enlarged negatives?

WarEaglemtn · Jan 29, 2008

Is there a lab that is making enlarged negatives for contact printing? I am looking for film negatives so I can get the 4x10 negs to 8x20 or larger while not going the route of digital negs.
Would like to do some 4x5's to 16x20 or so. Some 8x10's to 16x20 and larger.

Anyone know a lab that is making enlarged negs on film?

David A. Goldfarb · Jan 29, 2008

If you don't want to make them yourself, I think dr5 makes them (www.dr5.com).

maxbloom · Jan 30, 2008

DR5 only does up to 8x10 IIRC.

Deckled Edge · Feb 4, 2008

I make my own. In my gallery is a 5x7 Pt. print of a well in Siena. I shot 120 roll film, enlarged to 4x5 Efke PL 25 M, then enlarged that positive to 5x7. The enlarged positives are always 4x5 'cuz I have a 4x5 enlarger. From there any size neg. that the original image will support is fair game.

Jim Noel · Feb 4, 2008

I'm with deckled edge. Make them in the darkroom. It's not too difficult. As Franklin P Jordan said in a book I have from the 1930's, "I'll give you credit for how dumb you think you are, but even you can learn to make enlarged negatives in one evening."

Please take no offense to this quaote, itis a quote, and I have proven it true dozens of times.

Bruce Osgood · Feb 4, 2008

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Jim Noel said:
I'm with deckled edge. Make them in the darkroom. It's not too difficult.

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Is there a published methodology to enlarging negs? Something that outlines step by step procedures, materials and equipment necessary?

Dave Miller · Feb 4, 2008

Bruce Osgood said:
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Is there a published methodology to enlarging negs? Something that outlines step by step procedures, materials and equipment necessary?

That's something that will interest me too, a it's on my "to do list". A list that seems to be increasing in length the older that I get.:confused:

payral · Feb 4, 2008

If you google "enlarged negatives" you will find a lot of answers, explaining how to do it.

keithwms · Feb 4, 2008

Indeed there are many approaches.

My own opinion is that it makes good sense to jump one generation or so for contact prints, e.g., 4x5 enlarged to 5x7 or perhaps 8x10. But if you enlarge more than that, you might*** see some fundamental limitations of enlarger optics creeping in and dueling grain. At that point an LVT might be more sensible.

***I say "might" to avoid any long flaming arguments.

Jim Noel · Feb 4, 2008

Bruce,
I have sent you a pdf via email. There is really no current book or publication with which I agree.
Jim

Jon King · Feb 4, 2008

I have enlarged 6x6 negatives to 5x7 or 8x10 for cyanotypes and albumen prints. I've read that diluted print developer is often used, but I ended up mixing my own LC-1, which was formulated specifically for making enlarged negatives from Lith film. A documented advantage of LC-1 is a more linear density curve compared to diluted print developer.

I also used a step wedge to help see what was happening when making the interpositive as well as the final negative.

Here is a link to some pages from - Christopher James' "The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes" that discuss enlarged negatives and LC-1.

http://books.google.com/books?id=gq...ts=Lwbz-Z21T7&sig=l1P1jDCEdjzLVL4fGOR7MFYLkbE

Bruce Osgood · Feb 4, 2008

Jim Noel said:
Bruce,
I have sent you a pdf via email. There is really no current book or publication with which I agree.
Jim

Jim --- WOW!

I've just skimmed it and I think it is exactly what I wanted.

Thank you very much. I just need the negative worthy of enlarging. If/when I have a question I will bring it to you. But as I read, you seem to anticipate and address issues before they become issues.

Thanks again,

Akki14 · Feb 4, 2008

I've been making enlarged negatives all afternoon. I got some ortho litho film from Freestyle (cheaper than lith film in the UK unfortunately otherwise I'd buy it here) which you just use like you would paper under the enlarger. Develop by inspection in trays in ilford multigrade 1+9 dilution which takes about 40-50seconds. It's not that hard, I wish people would stop poopooing it and just shove themselves off to the d-route of doing it. From what I can tell, lith film can be more economical than ohp film too.
I didn't reply to this sooner because the OP seemed to suggest they wanted 8x10 enlarged to 16x20 which is a bit beyond most people's enlargers... but if they mean enlarging to 8x10 size, that's not hard.

I was using 4x5 fomapan100(panchromatic film) before I got the lith film and that's a little more fiddly, working in complete darkness but it does give nice results. I still had to use multigrade paper developer to get a nice high contrast result out of it, though (5 minutes dev time, in case anyone is wanting to repeat my workflow). So give it a try if you have a darkroom, you can get really huge lith film from Freestyle, and if it's not big enough they do 100-400ft rolls in various widths up to 40inches wide if I remember correctly...

keithwms · Feb 4, 2008

I agree that developing by inspection is the way to go and the duping process is not technically hard. But getting the right contrast through the internegative to the positive (= the duped neg) is simply a bit laborious. So far I've only gotten it to work with negs for which the tone scale wasn't particularly subtle. Anyway, yeah, if you can get it to work for your neg, then great.

Jim Noel · Feb 4, 2008

Keith-

To get the interpositive - over expose and underdevelop so the positive falls in the mid Zones about III-VII. You should be able to see full detail in both highlights and shadows.

With a properly exposed and developed positive, the negative can be manipulated to any degree desired.

PeterB · Feb 4, 2008

Jim Noel said:
Keith-

To get the interpositive - over expose and underdevelop so the positive falls in the mid Zones about III-VII. You should be able to see full detail in both highlights and shadows.

With a properly exposed and developed positive, the negative can be manipulated to any degree desired.

If this process is done correctly, how does the final contact print of the larger negative compare to an enlargement (print) of the original negative ?

Is the goal here to make the two prints look different or the same ?

Does the contact print in this exercise lend itself to benefiting from the usual benefits of contact printing ?

Peter

David A. Goldfarb · Feb 4, 2008

Usually the purpose of making an enlarged negative is to make a print by a process that can only be done by contact printing, like pt/pd, albumen, cyanotype, gum bichromate, ziatype, vandyke brown, kallitype, etc.

PeterB · Feb 4, 2008

David A. Goldfarb said:
Usually the purpose of making an enlarged negative is to make a print by a process that can only be done by contact printing, like pt/pd, albumen, cyanotype, gum bichromate, ziatype, vandyke brown, kallitype, etc.

Sorry, I wasn't clear enough in my question, I was referring to contacting printing onto AZO paper. Would the process of enlarging the neg result in a print of inferior quality [1] when printed onto AZO (compared to printing the smaller neg onto standard B&W paper)

[1] Ignoring the recent thread about any 3D effects of AZO, perhaps such a subjective question about "quality" could be answered either subjectively from a personal preference or objectively on the grounds of tonality, accutance and grain.

richard ide · Feb 4, 2008

Possibly the easiest and frustration free way to do this is to use duplicating film(negative/negative). The selection now is very limited. One seller on the auction site (mrphoto1) sells this film (up to 24" x 30"). If you find one of his items, the information on the page lists the various films and uses. Making a positive intermediate and a large negative can be a good learning experience. Keep accurate notes and eliminate as many variables as you can. Preflashing your film to .03 to .05 above base fog will help greatly. If you wish to minimize grain, when you make the enlargement, defocus the image. If carefully done; sometimes it is hardly noticable on the final print. I have never tried lith film as I had the equipment and materials to make any size negatives or duplicates.
There will always be a difference between a print made from the original and from a larger copy negative. A high quality copy will require a second look to tell. It is like COC.
I had a client who had me make 4 x 5 dupes from 8 x 10 negatives for non critical work because prints were a lot cheaper than contacts. One person could make and process over 500 8 x 10's per hour against 150 contacts per hour.

PeterB · Feb 5, 2008

richard ide said:
There will always be a difference between a print made from the original and from a larger copy negative. A high quality copy will require a second look to tell. It is like COC.

Thanks Richard. So done properly and using the same paper(if that were possible), it should not be overwhelmingly difficult to make the two prints look "the same".

(print 1 being an enlargement from 35mm neg to 8x10", print 2 being a contact print from the copied 8x10 neg)

Peter

richard ide · Feb 5, 2008

Peter,
There should not be any serious difficulty. But why would it not be possible to use the same paper?

PeterB · Feb 5, 2008

richard ide said:
Peter,
There should not be any serious difficulty. But why would it not be possible to use the same paper?

I was hoping to use AZO paper for the contact print, and I thought that AZO doesn't work all that well when projecting an enlargement onto it, hence the need to use another paper for the 35mm to 8x10 enlargement.

regards
Peter

richard ide · Feb 5, 2008

Sorry Peter,
I meant that to just make a comparison of looks and quality, make a print from each negative on to the same paper. I have printed enlarged negatives on Azo but really just to see the results. I had an enlarger with a very bright (6000w) light source.

Ian Leake · Feb 5, 2008

This may be a dumb question, but how do you judge the correct exposure for the interpositive? Do people rely on test strips (which seems a big palaver to me), or could I just use an incident lightmeter?

Akki14 · Feb 5, 2008

I treat it like I do paper so I make test strips. Because it's development by inspection and a judge&grab sort of thing, I can somewhat eyeball if I need more development as well as exposure in some cases.
I think traditionally they say print the interpositive flat as far as contrast so you keep detail in the highlights and shadows.

enlarged negatives?

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