Advice Needed Badly

[andalus]

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I own an MP, a 75 and 28 cron. Simplified my gear over the years but always a Leicaphile as a journalist, editor in US and abroad for 35 years off and on. But I've never shot or owned digital gear and don't want to. My best work, all slides, have become Cibachrome prints, although I do now own a Nikon scanner and use Vuescan.

 

However, I want to move away from Cibachromes, scan my slides and print them myself, and also buy Photoshop to improve the scans.

 

The question is simple. Can my output be as good with slides to scans to Photoshop and to prints made at home as with Cibachromes before? I have heard the printers these days are quite good, and the paper available, too. But which printer can do so well? This assumes, of course, that I've bought Photoshop and learned how to use it properly.

 

If anyone out there does this sort of processing, please respond and tell me the most optimal procedures to use. What works to get really nice, archival prints?

 

Any help appreciated.

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[kodaktrix]

Hello,

 

yes, one can do Cibachrome lookalikes on todays higher class photoprinters.

 

Photoshop is relatively easy to learn, especially if You did operate a wet lab before, as the workflow is similar. Photoshop is that affordable today, that I would not deal with less. It does not have to be the actual version. If You use it just like a wet lab, one or to versions backwards are fine. With Photoshop on a computer, keep in mind that Photoshop´s performance increases with RAM, not the CPU speed, so no need for the newest gear here.

 

If You do slides only, a Nikon (e.g. 4000) scanner should be fine. If You do a lot of silver based B&W film, I myself would recommend a Microtek Artixscan 4000tf, and if money is absolutely no matter an Imacon/Hasselblad Scanner.

 

For printers HP, Epson and Canon offer affordable high end photoprinters. I use a HP Designjet 30, Epson 2400 is used too very often. The thing with those printers is not only that they use 6 to eight colours, but that they take any printer paper that comes on the market. The last years there was extreme progress on the paper side to archive wet darkroom like prints. And this is what one should do, invest the time and money to test several papers to find the one that suits best.

 

If You work with a screen first, and print then, You will want to see on the screen, what You will get in print. So the system should be calibrated. This is in reality no misteria, although it seems to be if you read articles about that subject. There are easy tools for calibrating the monitor. I am fine with Spyder2 Express, which is easy to use, very affordable, calibrates my monitor, and gives a corresponding printer profile. So that I get a perfect B&W on my colour printer.

 

If You start from Zero, I would go for an used Apple G4 800 or Double with 1 GB RAM (about 300,- Euros), Photoshop CS or CS 2 (300,- to 600,- Euros, the english version), film scanner ( 600- 1000 Euros, not the Imacon), prof. printer (600-1000 Euros) which would sum up to a total of about 2500-3000 Euros for a top digital "wetroom".

 

If You want to stay happy with Your gear over the years, I would recommend two NON-networking computers (two stand-alone!), one for graphics only, the other for surfing the web, so that only the web computer may be likely to get intruded. If You need to do updates on Your graphic computer, connect to the net then only, use non popular web browsers, never Internet Explorer or Safari, or use reduced to basic function versions (Firefox offers such). So You can keep your graphics machine clean longer.

 

Regards

 

Oliver