Three Problems - Studio Portrait

[Frank Haber]

Last one, for now:

I have a LARGE and (of course) priceless studio portrait of two ancestors.
It's really excellent quality, with little fading or foxing, and deep deep
blacks. It's on semi-matte stock, but very sharp (probably taken with a 5x7
or larger camera). The print is some Euro cm. size close to 11x14, and won't
fit on an 8.5x14" bed. There is one huge tear, luckily with little emulsion
damage and in the dark clothing of the figures. I need to stamp/clone that
out, of course.

I have the old Umaxes mentioned above (600 native?) The print is fragile; I
don't want to ship it.

I could seam two scans, I guess, but my scanners are pretty lame.

I could shoot it on a copy stand with my 7Mpixel still camera.

I'm in Manhattan, so I could presumably take the thing to someone who has a
pro scanner, but I sure don't want to wrap the print around a drum. Bring me
up to date on B or larger scanners so I know what to ask for, would you?

And what would you do? I'll probably wind up paying, since I do want a few
big prints on sexy paper, and I guess that means a pro with a wide Epson and
all those ink hoses for B/W art photography.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Charlie Hoffpauir]

Last one, for now:

I have a LARGE and (of course) priceless studio portrait of two ancestors.
It's really excellent quality, with little fading or foxing, and deep deep
blacks. It's on semi-matte stock, but very sharp (probably taken with a 5x7
or larger camera). The print is some Euro cm. size close to 11x14, and won't
fit on an 8.5x14" bed. There is one huge tear, luckily with little emulsion
damage and in the dark clothing of the figures. I need to stamp/clone that
out, of course.

I have the old Umaxes mentioned above (600 native?) The print is fragile; I
don't want to ship it.

I could seam two scans, I guess, but my scanners are pretty lame.

I could shoot it on a copy stand with my 7Mpixel still camera.

I'm in Manhattan, so I could presumably take the thing to someone who has a
pro scanner, but I sure don't want to wrap the print around a drum. Bring me
up to date on B or larger scanners so I know what to ask for, would you?

And what would you do? I'll probably wind up paying, since I do want a few
big prints on sexy paper, and I guess that means a pro with a wide Epson and
all those ink hoses for B/W art photography.

Thanks in advance.

I would go with digital photo(s). My Canon digital camera came with a
program called Photostitch. With it, you can take multiple images of
the picture, and it will automatically "stitch" them together into one
large image. You could take multiple, overlapping images with your 7
MP digital camera, autostitch them together to get one image of, say
20 megapixels. The program would also work with multiple scans using
your flat-bed scanner. You might try that, but I think the camera and
copy stand appraoch would do a better job.

If you don't have access to Canon's Photostitch, there are other
programs that do the same thing, progably better, available
commercially. Check out http://www.panavue.com/


Charlie Hoffpauir
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/

 

[Chuck Tribolet]

I disagree. I'd find somebody with a good big scanner to scan them. And I wouldn't print
with ink jet, I'd find someone with a LightJet (uses colored lasers to expose color photo
paper, you MIGHT be able to find someone who would put B&W paper in it).

Ink jet just ain't as archival as even color photo papers (YET), and no where near good
B&W photo paper.

Ain't gonna be cheap, but worth doing. Be sure to save the scan on several archival
quality CDs (most CDRs ain't).

..

 

[Charlie Hoffpauir]

I disagree. I'd find somebody with a good big scanner to scan them.

For more information about stitching, look at this site. The author
explains how he produced a 1 Billion pixel image.

There are no scanners that can do this (or for that matter, film
cameras that can produce the image to scan).

And I wouldn't print
with ink jet, I'd find someone with a LightJet (uses colored lasers to expose color photo
paper, you MIGHT be able to find someone who would put B&W paper in it).

Ink jet just ain't as archival as even color photo papers (YET), and no where near good
B&W photo paper.

Ain't gonna be cheap, but worth doing. Be sure to save the scan on several archival
quality CDs (most CDRs ain't).

.

Charlie Hoffpauir
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/

 

[tomm42]

I disagree. I'd find somebody with a good big scanner to scan them. And I wouldn't print
with ink jet, I'd find someone with a LightJet (uses colored lasers to expose color photo
paper, you MIGHT be able to find someone who would put B&W paper in it).

Ink jet just ain't as archival as even color photo papers (YET), and no where near good
B&W photo paper.

Ain't gonna be cheap, but worth doing. Be sure to save the scan on several archival
quality CDs (most CDRs ain't).

.

I agree, get a good large format scan, there are excellent 12x17 inch
flat bed scanners, you only need 300ppi, having a pro do it will give
you the best possible scans. Stitching works but a single scan is
better. A scan would be better than a 7mp photo, from the scan you
should have a 60mb file, 20mp or so.
I disagree about inkjets, there are low quality inkjets with dye ink,
not printed on the right paper will fde in front of your eyes. But
pigment inkjet printer are becoming an industry standard, using on the
low end an Epson R1800, an HP B9180 or and Epson 2400 you can have
excellent prints in greyscale or color that have life expectancies of
100-200 years, using the same testing color photopaper lasts 40-50
years, of course B&W silverbased photopaper will last a little longer
than the inkjet depending on the quality of processing. You can of
course have a B&W studio copy the print and print it on B&W paper, but
I'm not sure if this would be any closer to the original (I have done
both styles of reproduction).

Tom

 

[Frank Haber]

Thanks everyone. I have seen superb B&W Inkjet prints in all flavors of black,
from Gold-ish toner through sepia to Iron and Selenium. (You can certainly
date me from those.) I believe these were done on a 1280, so serious B&W has
been around for a while in the inkjet world. Good to hear about the archival
promises.