B&W Negs on Color paper

I read alot of "Can you print color negs on B&W paper?" My question is, has anybody tryed B&W negs on color paper and can you develope color paper in B&W chemicals. Reason for thought is color paper right now is very cheap. Espectially the larger sizes and long roles. Just a thought

You can develop color paper in b&w chems but what you get is very different story. I've done that as a step in reversal processing and the silver image on both Kodak Supra III and Supra Endura was faint even when heavily overexposed. I'm not an expert but I guess there is not enough silver to form a decent image.

As for printing b&w neg on color paper I'm planning to try it. It might be fun but I don't think it's a way of saving money.
The caveats are contrast control - I know of no easy way to do it and you need get the filtration right and stable developer temperature if you want to have repeatable color tone.

The short answer is yes. My local mini-lab does it all the time. Most mini-labs are set up for colour neg but if you take in an already developed B&W film they can produce quite good prints in colour print chems. They never look as neutral as those done in B&W print chems and the "colour" varies. The ones I have seen have a slight green look to them but most customers, especially those who have never seen proper B&W prints on B&W paper, don't seem to have a problem.

To be fair if I had never done my own B&W prints and was happy with holiday type snaps, I would probably be happy as well.

pentaxuser

"The ones I have seen have a slight green look to them "
What effect would selenium have on the paper, I wonder?

can't tone that type of paper.

i have seen some very good black and white images made on color paper. Someone who really knows what they are doing can print a netural black and white print. However, most of the vendors don't take the time to color correct and since most folks don't complain about the color shifts they just keep on printing "junk".

The idea of developing color paper in black and white chemicals is an intriguing one. I haven't tried it, but it would answer the need for a panchromatic paper to print color negatives in black and white. From the above posts, it sounds like you may have to tweak the developer a bit to get the desired outcome. Adjusting the amounts of bromide and hydroquinone might help with the greenish problem. I have also heard rumors that color paper does not have enough silver (or at least enough in the right form) to produce a good black and white image. A somewhat more vigorous developer may help. It looks like some experiments are needed to see if good quality is possible by this route.

As for printing black and white negatives on color paper, regardless of processing, you have to remember that color paper has high contrast - roughly grade 4.

nworth said:

The idea of developing color paper in black and white chemicals is an intriguing one. I haven't tried it, but it would answer the need for a panchromatic paper to print color negatives in black and white. From the above posts, it sounds like you may have to tweak the developer a bit to get the desired outcome. Adjusting the amounts of bromide and hydroquinone might help with the greenish problem. I have also heard rumors that color paper does not have enough silver (or at least enough in the right form) to produce a good black and white image. A somewhat more vigorous developer may help. It looks like some experiments are needed to see if good quality is possible by this route.

As for printing black and white negatives on color paper, regardless of processing, you have to remember that color paper has high contrast - roughly grade 4.

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The greenish tint is from when you make a print of a B&W negative on colour paper, because it does not have the orange mask the colour balance is off. Hence you will get a print with the opposite colour cast.

If you are home printing then get some B&W paper and do it properly.

If you want to save money, do what I did as a poor student in the 1970's.

Instead of buying a 25 sheet package of 8x10, a 25 sheet package of 5x7 and a 25 sheet package of 4x5 in several different grades and finishes. I would buy a 100 sheet package of 8x10 variable contrast, Under safe light I would cut an 8x10 in half, yielding 2 5x8 sheets, then I would trim off the excess one inch, the extra strip stayed in the paper safe. When you wanted an exposure, just take the extra strip put it across the image and do a test exposure and process, saved money on having to print and process a full print for the test exposures.

To get 4x5 sheets I would cut a 5x8 sheet in half, to get 2 4x5 sheets. I often ended up cutting 5 8 x 10 sheets in half, leaving me 10 5x8 sheets, and cut half of those to give me 10 4x5 sheets. It had the advantage that I almost never ran out of 8x10 paper, when I got down to 4 or 5 sheets left, I would buy another 100 sheet package. When I start printing again, I'll probably do the same thing, once I get going.

Another place to save money is to always use the same paper, developer and procedure, this way you learn fairly quickly how to tweak it for your own use, you do enough and you can get to the point of looking at a negative and guessing pretty close on an exposure.

If you look in photography/Darkroom handbooks particularly from John Hedgecoe & Michael Langford you'll see plenty of examples of Colour prints made from B&W negs, but developed in colour chemistry. It's a very useful method of making mono-colour images, like a toned B&W image but more flexible colours.

Ian

wogster said:

The greenish tint is from when you make a print of a B&W negative on colour paper, because it does not have the orange mask the colour balance is off. Hence you will get a print with the opposite colour cast.

If you are home printing then get some B&W paper and do it properly. ...

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The question here was about printing color paper with black and white chemicals. The usual black and white paper developers would not activate the color couplers in the paper, so the cause of the greenish cast would have nothing to do with the color of the negatives or (probably) the color couplers in the paper. The utility of the idea is to be able to make good black and white prints from color negatives. Regular black and white paper, in general, can not do that. You need something with panchromatic sensitivity and high contrast. Papers like that used to be available (e.g. Panalure), but they are no longer around.

Hi Leslie,

If it's just to save money, I wouldn't bother. I've sen it done through an Ilford machine and it looked awful. Unless there's a particular 'look' you're after, use the proper materials for their intended purposes and you can't go wrong and these will provide better value for money in the long term. What you may think is 'cheap' will be a false economy if you're disappointed with the results (as I'm sure you would be!) unless you have colour chemistry and kit to use the colour material as intended by the manufacturer.

All IMO, of course, and I could be wrong...

I have, a long time ago. I got something that looked really cool, to me. It did have a greenish-bluish-silvery-ish color to it. It almost looked metallic. Pretty, but not as contrasty as I usually like. It was a look all it's own. I didn't keep doing it though. In fact, I think I threw all the color paper away.

edited to add; if you can get into photo.net you might still be able to see this. i can see it. i must have scanned it in grayscale because you can't see the color of it, but this is the b&w negative printed on color paper. http://photo.net/black-and-white-photo-printing-finishing-forum/004a6o

Yes. You have little control over anything but the color cast, however. This is how labs make automated b/w prints when you give them your Kodak C-41 b/w film, or a digital file. The cool thing is that you can "tone" a print however you would like. Bad thing is that you should have "perfect" contrast on the negative, since you only have a few papers from which to choose (Kodak Supra Endura, Kodak Ultra Endura Metallic, Fuji C, and Fuji S, and some transparency materials that are designed to be used in backlit displays). "Perfect" contrast for printing onto color paper is different than "perfect" contrast for printing onto b/w paper, so you have to shoot and develop for your intended print medium for best results. Also, all off-the-shelf color paper is RC, of course.

nworth said:

The question here was about printing color paper with black and white chemicals. The usual black and white paper developers would not activate the color couplers in the paper, so the cause of the greenish cast would have nothing to do with the color of the negatives or (probably) the color couplers in the paper. The utility of the idea is to be able to make good black and white prints from color negatives. Regular black and white paper, in general, can not do that. You need something with panchromatic sensitivity and high contrast. Papers like that used to be available (e.g. Panalure), but they are no longer around.

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The comment about the greenish tint was a B&W negative with colour paper done at a mini-lab, in colour chemistries. The OP I thought was talking about using colour paper as it's cheaper then B&W paper, unless someone has already tried it, someone should do some experiments......

My comment stands, using the proper materials for your prints is going to give the best results, and there may be cheaper ways to do it, if you think outside the box.

Color paper would possibly print B+W negs, but the contrast wouldn't match. You can process them in b+w chemistry, but there is not enough silver in the paper for a proper print. The DMAX will be very low.

Thank you all for the responses. All in all it does not sound good for general printing but could be good if it's just some weird look you might be going for. It was just a thought. I stick to my regular paper.