How I work
I have been a photographer for more than 35 years. Although I shoot digital for commercial work. All of my artwork is shot using film with medium and large format cameras. I develop the film and make contact sheets and small proofs in the darkroom. After editing my pictures, the selected negatives are scanned at very high resolution. I then do the darkroom work in Photoshop.
I have worked countless hours to master the use of Photoshop. I also spent 2 years finding the right combination of printers, ink and paper for my prints. Finally, after all this work, I arrived at a print quality that not only equals my B&W Silver Prints, but definitely exceeds them. My prints are on heavyweight 100% cotton paper. They are printed with pure black carbon ink. These prints will last as long or longer than an archival silver print. The tones are neutral, very close to my silver prints. The control I have in doing the darkroom work with Photoshop is much finer than what I could possibly do in the darkroom. The sharpness I'm able to achieve from these high-resolution scans is sharper than my enlarger and lens are capable of. I now can make prints up to 40"x50” that are razor sharp from edge to edge. The resulting prints are much closer to what I visualized these images would look like when I made them in the camera.
I feel that with this combination of: 1) the wonderful quality of film, 2) the superfine control in Photoshop, and 3) the archival razor sharp digital output, my prints now really express my artist vision.