Cross Printing

Ektagraphic · Apr 11, 2009

What happens when black and white negs are printed on color paper? What happens when color negs are printed on black and white paper? What happens when color slides are printed on black and white or color paper? I am just curious if anyone has ever done these things.....I do know some people enjoy cross processing their films, but what about cross prinitng?

David William White · Apr 11, 2009

I sometimes print colour negatives in black and white, just because that's all I can print. If it's a simple composition and colour isn't important, it works nicely in B&W. Sometimes I print harder for drama. Sometimes I print colour slides in B&W by first making an internegative on film or ortho/litho. Never gone the other way, however.

Ektagraphic · Apr 11, 2009

Do you have any examples you can share?

Photo Engineer · Apr 11, 2009

Cross printing is easily done and you get what is expected. All negatives (color or B&W) on B&W paper give normal to distorted positive images. Distortion is due to the color insesnitivity of the B&W paper or the changes in contrast if it is a MG paper. All positives give negative images and the same distortions apply.

I have done all of the above and have posted some examples of color slides printed on cross processed color negative paper which can be quite interesting.

Reasoning through it is rather simple for an experienced photographer who can easily predict what the results will be like. He can then run the experiment and vary the results to taste and use or discard the results.

Usually, they are discards. Color negatives from EIR which were cross processed, then printed on color negative paper are the most stunning exceptions. The normally red tree leaves and grass turn out green but with inverted tone scale for example, and it is difficult to figure out what has been done to achieve such a result.

PE

keithwms · Apr 11, 2009

There are ra4 papers specifically for the printing of colour or b&w chromogenic negs. For example, oriental hyper seagull or ilfospeed rc digital.

David William White · Apr 11, 2009

Ektagraphic said:
Do you have any examples you can share?

Not offhand that is printed & scanned, but I'm not sure it would be helpful anyway, because I don't think anyone could tell if the print was made from a B&W, negative colour, or positive anyway. You just tend to work it so it gives you the look you want, and the source becomes immaterial.

I think it would be more interesting to see B&W on colour paper -- you've got the cast of the film base plus the filtration of the head.

srs5694 · Apr 11, 2009

I've got a pair of color prints made from a Fuji Velivia 50 slide. The scene is an old half-collapsed building on a slope with a bunch of wild flowers around it. One print was printed and processed normally, which of course has the effect of reversing the colors, so the sky looks like an image from a Mars lander, among other things. The other print was also done on RA-4 paper, but I did reversal processing on it (developed in B&W developer, stopped it, exposed it to light, and then continued with normal RA-4 processing). The result is an image with sort-of normal colors, but they're a bit off and the contrast is quite high. I've got the two prints hanging next to each other; I think they make a nice pair.

nickandre · Apr 11, 2009

If you got the contrast to match (feasible but a PITA,) you could theoretically tone them any color of the gamut of color paper and the capacity of your enlarger's filtration.

I once attempted to make prints from slides on RA4 paper. I think it's quite possible, but you are left with a mottle on the final print. I managed to get the contrast under control using a 1:3or 4 solution of Sprint paper developer and a dev time of 4-5 minutes. That might have been a bit too low, I'd use a lower dilution next time like 1:1.5 or 2. I didn't feel very adventurous then. I'm probably just going to enlarge up to dupe film from now on.

tim_walls · Apr 11, 2009

Photo Engineer said:
Usually, they are discards. Color negatives from EIR which were cross processed, then printed on color negative paper are the most stunning exceptions. The normally red tree leaves and grass turn out green but with inverted tone scale for example, and it is difficult to figure out what has been done to achieve such a result.]

Ooh, thanks for this PE.

I have a couple of rolls of EIR in the fridge that are long overdue shooting; you've given me something to do with them .

srs5694 · Apr 11, 2009

tiberiustibz said:
I once attempted to make prints from slides on RA4 paper. I think it's quite possible, but you are left with a mottle on the final print.

Not always. The print I mentioned above has no hint of mottle to it. IIRC, I did that one on Fuji paper with Dektol as the first (B&W) developer. OTOH, I've seen mottling on other attempts. I've only done this a few times, though, so I'm not sure what variables determine whether or not you get mottling.

DarkroomExperimente · Apr 11, 2009

BW neg on RA4 paper can look really cooool

I printed blue toned negs and got a great fire-red/orange image with white highlights and black blacks

best part was...when I took some BW negs colored with paints intended for film to my usual camera store to get the prints...the manager looked at the results of the image I wanted printed...then looked at the rest of my negs and told the printer guy "hey print this one too"...I got a few extra prints for free because THEY were having fun too

John Shriver · Apr 11, 2009

To correct Keith, Ilford Ilfospeed RC Digital is a true B&W paper (silver, no dyes) for conventional B&W processing. It is not an RA4 paper, it has the high stability of conventional silver papers. It is designed for digital exposure (short bright exposures).

keithwms · Apr 11, 2009

Oh okay I thought the rc digital was ra4 process. I have some here, given me by someone with a digital output machine, and I've been meaning to try it. Admittedly having not yet tried it, I'll say that my assumption was that I could arrange short bright exposures in my enlarger....

Anyway the hyper seagull fits the bill.

Cross Printing

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