digital negatives for silver gelatin

I strongly recommend the white film for any visible light processes. And this is a case where you want to ensure a sharp file and the highest resolution settings for your printer.
I find that contact printing thru white film onto silver paper is a significant improvement over using an enlarger (although I never really liked enlargers that much). It is possible to get a sharp 16x20 print from a scan of 35mm film or from a digital SLR.
Yes, the white film does stop a lot of light - but most silver papers are sufficiently fast that this isn't a serious problem. Just use a 100W bulb with some sort of reflector.
Another note - use graded paper. Grade 2 or Grade 1 if you can find it. This makes the curve smoother and you don't need to worry about the color of the light.
I have also printed with white film onto AZO. But I think of AZO as another is a family of papers with a long tonal range - I am not an AZO expert. I would expect that contact printing a 5x7 negative onto AZO would be sharper than a digital negative. But I think the digital negative would be a good way to enlarge for AZO.
My print times with AZO were a few minutes but that's ok. I even tried just using the sun - to get out of the 'dark'.
bottomline - digital negatives are excellent for silver gelatin prints.

I have less experience than many of you with digital negs but I spent a week on Dan Burkholder's w/shop at the Formulary a while back - see my 'introduction'. (we timed things so I could attend before before my workshops there began). I made colourised and non colourized negs in Pictorico OHP and White Hi gloss film, also image setter (noticeably better). I too thought the white film was superior, but it cuts down light so much and as my Lith prints need about 3 stops extra exposure I found, like Sandy, that times were just too long for that process. Even with a pyro silver neg I can sometimes have a 15 - 20 minute exposure onto slow fomatone MG (that is an exceptional combo). Adding 3 or 4 stops to that printing time - well just do the maths!
Ti

bradhi: i hadn't thought of using graded paper. basically i figured my end goal was to print to FB paper, and the kind i'd bought was variable contrast. so my test contact-print on RC paper i did on variable too. i just figured i might want to adjust contrast at some later date. i'll try graded too though, see how it compares. thanks.

tim (and everyone): the way everyone's talking, i ought to be spending hours per exposure with the white film! my exposure time at f/4 with the enlarger head up to max was 25 seconds with white film, on ilford RC VC paper. i understand Azo being longer because it's a different process, but am i missing something? i don't need multi-minute exposures with 100w light bulbs to make a print.

if all works out, i'll give this a second try tonight. this time with an honest-to-goodness contact printing frame...should get rid of some of the fuzzies.

Brad,

I want to try out the white film. Can you use the same profile for the white film as for the OHP? And do you need to use the Photo Black for the new UC inks (E2400 printer)? I have been using the matte black for the OHP.

Thanks,

Mike

i wouldn't think you'd need to use the fancy inks just to make the negative, as it's not the final product. but i'm from the slash-and-burn school of photography, so there are others who might have a more considered approach and think it's necessary. i just print a negative that is a very very dark blue, mostly black. just enough color to diffuse what might be a grainier all-black negative.

but then i'm using an epson 2000P printer that someone was going to throw away. at least i use the fancy white film now!

We've been using the OHP for several weeks, and have finally gotten the curves tweaked to where we like the results (this has been very time-consuming and we've burned through a lot of OHP in the process). One of the challenges was the blocking-up of the highlight areas. We're using an Epson 2200 with the glossy black ink and at the finest resolution (2880), and printing on Bergger and Forte FB paper using a contact printer and the enlarger as the light source with excellent results.
We've also done several Platinum/Palladium prints and the results are spectacular. Wanted to master this because we have a lot of digital infrared images that we wanted silver gelatin and platinum prints from.
Word of caution... the OHP is VERY fragile and prone to scratching.

i haven't noticed scratches yet on the Pictorico film, but using regular inkjet office supply overhead projector film had the same problem: scratches. i think it's the nature of the beast. i think i might resort to printing out a new negative each time i do a run of a print, and do as many as i can. the film just doesn't seem to survive very well until the next time i print it. an expensive proposition with Pictorico.

i just did some kallitypes last night using Pictorico OHP for the first time (i've used the white film in silver gelatin, and used regular office supply film previously for kalli and cyano). it worked quite well, and i didn't get artifacts from the film as i had with the cheap stuff. i've got to do my curves all over again though! i think the Pictorico film is letting more light through, because my prints had increased contrast. it's somewhere between subtle and mildly noticeable, so i ran another CharThrob curve for next time.

Andy,

What ink set and driver are you using? Are you using the QTR driver?

Ohp does seem to scratch, but if it is the non-image side it does not seem to affect the image that I can tell.

Have you tried white film?

Ink Set & Driver

Hey Michael:

Feeling a bit stupid right now... I do not know what the QTR Driver is.

I am using the Epson ink set that is recommended for the printer... nothing exotic, although when I get the new Mac (next Monday) I plan to get a newer printer and convert the 2200 to monochrome inks (would love some ideas/thoughts about that). I have not used the white film yet, just going through the Premium OHP. Also, the scratched have indeed been on the back side, and I have not noticed any image problems... just really sensitive to scratches and have been handling the diginegs with cotton gloves only.

Being able to do the digital negatives has profoundly enhanced my enjoyment of the darkroom, because I can now be free to shoot with digital (especially the IR) and know that I will get a good result. I would be happy to share my curve preset with anyone who would like it... although I find myself tweaking it a bit for each file... it definitely is a good starting point. I also find that I need a bit more contrast in the file if I am doing a Palladium print, and that is where it gets tricky, because of the blocking-up of the highlights.

I admit that I have a great deal to learn... I see a lot of discussion about drivers, but I have been using the "Same as Source" setting in the print window... probably akin to using a sledge hammer to crack an egg. I would be very grateful for a reading-material suggestion to understand the nuances of driver-speak. I am using Photoshop CS, and am getting CS2 with the Mac next week.

Michael P. Rosenberg said:

Andy,

What ink set and driver are you using? Are you using the QTR driver?

Ohp does seem to scratch, but if it is the non-image side it does not seem to affect the image that I can tell.

Have you tried white film?

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sanking said:

Normal exposures with a 60 watt R40 flood on AZO are in the 30-60 second range. Use of the white Pictorico film increases times to 8 minutes and more. Perhaps not impossibly long, but much longer than most silver printers woud like.

Sandy King

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Hi Sandy...

I take it that your 60W R40 flood is an incandescent (normal or halogen) type, and not a mercury vapor or CF type?

I've never had any luck with incandescent sources and AZO. AZO is only violet and UV sensitive, and incandescent sources fall off rapidly in that range. And they're unpredictable, just a 2% line voltage fluctuation will produce 15% drop in UV output. I expose AZO in my UV frame (12 BLB UV tubes running at 60W each on overdrive ballasts). Exposure is about 1 to 4 seconds, and short exposures at start are unpredictable even using instant start ballasts (the big frame really needs an integrating dosimeter). I actually use filtration to get exposures down to manageable levels. A 4 stop decrease would give me a wonderfully manageable 30 seconds.

rippo said:

i haven't noticed scratches yet on the Pictorico film, but using regular inkjet office supply overhead projector film had the same problem: scratches. i think it's the nature of the beast.

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It is for that office supply stuff (also Epson and HP brand). That's typically gelatin coated. Scratches easy, imparts a grainy texture to negatives, and doesn't have the best DMAX. Ceramic coated films from AGFA or Pictorico are harder to scratch, take more ink for better DMAX, and do it with less texture.

Proper drying of the digital negatives also increases their "toughness". Even a day or two of open air drying won't do it, but 1/2 an hour of open air, followed by 24 hours sandwiched between pieces of clean, white paper works very well. You can make a stack, paper, neg (face down), paper, neg, paper, big old heavy book...

Do not reuse the clean, white paper, once a sheet has been used to "dry" a negative, it's "done". Properly dried sheets are also consistent in their density. The solvents in the inks cause a cloudiness in the film that increases density in heavily inked areas (increasing contrast) so negs that are simply open air dried can change in contrast over a period of days. Paper sandwich drying gets them stabilized much quicker.

This aside, I've been known to coat well dried digital negatives either with MIS "glop" (automatically, applied by a spare inkjet printer) or PremierArt "Print Shield" (sprayed in a well ventilated area).

hmm, hybridphoto.com stopped notifying me of replies. glad i checked!

glad i switched from those gelatin-covered sheets. i'll give the drying thing a try. except of course i'm always printing the negs out a few hours before doing a printing session!

wiz said:

Proper drying of the digital negatives also increases their "toughness". Even a day or two of open air drying won't do it, but 1/2 an hour of open air, followed by 24 hours sandwiched between pieces of clean, white paper works very well. You can make a stack, paper, neg (face down), paper, neg, paper, big old heavy book...

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Wiz-- I once printed out a fairly heavy patch of Ultrachrome ink (theold stuff, not the K3 set) on Pictorico, and immediately after printing measured its Optical Density in the UV. Then I let it sit for a day or so and kept remeasuring the OD. Sure enough, right after it came from the printer its OD was variable, sometimes high, sometimes low, but in a day or two it stabilized and did not change thereafter for weeks.
Good news, however, was that blowing medium heat from a hair dryer over it for about 60 seconds caused the OD to stabilize at the same point as letting it sit and air dry for days. I've never tried the paper interleaving trick, but being a fairly impatient sort I just blow dry the suckers and get on with printing. Maybe that's why my prints have that weird look???? Cheers, Ron-san

hey ron-san, i tried your hairdryer trick last night while making negs for kallitype, as a printer mishap had delayed the neg printout until about an hour before i was slated to make prints. seemed to work just fine! i didn't bust out a densitometer or anything, but the prints look good, and the ink didn't smudge. thanks!