[normhead]

This past year we've picked up number of pantings, Tess' cousins is a very well known and respected painter. SO when people in the family owe us favours they generally offer to buy us one of Janie's paintings. They sometimes gasp at what that's going to cost them even at the "family price." But if they are known to be cheap and we know they have ton of money socked away, we find that somewhat amusing. What I can't get over is the degree of saturation or colour density. You put one of her paintings up in front of even our most saturated prints, and the paintings completely dominate. I am wondering if anyone has explored this and found a way to get those colours popping off the canvas like they do on colourful paintings?

---

Last edited by normhead; 06-25-2019 at 07:57 AM.

[dbs]

Hi Norm

I guess paint uses raw pigment plus binder
photos is I think uses dyes

Paint sits on the 'paper'
Photos disolves into the paper


Dave

[biz-engineer]

I guess paint uses raw pigment plus binderphotos is I think uses dyesPaint sits on the 'paper'Photos disolves into the paper

True. I've also seen amazing premium paper / inkjet combinations (print catalogue samples from a distributor of supplies for canvas paintings), but they weren't cheap.

[photoptimist]

Hi Norm

I guess paint uses raw pigment plus binder
photos is I think uses dyes

Paint sits on the 'paper'
Photos disolves into the paper


Dave

Exactly!

All inkjet printers are essentially watercolor paintings.

Worse, inkjets have few base colors (3 colors in low-end printers, 12-inks but only 6 colors in the highend ones) with which to generate the full spectrum of color. In contrast, acrylic and oil paint can use any of dozens of different mineral and chemical pigments and dyes.

[Riggomatic]

Wouldn't that be a nice printer...load it up with some acrylics, install a couple brushes and roll feed the canvas in.

[photoptimist]

Wouldn't that be a nice printer...load it up with some acrylics, install a couple brushes and roll feed the canvas in.

Yes... I was thinking about that. Adding a tube of acrylic to a tiny extruder head on a 3-D printer (or flatbed plotter) would enable pinpoint application of color.

However, to really replicate the intense color and saturation of a painting, the system needs a multispectral image of the scene so that each point of the image uses the appropriate acrylic color(s).

[biz-engineer]

Inkjet is the same ink as acrylic/oil pigment mixture with some solvents so it can be injected. I tried to remove pigment inkjet ink on archival paper, using various solvents and I couldn't remove the ink. The only liquid that helped get some of the ink was kitchen oil, every other product failed to have any effect on the inked paper. Ink density can be tweak depending on paper, more ink means more cost ($1/ml), that could be the reason why low cost prints don't render as well as premium prints.

[graeme83]

Higher end printers these days use pigment based inks which I imagine would help somewhat, especially when combined with the proper papers. I have had a few things printed this way but only in black and white or images with low colour saturation to begin with, but they do have a certain presence.

Metallic papers are supposed to provide an extra punch to colours, as is mounting on acrylic, although these are super glossy options and not really like a painting.
I have done a few photo gifts using darkroom style prints mounted behind acrylic and they look great with good saturation, although things do get pricey when you think big.

If your after replicating a painterly look I would try out a small print on something like the Hahnemuhle art papers from somewhere that uses the latest and greatest Epson inks or similar and see what you think, small prints can be had pretty cheap. Whether they can match paint I don't know, but might be worth trying.

[sqrrl]

I'd say it's the structure of the substance rather than just the composition.

Paint is 3d, you can layer it up until the canvas is completely obscured, you can use transparent mediums, you can build matrices which reflect light in different ways, and you can manually create different textures at will. That's before you get to underpainting, including extra pigments, glazing, or other techniques, you also have a far wider range of pigments available.

A big part of the pop is often colour theory, a thin streak of bright green will make an area of red pop as the eye is drawn to the difference as well as the colour. The orange-teal color grade that many video editors use is an example of this - if overdone it can look unnatural. Warm & cool colours can also create contrast.

A photo print by comparison tends to be flat and generally only a couple of layers deep, it doesn't hide the reflectivity of the paper or canvas (in fact relies on it), you can't dynamically fiddle with pigments, texture, transparency or similar traits.

I've known a few people using inkjet or UV set printing who get their prints to really pop, but they've generally spent a lot of time learning how to do it in photoshop, and calibrating rip software. The people I'm thinking of also tended to non-figurative abstract sort of work - they didn't get to the same place as painters though as they are stuck with a fixed pallet.

[photoptimist]

Inkjet printers brag how few picoliters each drop contains which makes me wonder how much pigment they apply per square inch. A typical tube of acrylic has 120 trillion picoliters in it and I suspect artists lay on the paint more heavily than does the printer.

Artists also have a lot more colors to choose from which fills out the gamut more completely that any inkjet can.



P.S. Cadmium yellow #37 is cadmium sulfide, the same molecule used in many old light meters including the venerable Spotmatic and K1000.

[dbs]

On a side note those Quinacridone colours shure do 'pop' on watercolour paper.......Yes I paint in watercolour

You have all had some paint mixed for a change of colour at home...how can a inkjet printer really compete and reproduce all the shades and tints of all colours when you see the colour book at the paint shop

Dave

[Alex645]

They sometimes gasp at what that's going to cost them even at the "family price." I am wondering if anyone has explored this and found a way to get those colours popping off the canvas like they do on colourful paintings?

Most consumers, at least in North America, somehow equate art to the cost of the materials or the price of mass reproductions. My daughter is also an artist and painter and has to deal with this mentality.

The most saturated photos that I've seen were printed on aluminum. Epson is also now producing a metallic paper that has a high Dmax, color gamut and depth to the color.
Metallic Photo Paper Glossy, 8.5" x 11", 25 Sheets | Epson US

[arnold]

Hi Norm

I guess paint uses raw pigment plus binder
photos is I think uses dyes

Paint sits on the 'paper'
Photos disolves into the paper


Dave

This why slides have so much appeal to me,

[photolady95]

Would a Dye printer be better than an Inkjet?

[Alex645]

Would a Dye printer be better than an Inkjet?

I use both an Epson SureColor P800 inkjet and a DNP DS80 dye sublimation printer. Yes, the dye sub has more saturation, but blacks are not as deep as it uses cyan, magenta, and yellow ribbon to create black instead of ink.

I would also say the dye sub doesn't handle as many values and gradients as nicely as inkjet, so it's a compromise.

P-30 Cibachrome/Ilfochrome, RIP, has always been my gold standard. From a Kodachrome slide or even Velvia, those colors prints were breath-taking.