Digitalsilverimaging

The Fine Art of Printing in a Digital World

Case Studies

Digital Silver Imaging’s Video Resources

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screen capture of andy caufield discussing his madonna photo from 1984

Did you know that we have a YouTube Channel with over 40 educational and informative photography videos? Our videos cover a variety of how-to and photography based topics, from preparing your files for print, to webinars with noted photographers. You can find the Digital Silver imaging channel by following this link.

Here is a brief list of some of our educational and informative content

Monitor Calibration with Calibrite’s Brenda Hipsher

Andrew Caulfield Interview – “Madonna 1984” Photo Shoot and Book

Mike Mezeul II – Post Production – Taking Your Photos to the Next Level

Choosing the Right Paper for Your Prints

Hanging a frame with a French Cleat

Digitization from Elliott Erwitt’s Studio (Digitizing Elliott’s Archive)

The Art of Underwater Photography with Jake Stout

Converting Your Image to B&W

Photographing in India and Nepal: An Insider’s Guide with Craig Semetko and Roro La Velle

Alternative Presentation Methods for Photo Prints

We also partner with other organizations like the Social Documentary Network (SDN) to sponsor webinars discussing relevant issues in photography today. You can find their video archive by following this link.

Here is a brief list of SDN content sponsored by Digital Silver Imaging

Women Changing the Face of Documentary Photography

Sustainable Solutions: Documentary Photographers Explore the Climate Crisis

Join our DSIeNews list to receive notifications of future webinars and promotions. Scroll to bottom of page to join.

Digitally Capturing Elliot Erwitt’s Photo Archive

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Scott Nidermaier and Elliot Erwitt review a digitally captured image
Scott and Elliot Erwitt review digital captures.

Elliott Erwitt’s many photographs have become part of the world’s visual vernacular. His images for Look, Life, and Magnum capture a world of humor, beauty and irony. His prolific output has filled over 20 published books, with a new book just released in 2021. Elliott’s prints are in virtually every major museum collection in the US and abroad. At the age of 92, Elliott Erwitt hasn’t slowed down much, he’s involved in a variety of projects and working on his archive.

Elliott Erwitt’s archive is where Digital Silver Imaging comes into the picture. Rick Smolan, former Time and National Geographic photographer and Elliott’s son-in-law, came to us with an idea for on-site film digitization. He said that Elliott was reluctant to have his archive leave the studio—a concern widely shared by other photographers—so high resolution on-site high resolution image capture would be ideal. Within In a few short months we had sourced the required high resolution equipment, hired PhaseOne and CaptureOne expert Scott Nidermaier, and formed the Digital Silver Imaging On-site Image Preservation Service™.

view of elliot erwitt's studio
On a chilly Sunday afternoon, Scott and DSI’s Eric Luden got to work digitizing Elliott’s archive. Over the course of the next several days the pair would set up in Elliott Erwitt’s studio and rapidly capture some 3,400 negatives and transparencies. For some photographers such an undertaking could take months or even years, but utilizing our On-site Image Preservation Service™ the job was completed in under three weeks. At the core of the system we utilize a high resolution digital camera mounted with a flat field lens. This method of digital capture produces drum scan quality images with a click of the shutter. Unlike drum scanning, this process minimizes contact between film and machine, dramatically reducing the risk of scratching or damage.

Scott has emphasized that each job is different and attentive preparation is the key to a smooth digital archiving process. The On-site Image Preservation Service™ operates on the principle that every archive is unique, and we customize the service to fit the needs of each client.

elliott erwitt negative strip in holder
Negative strip loaded into “touchless” magnetic holder and ready for digital capture

Much of the credit for the efficient digitization of Elliott’ Erwitt’s archive goes to his studio manager, Mio Nakamura, who organized the film by box, contact sheet, and negative with a corresponding spreadsheet, so there was no confusion about which images to capture. With the digitization of Elliott’s prized images now complete, his entire film archive will be housed at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. It’s a comfort to know that Elliott’s film will be preserved in perpetuity.

elliott erwitt digital capture on computer monitor
Reviewing a capture

Looking back on Elliott’s project, Scott reflected, “It was fascinating to see a sheet of great negatives and wonder why Elliott picked one negative over another. Also, we digitized many images of family that obviously had personal significance to Elliott. Elliot Erwitt lived with a camera in his hand. Sure the Marilyn Monroe and celebrity images are amazing, but there are so many great images that have never been seen before. It makes you realize that archiving is not just about a financial legacy, it’s a personal legacy. It tells you so much about the life of the artist.”

door bell of elliot erwitt enterprizesDigital Silver Imaging is grateful to Elliott Erwitt, Mio Nakamura and Rick Smolan for inviting us to collaborate on this important project. We feel that we played a role in photo history, providing a service to one of the greatest living photographers.

If you are interested in our On-site Image Preservation Service™ please contact Scott Nidermaier at scott@digitalsilverimaging.com.

Webinars & Video Tutorials

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Visit and subscribe to our Youtube Channel to see all our videos.

Optimize Your Image for Print with Capture One – Capture One expert Scott Nidermaier walks you through the process of preparing your image for print. Capture One is powerful software that has the best inversion (negative to positive) capabilities in the business. Join us for this informative 30 minute presentation followed by an audience Q&A session.

 

Instant Image Capture, Better Than Scanning – Come along for a tour of our Instant Image Archiving Service and the hardware and software that make it all possible. Our new service digitally captures your film, print or artwork at a uniform 150 megapixels in a fraction of a second. We can make digital files of your work as quickly as we can safely prepare them for capture – transparencies/slides, negatives, prints and flat artwork can all be reproduced with the highest standards of accuracy. This webinar ends with an extensive Q&A.

 

The Art of Underwater Photography with Jake Stout – A deep dive with photographer and scuba diver Jake Stout – Jake began his SCUBA journey in 2017 and never looked back. A year later, he was the recipient of the Boston Sea Rover’s internship in which he traveled around the world doing underwater photography with marine scientists, BBC and National Geographic photographers and filmmakers. In 2019 Jake had the honor of presenting his work at the Boston Sea Rovers Film Festival, the longest continually running dive show in the world, and was inducted as a full active roster member in 2020.

 

Using Photography to Elevate Your Design – A beautifully finished and well crafted photograph can be the defining element of an interior space. As a designer or architect, you are confronted with questions like, what are the best photographic printing processes? How can I finish a photograph to best complement my design aesthetic? What should my photography budget look like? How do I work with a gallery or photographer? These questions and more will all are answered in a this Zoom panel discussion. The panel will consist of fine art photo lab owners Eric Luden and Andrea Zocchi, architect Tim Techler and art consultant Lynne Kortenhaus who has helped numerous clients acquire images and design interior spaces with photographic installations.

 

Converting Your Image to B&W with Joe Brady – How you execute your black and white conversion can make-or-break your image and your print. Simply selecting “grey scale’ results in soulless black & white conversions. Photoshop® and Lightroom® expert Joe Brady will share how he converts his images from color to black & white. Joe steps you through the process in clear easy to follow steps. Also included is a howto on the Nik Silver Efex Pro plug in. Joe and the team from Digital Silver Imaging will answer your questions live in this informative and interactive webinar. Included in the webinar: Starting your edit in color for the best black & white Using the graduated filter function to even exposure How to properly spot your image Using color channels to make amazing black & white conversions Using the brush tool to make black & white images that pop Best practices for exporting your image for print.

 

Photographing in India and Nepal: An Insider’s Guide – Join us with Roro La Velle and Craig Semetko as we take you on a journey through India and Nepal. Both of these Roro and Craig have experience as photographers, travelers, and tour leaders in these fascinating and photo friendly countries. Roro La Velle is the founder of Two Wheeled Expeditions, a company that takes participants via Royal Enfield motorcycles on tours of India and Nepal. Craig Semetko is a Leica professional and author of the book “India Unposed.”

 

Creating a Successful Kickstarter Campaign with Barry Schneier and Lou Jones – We speak with photographers Barry Schneier and Lou Jones about their successful Kickstarter projects. Barry’s book project on Bruce Springsteen was the second most popular photography book on Kickstarter in 2018. Lou has had 2 successful campaigns on this crowdfunding platform. We will discuss what made their campaigns successful and some important tips and suggestions. We end with Q&A from the attendees.

 

Online Printing Made Easy – We will walk you through the steps to using our new online Value Print Service for uploading your files for beautiful high quality prints and reasonable prices. An easy way to become acquainted with our online Value Print application. Includes a Q&A session with webinar participants.

Barry Schneier – Bruce Springsteen Kickstarter

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We have had the good fortune to print Barry Schneier’s 1974 Bruce Springsteen concert images for many years. Barry’s images are moving and historic. They provide a record of the discovery of Springsteen and the declaration by rock critic, Jon Landau, “I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen.” 

The images have been exhibited at venues like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Monmouth University as well as sold through the Morrison Hotel Gallery. However Barry wanted to tell the entire story of that special night at the Harvard Square Theater in Cambridge Massachusetts, and what better way than in a book. This is where the Kickstarter campaign, Bruce Springsteen. Rock and Roll Future. The Book. starts.

To create the book Schneier partnered with Backstreets Magazine’s Chris Phillips. Following the lead of many other photo books they decided to skip traditional publishers and go directly to the Springsteen fans via Kickstarter. To make his Kickstarter special, Barry wanted to offer more than just the book so he came into the lab and developed a plan to our DSI Digital Silver Prints® as a premium for higher pledge levels. Of course we said yes and we worked on a price that would allow Barry to meet his Kickstarter goals.

Barry finally decided to offer a variety of images at different sizes depending on the pledge level. The highest pledge level would receive a 16×20 DSI Digital Fiber Print® of his Sound Check Take Two image and a signed copy of the book 

 

“Sound Check. Take Two” ©Barry Schneier

Barry’s Kickstarter Project is a Hit

At the writing of this post, Bruce Springsteen. Rock and Roll Future. The Book., Kickstarter campaign has 7 days to go and will exceed its campaign goal by over 150%. 14 backers have pledge at the highest level $575 (book + 16×20 print), and other levels offering prints have over 148 backers. That makes almost as many backers choosing a book + print pledge as book alone. After all the book is all about the photographs, and it makes sense that an actual print adds a tremendous amount of value to a highly collectable book.

Work with us to make your project a success

Digital Silver Imaging is happy to work with photographers and artists to provide printing for Kickstarter, and other crowd sourced projects. We know that crowd sourcing is about promotion and bringing art directly to the public. We want to support you in your crowd sourced idea whether that’s a book or some other project. Contact us anytime to start the conversation.

Did you know that Digital Silver Imaging perfected the DSI Digital Silver Print® with a Kickstarter campaign? Follow this link to read all about it.

How Long Will My Print Last?

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The question  How long will my print last? is one that we at Digital Silver Imaging get asked a lot. How long a print will last? is an important question because as a fine art lab many of the prints we make end up in museums, galleries and private collections. We need to provide our customers with prints that are archival and will retain the fidelity of the image for the longest possible time.

The Research

To answer the How long will my print last? question we’ve done our best research and compiled data from reputable sources like Wilhelm Research, University of Illinois, and the Getty. We also took information published by Fujifilm and Kodak on their own products as well.  The chart we’ve created compares the archival life of our DSI Digital Silver Prints and our Museum Quality Pigment Inkjet Prints to other popular printing media, most notably Kodak Endura and Fuji Crystal Archive prints, home and office dye-based inkjet printers, and HP Indigo Prints which are primarily used to produce photo books. In our chart, link below, we’ve also compared the life of the print when stored and displayed in different conditions.

The Method

Henry Wilhelm
Eric Luden and Henry Wilhelm in the lab at Digital Silver Imaging.

The only way to accurately asses the archival life of specific type of print is through an accelerated aging test. These tests seek to replicate the effects of a variety of environmental factors on a print over time. For our chart we have primarily drawn on data provided by Wilhelm Research as it is produced with the highest scientific standards, and Henry Wilhelm has been at the forefront of this research for decades. The data sited is all public and footnoted in the chart accompanying this article and on this post.

Please note that our DSI Digital Silver Prints® are almost identical to traditional silver gelatin /silver halide black & white photo prints. In fact the Ilford Galerie Digital Paper that we use in our trademark process is a traditional black & white silver halide black & white photo paper. The only substantive difference is that the Ilford Digital Galerie Paper we use is panchromatic.

We found no accelerated aging data on traditional silver halide/silver gelatin black & white prints. However as this product has been in continuous use for 140 years and there are many examples of those prints in existence, the lack of accelerated aging testing seems inconsequential as actual data exists.

What about “Big Box’” Photo Prints and Photo Services like Shutterfly

Most big box retailers either don’t specify what the media and/or type of print they are providing. Some use mini labs made by companies like Noritsu. These mini labs are usually Digital C-Prints (Kodak Endura or Fuji Crystal Archive Paper) and operation and maintenance of these units depends on the persons in the location running the machine.  A variety of other methods are also employed. Not an option that inspires much confidence for a photographer serious about quality.

At the time of this posting, photo services websites like Shutterfly make their “paper prints” using Digital C-Print equipment on Fuji Crystal Archive paper. Websites that offer a variety of services, websites, storage, prints, like Smug Mug also make Digital C-Prints, because they contract with several labs those could be on either Endura of Crystal Archive.

What is the best looking print?

In this post we are doing our very best not to be subjective and “best” is a subjective term. When measuring color gamut it is clear, color prints produced on a professional inkjet printer like the Canon Prograf 6000, 4000 and 1000 used by Digital Silver Imaging can reproduce a wider range of colors than a digital C-Print on Kodak Endura or Fuji Crystal Archive. However inkjet prints are not, in the strict technical sense, continuous tone. Continuous ton prints have a different look  than inkjet or transfer media.

Conversely a DSI Digital Silver Print is a continuous tone true black & white print. There are no dyes or ink in a DSI Digital Silver Print and the image is made of silver salts that have been exposed to light. Both types of prints have a distinct look. However, the archival life and stability of both the DSI Digital Silver Print and our Museum Quality Pigment Inkjet Prints make them the most archival print available for black & white and color prints.

So How Long Will My Print Last?

Two types of prints standout as far as longevity, a photo print made with either professional brand name high quality pigment inks, and silver gelatin black & white prints. They show distinct advantages, especially when the print is intended for more than just dark storage. On display these types of prints will maintain their image fidelity much longer than either a Kodak Endura or Fuji Crystal Archive print, although the Fuji Crystal Archive print is far superior to the Kodak product. Professional high quality pigment prints also have the advantage that if you know what printer and ink is used, and the paper the image is printed on, you are virtually guaranteed that you are getting an archival product. A digital C Print depends on how well the equipment to process the print is maintained and the freshness and type of chemistry. HP Indigo prints are intended for mass production printing and do not meet the standards that a museum, gallery or collector should accept. Office and home inkjet prints are fine for documents but should not be used for photo printing.

What’s not included

At the time of this post we feel that there is not enough data to determine the archival life of professional quality dye sublimation prints, such as our Prints on Metal. From the quality of the pigments used, and the substrates they should be very stable but we ae waiting for more testing to be completed. In addition, we have not included Cibachrome prints as those products have not been manufactured in decades. Also not included are analog C Prints, those color prints produced in a darkroom. Analog C Prints should have an archival life similar to digital C prints as the basic paper technology is the same.

Print Permanence Chart

Print-Permanence-Chart-9-19

Sources
2.Wilhelm Research, The Permanence and care of analog and digital photographs – FotoCoservacion 2011, June 20-23, 2011 3. Deterioration risk as determined by the University of Illinois, https://psap.library.illinois.edu/collection-id-guide/photoprint 4. https://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/pdf_publications/pdf/atlas_silver_gelatin.pdf , Wilhelm Research – HP Indigo Digital Presses – Print and Photobook Page Permanence 5. & 6. A Survey of Print Permanence in 4×6-Inch Consumer Digital Print Market 2004-2007, www.wilhelm-research.com, http://www.wilhelm-research.com/Collected_Papers/The_Wilhelm_Research_Archives_Volume_1_Technnical_Publications_1968-2015_(v4.5_2015-02-15).pdf 7. http://imaging.kodakalaris.com/sites/prod/files/files/resources/paper-endura-techpub-e4070.pdf 7. http://imaging.kodakalaris.com/sites/prod/files/files/resources/paper-endura-techpub-e4070.pdf 8. Kodak uses different permanence testing standards than Wilhelm Research 9. ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/printers/HP_Exstream/Shutterfly_4AA0-1195ENWrr.pdf, https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2017/08/16/1086575/0/en/HP-wins-five-year-Shutterfly-deal-accelerates-digital-print-momentum.html

Ben Folds

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"Me n Elvis" ©Ben Folds
“Me n Elvis” ©Ben Folds

When we received our first print order from Ben Folds we were a little star struck. After all, this was the genre bending solo artist, the lead man of the Ben Folds Five, the hip and insightful judge on The Sing Off. With such a diverse portfolio of talent, what would Ben Folds the photographer be like?

Turns out that Ben Folds is a very talented photographer, who has created an extensive body of work much like he has done as a musician. Ben has a long history with the photographic craft. He himself is an excellent printer and often shoots film. When it comes to photography, Ben refers to himself as, “an obsessive freak,”  and he always has a camera close at hand, usually an old Rollie, Leica range finder, or digital Leica Monochrom.

"Door to Nowhere - Savannah" ©Ben Folds
“Door to Nowhere – Savannah” ©Ben Folds

On his web site Ben states, “…my interest in photographs has expanded to equal that of music and I find one art form always informs and inspires the other.”

It makes sense that someone as creative as Ben Folds would bring his sensibilities of composition, contrast, expression, and craft to all artistic endeavors. His elegant black & white photographs do not disappoint.

"Luckiest" ©Ben Folds
“Luckiest” ©Ben Folds

With the release of his album “So There,” Ben produced several versions on vinyl that included signed prints of XX photographs both on RC and Fiber DSI Digital Silver Prints®. We were fortunate to produce the prints for Ben, and we probably should have included an ice pack for his signing hand.

Many people, including myself, are fans of Ben Folds the musician/singer/song writer. As an artist he is always pushing boundaries, and I think that’s a good example for anyone involved in a creative endeavor. As a photographer Folds appears to be exploring a different side of creative expression. But what else would you expect from Ben Folds.

For more on Ben Folds, the photographer and musician, follow this link.