Yes. In fact, the last time I made a traditionally enlarged negative via wet processing was in early 1992.

Yes. The core information in the Second Edition remains as vital as ever. I provide updates (new curves and printer information) via my web site.

For the newest information on using the Epson 2200 (and 1280), you should check out my Inkjet Negative Companion. This supplement to Making Digital Negatives for Contact Printing contains lots of new time-saving tips.

The short answer can only be they all do. After that, the difference is one of quality. The chart below will show you for which Epson printers I’ve supplied curves on the book CDROM or on my web site.

Though I said this already, for the newest information on using the Epson 2200 (and 1280), you should check out my Inkjet Negative Companion.

Imagesetter negatives still have a quality advantage for those printing on a gelatin over-coated paper like commercial silver gelatin papers. For those printing on hand-coated papers for alternative processes, you’ll be hard-pressed to notice any difference in the final print between images made from good inkjet negatives and those from imagesetters. The only exception might be for images with large expanses of smooth tones like gray skies and such.

So far, I haven’t found a better substrate for making inkjet negatives than the transparency film made by Pictorico. The Pictorico OHP film has a superior gelatin/ceramic coating and is available in sheets and rolls from both Pictorico and Mountain Studios.

When I wrote Making Digital Negatives for Contact Printing, the Epson Photo EX was state of the art. With that printer and Epson’s own Transparency Film, making a colorized negative produced the best results for platinum printing. When I teach workshops in Mexico, where they still use the Photo EX printers and can only get Epson’s transparency film, I still make negatives just as outlined in the book.

Printers after the Photo EX—along with better transparency materials like the Pictorico OHP—allow us to apply heavier neutral-color ink loads on the film.

With the 1270 and Pictorico OHP Film, I get smoother results when using all six inks and not colorizing the negative at all.

For the Epson1280, I have returned to the Colorize method to create an orange negative for platinum printing. More Epson 1280 info can be found below.

These "when to colorize" issues are covered in depth in The Inkjet Negative Companion.

Yes, there is information on the book info page of my site.

You can also learn all kinds of valuable techniques for the 1280 in my new The Inkjet Negative Companion.

(Note that with the Epson 1280 printer, I’ve gone back to using the orange, spectral density negatives.)

My site now contains a prototype curve that worked well on the 2000P for making platinum negs using ALL SIX inks (printing in color) on Pictorico OHP film. There is also a jpeg showing the print dialog box. This curve can serve as a starting point for those using the 2000P but you’ll most likely have to make some adjustments in the curve shape.

The 2200 Epson is now my printer of choice for making desktop negatives.

There are lots of very good photo quality printers on the market. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to test them all. Epson printers are the ones I use for both print and negative making.

Yes, in the past I used an 1160 and Cone Quad inks and Piezography software for my desktop negatives for platinum printing. With Piezography Quadtone inks and Pictorico OHP Film, I made very good negatives. One downside to this method is that the inks don't stick to the OHP, requiring an additional step of applying a spray fixative. If you don't do this, the image will literally rub-off. Krylon #1313 is a good choice of sprays.

As an aside, black and white prints from Jon Cone’s Quad inks and Piezography software are stunning.

Though I haven't used the MIS inks, they should work for making negatives. You'll most likely have to adjust the curves in Photoshop a bit. http://www.inksupply.com/

John Nollendorfs is formulating special quad inks that will have the additional density we need for negatives. You can learn more about all his inkjet printing products at http://www.lincolninks.com/.

I don't have any curves for silver gelatin using Piezography and the 1160 printer (or any other printer for that matter) so I'm afraid you'll have to run your own tests. If you come up with good silver curves, pass them on to me and I’ll post them, eagerly giving you credit for your investigative work.

The 3000 can make beautiful prints with Piezography but I don’t think it's a good platform for negatives. Since the 3000 seems to witness unit-to-unit variations, there’s a chance some of them will work better than others. The fact of the matter is that the 3000 is getting long in the tooth when it comes to mechanical features and ink droplet size.

Both. The .002" Mylar (available at art supply stores) works well but can abrade the pigment image if the negative/Mylar sandwich isn't handled carefully. I know because I've transported some such negs around the country and have seen them damaged from the handling. For in-studio use, where we store and handle negatives much more gently, it shouldn't be a problem to attach the Mylar to the negative with tape.

I now spray my Cone quadtone negatives. My best results—most even spray, fastest drying time and lowest stink factor—have been with the Clear Acrylic Matte Coating from Crafts, Etc. I found this spray at our local Hobby Lobby. The McDonalds’s Sureguard Lustre spray works well also. The matte might be even better but I haven't tried it yet. A Krylon clear matte acrylic (#1312) works well.

Some users report good results with a gloss spray. I favor the matte because the micro-texture provides canals through which air can escape when the negative is against another smooth surface (like the .002" Mylar) in the vacuum frame.

Some users have noted that Transfer Functions do not work with the Piezography driver. Since Transfer Functions and Curves are essentially the same thing (Transfer Function does provides a higher degree of precision when designing the Curve), you can create your Transfer Function and then apply it to your grayscale image as a Curve or Curve Adjustment Layer. I do this all the time.

One word of warning: A Mac is smart enough to regard Curves and Transfer Functions as the same thing, meaning you can open both from either the Curves or Transfer Function Dialog Box. On a PC, things get a bit more difficult (what's new) in that the correct file extension must be on the Curve or Transfer Function in order for the corresponding dialog box to recognize it.

I've had very good luck with the Piezography software and inks but I certainly understand that the 1160 is a quirky beast and others might want to try different solutions. I should also add that Bill Bergh in Tech Support at inkjetmall.com has been very responsive whenever I've called with questions or problems.

Make sure you use the latest version of the Piezography driver to help minimize a pattern in your negatives.

The best service bureau is one close by so you can establish a relationship and more easily troubleshoot any problems that might pop up. That being said, it’s often easier (and cheaper if you live in a large metropolitan area where all such services are overpriced) to send your files to a remote service bureau that understands the digital negative process and will give you great service at reasonable prices.

One such service bureau is Copy Graphics in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Though anyone at Copy Graphics can help you, Peter Ellzey knows the digital negatives intimately and is always eager to help.

Yes. If you can find an imagesetter that reliably images at 3600 dpi resolution, then you should prepare an 1800 ppi diffusion dither bitmap (from a 900 ppi grayscale image) in Photoshop. Similarly, if you want to try an imagesetter that runs at 4800 dpi, you should prepare 2400 ppi bitmaps, that in turn come from 1200 ppi grayscale files.

Another option is to use a conventional linescreen instead of the diffusion dither bitmap. Brooks Jensen makes wonderful negs for silver gelatin printing using a 450 lpi (lines per inch) traditional screen that is imaged with an Agfa imagesetter that runs at 3600 dpi.

Should I be using the Lenswork curve or the Folberg curve?

Many have written about the disappearance of Isis Corporation and their wonderful Icefields stochastic screening software. One of Icefields’ advantages was its ability to bypass Photoshop’s 30,000 pixel limit (in either width or height) that can become an issue when converting grayscale images to bitmaps at 1,200 or more pixels/inch. Isis hopes to rise like the Phoenix in the future so they don’t want older versions of their software distributed for free.

In the mean time, you might investigate Rastus Software as a stochastic screening alternative:

I recently learned of an alternative stochastic plug-in for Photoshop. I haven’t tested this yet so I can’t tell you if it makes better imagesetter negatives than Photoshop’s Diffusion Dither method (in other words, don’t email or call me with questions about this software). The software author seems very committed to photographers and says the midtones and highlights should be smoother than those from Diffusion Dither Bitmap negatives. Go http://www.telegraphics.com.au/sw to download a demo version.

Remember, you don’t open curves; you load them by clicking the Load button in the curves dialog box.

(Of course, you must have the Making Digital Negatives for Contact Printing CDROM in your drive or have copied the curves to your hard drive in order to access them.)

Are you in a Color Mode? Channel Mixer won’t work on grayscale images.

Are you on an Adjustment Layer by mistake? You must be on an actual pixel layer for Channel Mixer to work.

With Photoshop 6, Adobe has again changed the way bitmaps portray on screen. At certain resolutions, bitmaps look absolutely horrible; at others they look swell. Try zooming in and out to discover the magnifications at which your bitmaps look smooth.

Photoshop7 and earlier had a peculiar limitation on image size of 30,000 pixels in either height or width. This only becomes a problem if you are preparing diffusion dither bitmaps for imagesetter output. With bitmap resolutions of 1200 ppi, you run out of pixels at 25 inches! Photoshop CS eliminated this limitation.

No matter how experienced or smart you might be, there will be times when things just don’t work the way you hoped or expected in Photoshop. If you approach the problem logically, you can usually find out why things aren’t going the way you want.

Adobe has greatly simplified the Color Management settings. Of course, it’s still a confusing landscape with many experts disagreeing on how it should be used.

The important thing to remember in the Color Settings dialog box (Edit>Color Settings) is to check all the Ask When boxes in the Management Policies section. This way Photoshop will have the courtesy of consulting you before arbitrarily changing your images when opening or pasting from one color space to another.

My Inkjet Negative Companion includes a Color Settings File that you load to prevent unwanted density changes in your step tablets and images.

The best thing happening for monitor calibration comes from Color Vision (www.colorcal.com). They’ve aggressively priced their hardware and software to make fast and easy monitor calibration available to us all. I use the Monitor Spyder with Optical software and I now have confidence in my monitor calibration.

When you open the calibration image, be sure to choose "Discard the Embedded Profile (don't color manage)" when the Embedded Profile Mismatch dialog box comes up. That box appears IF you have the "ask when opening" option checked (which you should) in Color Settings with Photoshop.

I’m a dedicated Macintosh user so you certainly won’t get an unbiased opinion from me!

There isn’t a giant difference between the Mac and Windows operating systems. Macs shine because Apple controls the hardware and operating systems. This means there are fewer incompatibilities and hassles. In Mac-based workshops, I’ve heard PC users say things like, "I didn’t know computers could be so easy." You’ll never hear a Mac user say that after working on a PC for the first time.

And of course, you can always use Virtual PC emulation software on a Mac to run all your PC software. The latest version runs Windows programs on a G4 Mac as fast as a 1GHz Pentium.

I use a dual processor G5 Mac and am very happy with it. With OSX, the operating system will recognize multiple processors for all tasks. This will mean an immediate speed increase for dual processor users.

I get this question regularly. It’s much like being asked, "Which car should I buy?" There are just too many variables and personal preferences to make it an easy question to answer. If you are contemplating a scanner purchase, join the scanner list on the Internet and ask your questions. Log on to www.leben.com/lists for information on how to subscribe to the scanner list. At this same site you’ll find information on joining the Epson Inkjet Printer list and the Digital Camera list.

Of course you should always do your price research before purchasing. A couple good price-search engines are at My Simon and cnet.