WHAT MAKES THE BEST PRINTS?
Like film cameras, darkrooms haven’t gone away either. As with cameras, their number is greatly diminished these days due to the introduction of the inkjet printer.
While most people aren’t interested in, and have never even seen a darkroom, there’s ample evidence that the equipment and the buyers are still there.
All the parts and pieces that go into a darkroom are readily available from a variety of photographic suppliers. Adorama is one such company which offers a long list of darkroom enlargers from $200 on up to the $2,700 range.
One area where darkrooms have a major advantage is the ability to produce high quality, silver gelatin black and white prints, which are known for their longevity, tonal range and hand-made, fine art appeal.
A properly made black and white print is virtually impervious to fading and can last indefinitely.
Not so with color prints. Both inkjet and darkroom-made color prints will fade and turn different hues over a relatively short time period, especially when exposed to bright light.
Many black and white prints made from negatives in the 1800’s are still with us and still look great. Today, the market for historic and fine art black and white prints is strong. In many cases, such prints command very high prices.
