![]() ![]() If you are really interested in gelatin silver prints I suggest you take a darkroom class. If you are happy with your labs prints, that's fine. And some of these are even more archival, and have their own subtle beauty. Gelatin silver technology replaced earlier technologies which some people are still using: platinum printing, carbon printing, albumen printing, van dyke, cyanotype, and so on. The only reason they may seem exotic is that newer, faster, cheaper technology has dominated the market, and this is better for many consumers. In the past almost all BW was done this way. There's no big deal about gelatin silver prints. If you have access to a darkroom and the time to print, then paper and chems for gelatin silver printing are really pretty cheap: RC paper is usually less than $0.50 a sheet, FB paper less than $1 a sheet, and all the chems necessary to print dozens of prints can be had for less than $20. Mostly I'm doing it for a couple of people who need their BW prints on FB for hand coloring. I only started offering to print other folks' work when the local pro labs stopped offering the services. I'm mostly doing it for portrait and wedding customers of my own, who are having me print photos that I took. I think this is probably on the cheaper end of the scale, although there are labs that do offer gelatin silver printing for as little as half of this. This would include basic dodging and burning. Of course all of this depends on "proper storage" which basically means locked away somewhere never exposed to light, and that's no fun.ģ) I charge $30 for a gelatin silver print on 8"x10" FB paper. Studies/estimates seem to suggest that archival inkjet prints are more archival than a chemical print, and may last a very, very long time. ![]() Add selenium toning to that and there are folks who say 300+ years. Properly processed and stored an untoned gelatin silver print should last 70+ years. I'm sure there are many people who don't see a big enough difference to merit the extra cost.Ģ) If it's a chemical (dye) print from a lab then Kodak says their chems/paper last 20+ years, Fuji says 70+ years (with proper storage). A lot easier than discussing the merits of the gelatin silver print over a lab print would be for you to compare prints yourself, and come up with your own opinion. The proofs I get back from the lab are very nice, but my clients still purchase my hand printed gelatin silver prints for 5 times the lab price (for an 8x10), so they must think they are better also. 1) I think there is a very big difference between a machine print and a well done, hand printed, gelatin silver print. ![]()
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