It was just a year ago I was writing about the future for digital black-and-white prints being the new printing paper developed by Harman technology (Ilford) for exposure in digital printers like the Lightjet or Durst Lambda, then processed in conventional wet darkroom chemistry. The fututre has got here much faster than I anticipated. Last week Ilford launched its online service to supply conventional darkroom silver gelatin prints from digital black-and-white files (and of course film if you want to order on line, not upload). The samples I took away from Focus on Imaging were clean and crisp, just like quality darkroom prints on RC paper. There is not yet the option for printing to the heavyweight baryta ‘fine print’ papers but I can see that’s going to come. I’m off to upload some images – I’ll let you know how I get on.
