Development for both traditional negs and alternative processes

I am just getting back into darkroomwork after a hiatus because of health issues, followed by the The Great Plague (Covid).

I have only dabbled a tiny bit with alt processes but I want to start making alternative prints directly from negatives (5x7 and 8x10). A negative for a salt print needs to be of much highter contrast than it does for a silver gelatin print, so what if you want to shoot a particular scene for both processes? Do you solve the dilemma by simply shooting two negatives or is there something else that can be done in the darkroom? Do you shoot for the salt print and then use that negative with really low contrast paper for the silver gelatin print? I expect that this where digital negatives come in handy but I prefer working with the physical negative.

This is probably a stupid question but this is what happens when you are forced to take a long holiday.

I tailor the negative for the process...which is generally decided before I set the camera up. (4x5 to 11x14).

One can sometimes get away with using a neg for both an alt process and silver gelatin be using a staining developer. The stain adds contrast in alt processes requiring UV light -- the yellow stain is built up proportionally to the amount of developed silver present and the yellow blocks some of the UV. The stain can act like a low contrast filter on variable contrast silver gelatin papers.

I prefer to use another sheet of film, expose two of the same image, and process them for the different processes. Makes for easier printing, and one can have negatives that will draw the most out of the process...rather than tweaking the process to fit a marginal negative.

And if I blow the exposure/development of a neg and it has too much contrast for platinum printing, and if the image will work reversed, the negative could a great single-transfer carbon print.

I guess you could expose and develop for silver, print the negative on silver, and then intensify the negative to increase contrast.
Seems restrictive and complicated.
Have you looked at the methods involving inter-positives?

I develop my B&W film for traditional silver printing, but scan and craft digital negatives for pt/pd printing. Perhaps a digital negatives could be used for salt printing?

Print the same negative at low contrast, should come out just fine.

One option is to use pyrocat as developer. Pyrocat stains should (so I read) block UV more and then you would have multi-purpose negatives. I tried pyrocat few times but didn't end up using it.

A single con-tone negative can be modified for different alternative processes (assuming the data is there to begin with) by the use of post process contrast masks. Called “two-stage” negative masking, this technique is described in detail here:
https://www.ephotozine.com/article/an-understanding-of-film-masking-in-the-darkroom-part-2-25825

Not a stupid question at all as it's certainly a dilemma (either that or you and i are both stupid.. i certainly cant rule that out for myself)

My solutions to the problem are
1. either shoot two negatives and develop at different contrasts
2. develop for a high contrast and when it comes to making the silver gelative print then rely on masks and/or dodging and burning skills to get highlights back into place.
3. develop for silver gelatine print and then create an interneg to make a higher contrast negative for alt processes.

out of the three solutions i could think of, it's just a lot less hassle to shoot two negatives if you want to do whole process purely with film rather than hybrid.

Vaughan will just casually drop utter alt process bomb prints into conversations and I think his advice is the best ihere

Alan9940 said:

I develop my B&W film for traditional silver printing, but scan and craft digital negatives for pt/pd printing. Perhaps a digital negatives could be used for salt printing?

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Alan, I am sure that digital negs could be used but after working in hi-tech for most of my adult life and hating most of it, I made a resolution to use as little digital technology as possible when I retired. That is a bit of an exaggeration, of course, but I do want use the original negative and not a scan.

Craig75 said:

Not a stupid question at all as it's certainly a dilemma (either that or you and i are both stupid.. i certainly cant rule that out for myself)

My solutions to the problem are
1. either shoot two negatives and develop at different contrasts
2. develop for a high contrast and when it comes to making the silver gelative print then rely on masks and/or dodging and burning skills to get highlights back into place.
3. develop for silver gelatine print and then create an interneg to make a higher contrast negative for alt processes.

out of the three solutions i could think of, it's just a lot less hassle to shoot two negatives if you want to do whole process purely with film rather than hybrid.

Vaughan will just casually drop utter alt process bomb prints into conversations and I think his advice is the best ihere

Click to expand...

I have learned to listen carefully to Vaughan's posts. Anyone who makes prints that his must know sumthin'

aw, shucks...

I have taught workshops using digital negatives and using film negatives. The first way is easy if one has a resident geek to handle the computer/printer. The workshop prints can tend to be fairly uniform -- all the characteristics of film (or digital capture) shaped into a common mold to match a set of predetermined variables for the process to be used. It can be an excellent starting place to explore a process.

The latter (participants bring camera negatives) can be very challenging for the instructor as one needs to alter the process to get the most from the negative. In the learning stage, this can encourage exploring the possibilities of the process, but this is difficult in the limited time of a workshop. My workshops now aim for the middle ground. The participants use provided 8x10 cameras, I process the film, and we make carbon prints from the resulting negatives the next day. Well...we will someday again after the pandemic...

This goes with my feeling that there is not a separation between image making and print making*. Vision feeds technique, technique feeds vision. Making carbon prints from images originally visualized as silver prints is valid, but when teaching, I want the students to be considering the qualities and characteristics of a carbon print as they photograph...with a second photo session after the first printing session if at all possible for more feedback between seeing and the final print.

* I am defining image-making as the seeing and the putting of what one sees into some sort of recorded form (negative). Print-making is then taking the recorded image and creating some sort of final object representing what one saw (print). YMMD

For in camera negatives, I use Pyrocat-HD... Most negatives can then be used in silver or alt processes.

Doc W said:

Alan, I am sure that digital negs could be used but after working in hi-tech for most of my adult life and hating most of it, I made a resolution to use as little digital technology as possible when I retired. That is a bit of an exaggeration, of course, but I do want use the original negative and not a scan.

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Fully understand. I worked in IT for 40 years; some of it good...some not so much. But, I do find the tools available to me in the digital desktop are exactly the right ones sometimes. I, also, enjoy silver and pt/pd printing in my darkroom. I've tried making pt/pd prints from in camera negatives, but I've yet to find them as satisfying as the ones from digital negatives. But, hey, we each have our own way of working, right?

Alan9940 said:

Fully understand. I worked in IT for 40 years; some of it good...some not so much. But, I do find the tools available to me in the digital desktop are exactly the right ones sometimes. I, also, enjoy silver and pt/pd printing in my darkroom. I've tried making pt/pd prints from in camera negatives, but I've yet to find them as satisfying as the ones from digital negatives. But, hey, we each have our own way of working, right?

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I think we are in agreement. Right now, my main interest is in very traditional materials and methods but I can see a time when I digitize some of my 120 images.

Easy to print negatives match the contrast of the printing process. It's better to choose a process before exposing the film.

That said, as other posters have mentioned, you could try using one of the pyro staining developers. Pyrocat is good, but there are others. Alternatively, depending on your alt process you may be able to print 'thin' negatives using contrast reducing agents. You can do this in platinum/palladium, for example, (but not salt I think).

Doc W said:

I am just getting back into darkroomwork after a hiatus because of health issues, followed by the The Great Plague (Covid).

I have only dabbled a tiny bit with alt processes but I want to start making alternative prints directly from negatives (5x7 and 8x10). A negative for a salt print needs to be of much highter contrast than it does for a silver gelatin print, so what if you want to shoot a particular scene for both processes? Do you solve the dilemma by simply shooting two negatives or is there something else that can be done in the darkroom? Do you shoot for the salt print and then use that negative with really low contrast paper for the silver gelatin print? I expect that this where digital negatives come in handy but I prefer working with the physical negative.

This is probably a stupid question but this is what happens when you are forced to take a long holiday.

Click to expand...

Not a stupid question at all.
The contrast needed for an ideal Salt print negative is quite high, and that same negative would require approximately Grade 0 silver gelatin paper to print on. I have decided that if I want to print a negative on both mediums, I make two negatives: one exposed/processed for traditional papers, and one for salted papers. I always expose two sheets of film for every composition anyway, so its simply a matter of developing each one for the printing process its being matched to.

I've dabbled with digital negatives myself, but found the results lack the sparkle and detail you get from an in-camera negative made on film.

By the way, if you haven't read the salted paper document by Ellie Young, you should. She goes into considerable detail about the creation of good negatives for the process, and her research indicates that FP4 is the ideal emulsion for Salted Paper print making: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/15614798.pdf

I hope you're feeling much better.

Doc W said:

Alan, I am sure that digital negs could be used but after working in hi-tech for most of my adult life and hating most of it, I made a resolution to use as little digital technology as possible when I retired. That is a bit of an exaggeration, of course, but I do want use the original negative and not a scan.

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I completely understand how you feel. I have been making salted paper prints precisely because I want to avoid any more involvement with computer editing technology. Software can be a great asset in modern photography, but I am fed up with it most days, and finding a print making process that gets me away from it entirely is making me much happier.
I wholeheartedly hope that you pursue making in-camera negatives for salt printing and skip the digital negatives entirely.