Color Paper as Paper Negative?

[sanking]

I am curious to know if color paper can be exposed in the camera and developed in such a way as to produce a grayscale negative?

Sandy King

 

[keithwms]

There are (or were?) some ra4 papers for this, hyper seagull and ilford ilfospeed come to mind. IT's been a long while since i thought of doing this so I don't know what the status is of those. But I think they were designed for making b&w prints, with ra4 chems, using colour laser exposures.

 

[keithwms]

Ilfospeed rc digital...

I was very interested in purchasing some at some long ago but as I recall it could only be bought in large rolls.

 

[Domin]

While trying reversal RA I've noticed that supra and supra endura produce very low dmax when developed in rather contrasty b&w paper dev. The images were definitely low contrast so it might be a good starting point for some experiments.

There is also backprint issue. I've heard that there are/were some color papers without backprint but I don't remember ever seeing one.

 

[ZorkiKat]

The colour layers are also differently laid on colour paper- the red sensitive layer is on top. I don't know how this affects the colour of the picture, in case a positive is made. However, I have put 9X12 cm sheets of RA4 Konica Golden Dragon paper in an old plate camera before, as well as 60mm strips cut from paper long enough to make 5 or 6 exposures for 120 cameras. Processed in RA4, through a Durst RCP-20 processor. The paper negatives looked largely red- perhaps because of the native bias of the paper emulsion to halogen printing light sources?- but the complementaries of the other colours were there. Blue originals recorded as yellow, green foliage as pinkish red, etc.

This is the colour paper "negative", shot through a Rolleicord. The paper was taped on used backing paper and respooled:

The only way I can make positives from the colour paper negative shot with a 9X12 cm plate camera is by scanning it and reversing the colours digitally. It looked all blue:

 

[AgX]

Ilfospeed rc digital...

I was very interested in purchasing some at some long ago but as I recall it could only be bought in large rolls.

This paper is NOT a chromogenic paper and thus not intented for RA-4.

It is a panchromatic classic b&w paper.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Sandy;

Yes, you can expose color paper in a camera to get a paper negative. You can even get a good neutral out of it if you wish. You will need to experiment quite a bit to get the balance you want though.

It is Tungsten balanced with high UV and IR sensitivity so you will need a good UV filter. The Blue is about ISO 100, the Red is about ISO 25.

PE

 

[Peter de Groot]

This is very intresting. I have some outdated colorpaper. I will have a go with it. It will be possible to develop it in b+w developper? (I know everything is possible but will it give some decent results?) I'm gonna try it anyway. Seems interesting.

 

[keithwms]

ZorkiKat (and others), what happens if you shoot RA4 paper in the camera and then contact print that to RA4 paper? Curious.

 

[Nikola Dulgiarov]

Here's the best that I've done with Ra-4 paper( Kodak Endura)
85B filter, inspection developed in a tray at 30C
5X7

 

[keithwms]

I posted a paper neg in the gallery recently... quite easy...

 

[EASmithV]

I've always wanted to try this.

 

[camerabrain]

What type of chemicals do you need to develop these? I know that Kodak Royal paper used by mini photo labs can do this if used as a negative.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Read the earlier posts here. All is explained.

PE

 

[NedL]

There is a fellow over at flickr in the paper negatives group who worked quite hard to get all the filters figured out for RA4 color negatives. He produced some quite beautiful results.

Timely that this thread popped up active today. This morning I constructed a big cardboard box camera... it has 1/2 of a B&L RR lens from an old Kodak 3A that covers 8x10 easily. I used a dollar store photo frame as the "film holder" and put a piece of unicolor paper in it. I made what jnanian calls a "retina print". Opened the shutter at about 11AM this morning and closed it when we came home from turkey dinner after dark. The results are quite encouraging! It produces a very different range of tones than regular B/W enlarging paper. I just finished scanning it about an hour ago.

It's a hybrid process so I won't post the result here, but I am very much looking forward to trying it again. I think there is not so much silver in this paper, so I don't know what would be left if I try to fix it.... I suppose I'll find out eventually.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Ilfospeed RC digital's specs look interesting, especially its spectral sensitivity. Is this paper still available?

 

[Roger Cole]

I've thought if I could find some RA4 paper without backprinting that I'd try printing slides on it then contact printing the paper negatives, sort of a paper internegative that would be a lot easier to make. But while I'm not sure why, I do feel rather sure it wouldn't work well. And without paper lacking backprint it's academic anyway.

 

[Daire Quinlan]

There's a colour paper negative group on flickr (disclaimer: I started it :-D ) which has some discussion as to filtering/chems/paper etc

http://www.flickr.com/groups/colourpapernegatives

 

[mkillmer]

This is very intresting. I have some outdated colorpaper. I will have a go with it. It will be possible to develop it in b+w developper? (I know everything is possible but will it give some decent results?) I'm gonna try it anyway. Seems interesting.

unfortunately, it wouldn't work correctly. The first negative would be too sensitive to blue and the blues would be blown out regardless of the next step. Appropriate colour filtration at the lens is the best solution - I believe.

 

[mkillmer]

I've been working on the filtration recently. The filters change depending on the light. Filters for Strobes are different than filters for hotlights and are different for daylight rooms etc...
Paper choice apparently will make a difference as well, but I have not been able to confirm that yet as I only have Fuji Crystal archive.
So far, the easiest light for me to consistently filter has been the tungsten modelling lights in my studio strobes. For these I use an 85B+cc20M + CC25Y.
Straight out of the camera (just invert in photoshop) gives:

Colour processing in photoshop gives images like this:

and this:

 

[mkillmer]

Control of lighting is critical as the latitude of the paper is quite low:

 

[Photo Engineer]

Latitude is very low in color papers. Nevertheless these are excellent photos. Congratulations.

PE

 

[Dr Croubie]

So have you tried contact-printing them?
I know there's printing on the back, but even with a bit of text I'd be interested to see how well it worked (And maybe a nice go at the backprinting with a bit of steel-wool might solve that problem, if you can scrub exactly the same over the whole sheet so that there aren't thick bits and thin bits).

What's the filtration like for sunlight, have you tried?

 

[mkillmer]

So have you tried contact-printing them?

No, I haven't I don't have a real darkroom, so it's not an option for me. I suspect it would work, but you would probably need high M & Y values.

What's the filtration like for sunlight, have you tried?

You need lots of magenta and yellow - more than I have (and I have a lot!!). My pics came out very Cyan.
I'll be getting more Magenta soon I hope, then I can try it again.

 

[mkillmer]

Skin tones came out well, but I have strange problems with dark blues and blacks.
In this picture (a self portrait!) I am wearing a dark navy blue T-shirt!

in other examples, my black background has red highlights.
For my experimentation, skin tones are more critical than dark blues, but this is very odd to me!!
Any suggestions why?