I printed it on ummmm....I dunno....

[Robert Kennedy]

This is simply a rant.

Last night I hit a few openings in town.

At one gallery, I saw some great prints by Larry Wiese. Really nice work. I enjoyed them immensely. They were, accurately labeled, "silver gelatin".

At the same gallery some other artists had prints for perusal.

Never in my life have I seen so many different ways to deal with digital output!

It is, and I honestly believe this, like nobody has set the standard yet by which to describe digital output methods.

E.g.

"Digital Frontier Print"
"Digital Frontier C-41 Print"
"Frontier C Print"

Etc. etc.

Now I know this is nitpicky, but could SOMEONE JUST PICK SOMETHING!

How about "digital C print"?

It describes Frontier technology as well as a few other methods out there.
It is simple. It is basic.

It tells me all I need to know.

If it is an inkjet print I need to know two things -
1 - That it is an inkjet print
2 - If it is "archival" (loose term here, but we need to weed out the stuff that came off a "Free with every Dell" printer)

That is it.

I don't need to know who made the printer. I don't need to know the model number of the printer.

I mean nobody is saying "Durst silver gelatin," or "Photographers Formulary printing frame (birch)."

O.k. Rant over.

[wfwhitaker]

See what messing with digital will get you?.....

[Art Vandalay]

I think this just reflects the rapidly evolving, digital printing landscape - no more - no less.

I have to admit that I'm not against digital printing, especially when pigments are used and especially for colour. At long last there may be a way to easily produce colour prints that are stable and since the introduction of the giclee print in galleries, I can see that the quality easily rivals conventional C-prints. BW prints are another matter, but being a lover of photo books and book printing (which uses ink) I can see a time when I'll be satisfied with good inkjet BW prints. Because they are ink they are not the same as silver but can stand side by side as an alternative.

[jovo]

Hey...there's an idea. Perhaps adding LPL or Beseler or Omega/ Nikon, Rodenstock, Schneider to the too simple "silver gelatin" print can justify raising the price a few bucks. Yup! Marketing!!!

[bmac]

Digital output is rapidly changing, I am afraid you are going to have to suffer a bit until the technology matures more. A Frontier is just a machine that produces a print. To call a print a
"Digital Frontier Print"
"Digital Frontier C-41 Print"
"Frontier C Print"
screams amateur in my book. What kind of gallery was this?

[Robert Kennedy]

One that wasn't big on vetting.

It is a smaller gallery in town, but like I said, they had the Larry Wiese stuff which was some great work. These prints were all matted ones that one had to peruse. I have a feeling, since all the labels were different, that the artists made them themselves and dropped the stuff off.

[steve]

I've been laughing at print descriptions for 30 years. The first time I saw "silver gelatin print" I about fell over laughing, and thought "how pretentious." Then I saw "chromogenic" print for a color C-print, and then "dye destruction print" for an Ilfochrome. I've come to the conclusion that describing the print process may be okay since it follows the tradition of both non-photographic and photographic print making: lithograph, etching, monotype, collotype, palladium print, VanDyke print, gum bichromate print - you get the idea.

If you can accept the descriptions of wet darkroom technology - you'll have to give the digital folks a little slack while they sort out the terminology for a digitally created print.

Giclee is sooo stupid (sorry Graham Nash but it's true) and is really only applicable for a print from an Iris printer since that's what the term was coined for originally. I kind of like "pigment print" for an inkjet print using archival pigment inks.

As for the descriptions you've mentioned - digital C-Print works for me if it's from a LightJet, Lambda, Frontier, etc. - even "digigraph" or maybe "digitype" would be okay.

[Robert Kennedy]

The rule should be if you can't pronounce "giclee", then you can't use it.

Of course this would rule out 97% of the current users....

[Art Vandalay]

I read a description the origin of Giclee and the funny part is that as a French term its commonly used to describe the 'money shot' in French porn

[Robert Kennedy]

Well, I always have felt that digital is cheap and dirty....