. I have been using the Cone Technologies Piezography system for almost a year now. It equals anything you can do in a darkroom. Based on user experience, the best printer would be the Epson 1160. They are not in production now, but refurbs can be found from time to time on U-bid.com. Cone has just released software for the Epson 7000 printer, but this setup will cost big bucks.

As for scanners, get the best one you can afford, since this is the critical link to good results. Unless you are rich and can afford an Imacon or a used drum scanner, you may want to try the most recent Epson Professional Scanner (price in the range of $2300) and buy Silverfast software to go with it.

Good luck.

-- Mark Lipton (marklipton@earthlink.net), April 19, 2001.

Don't laugh. I use a Acer1200U {$150.00 new} w/built in transparency adapter. And an old Epson Photo 700. With it's 1200 optical DPI {scanner} I can see the dots that make up the film/frame info on 120 film. A 4X5 transparency @ 1200 DPI crashes my computer but a 600 DPI I can get great results. If you can spend about $1000.00 for a flatbed scaner get the Heitelburg 1200 scanner it has the same specs but a way higher D Max. As for a printer get a refurbished Epson 1200 {directly from epson} it is the last Epson printer that will print up to 13X19 and accept 3rd party archival ink {color or B+W } The newer printers do not accept 3rd party inks and epson does not offer B+W quadtone inks. The new printers use color to make B+W and IMHO just don,t measure up. Then buy a smaller cheap printer for the normal stuff.

-- john (dogspleen@juno.com), April 19, 2001.

The Cone system + the Epson 1160 will produce excellent results.George deWolfe, who uses the system and conducts workshops on the system displayed images ranging from 4x5 to 20x24 at a show in Chicago last year that were breathtaking. As for scanners, how about the Epson 1640 U Photo scanner. It comes with a transparency adapter that will accomodate 4x5 negs. Mine works rather well. Thus far I have yet to set up the cone system, so my prints have been made on an el cheapo HP inkjet at my office. Those prints are, shall we say< instructiv3> but the scan is quite good, for a 399 dollar scanner. Bob

-- Bob Moulton (bobmargaretm@home.com), April 19, 2001.

take a look at the alps 5000 printer, fantastic quality, no mess, and affordable. best home printing I have ever seen

-- mark lindsey (lindseygraves@msn.com), April 19, 2001.