Graphical negatives

[modafoto]

Hi

I want to make negatives that are purely black and white. I do not want the midtones at all. Can any of you people in here give me some tips.
I heard about developing the film in paper developer, but are there any other tips?
Which film and which developer? Overexposure? Overdevelopment? Tell me!

greetings Morten

 

[TPPhotog]

Morten,
My first thought is Lith Film but I only have a basic understanding of this technique. I'm sure there's plenty of expert knowledge here to give you the details though.
Tony

 

[Donald Miller]

There are several ways to do this. The first would be to simply use a paper developer (such as Dektol) as your film developer. You may need to experiment with dilutions and film etc. I would start with Dektol at 1-3 dilution. Couple that with printing at the highest contrast filtration or paper.

Beyond that interesting effects can be obtained by using lith film as a camera film or even to contact print your camera negative to a lith film and then to print the contact lith film negative. This would take two generations to produce a negative from your camera negative or you might try the one step negative to negative process on Ed Buffaloes site (www.unblinkingeye.com)

Sources for the lith film are Photowarehouse and Freestyle photographic. They also have A-B lith film developer.

 

[modafoto]

There are several ways to do this. The first would be to simply use a paper developer (such as Dektol) as your film developer. You may need to experiment with dilutions and film etc. I would start with Dektol at 1-3 dilution. Couple that with printing at the highest contrast filtration or paper.

This would be my preference as I'm shooting 35 mm and therefore cannot use Lith film in-camera. And the positive/negative process is too expensive for me.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[Ole]

Tetenal used to make a "Fotografik" kit which was said to dissolve some of the emulsion off the paper while overexposing the rest. Result was pure black and white.

On second thoughs there might be one of these kits in my darkroom - I was going to play around with this once upon a time, and never got round to doing it...

 

[Joe Lipka]

In the last century we did this quite often. The process was to enlarge a film negative on orthochromatic film (Kodalith at the time) and develop in dektol to get a film positive. Then when the film positive was dry, we would contact print this on another sheet of ortho film and then develop in the Kodak A + B developer. This developer is specifically made for high contrast for litho film. The result is an almost black and white negative. Print on high contrast paper, or through a #4 or#5 filter to eliminate any stray grey values. The result should look like the Target department store commercials that have that "high contrast, pop/op art" look. It was really big in the 60's man.....