Has scanning replaced contact prints?

[Europan]

Why not expose print film in contact with negatives? Slides!

 

[miha]

Why not expose print film in contact with negatives? Slides!

Is it really that easy? The only print film I see available is Bergger, and it comes with a hefty price tag, about 158 EUR for 25 sheets of 8×10, which is still on the small side if you’re contact printing seven strips of 35mm. 11×14 is even dearer at around 264 EUR. Hardly a solution for most people, I’d say. Or am I missing something?

 

[P Sanders]

Wow, what a rabbit hole to go down. I contact print medium format and 4x5 and yes, costs are always increasing and resources becoming more limited.

Wishing to avoid the discussion of digital vs analog print quality, believe the contact sheet is not just a visualization tool but one confirming correct film exposure and development, which after an embarrassing 55 years of photography, is still in need of improvement.

Digital is certainly a keyboard away from accessing images and organizational folders, and scanners can pull more detail from a negative than the conventional printing method (I have not measured quantitatively however spent a lifetime in commercial offset printing and reproduction of images before and after color separation scanners). The retouching tools of digital imaging are outstanding compared to analog.

Final printing conventionally, either contacting 4x5 or enlarging medium format, the contact sheet may be helpful as where to start with crop, grade, dodge and burn. Using the screen as a reference (you’ve calibrated the monitor, RIP and digital print paper and balanced lighting) there are numerous tools available to adjust the image you originally previsualized.

The digital printer, printing ink cartridges, calibration scales and paper print tests aren’t fun or inexpensive. Perhaps it’s the old fashioned side of the photographic darkroom and alternate printing options sans computer participation (do read a book and newspaper on paper or digital pages) that I learned so many years ago that’s comforting.

Creating the final image has been my guide. And there’s always the option of making a digital negative and then contact printing at 100% size. Yikes, another rabbit hole.

 

[Pieter12]

Wow, what a rabbit hole to go down. I contact print medium format and 4x5 and yes, costs are always increasing and resources becoming more limited.

Wishing to avoid the discussion of digital vs analog print quality, believe the contact sheet is not just a visualization tool but one confirming correct film exposure and development, which after an embarrassing 55 years of photography, is still in need of improvement.

Digital is certainly a keyboard away from accessing images and organizational folders, and scanners can pull more detail from a negative than the conventional printing method (I have not measured quantitatively however spent a lifetime in commercial offset printing and reproduction of images before and after color separation scanners). The retouching tools of digital imaging are outstanding compared to analog.

Final printing conventionally, either contacting 4x5 or enlarging medium format, the contact sheet may be helpful as where to start with crop, grade, dodge and burn. Using the screen as a reference (you’ve calibrated the monitor, RIP and digital print paper and balanced lighting) there are numerous tools available to adjust the image you originally previsualized.

The digital printer, printing ink cartridges, calibration scales and paper print tests aren’t fun or inexpensive. Perhaps it’s the old fashioned side of the photographic darkroom and alternate printing options sans computer participation (do read a book and newspaper on paper or digital pages) that I learned so many years ago that’s comforting.

Creating the final image has been my guide. And there’s always the option of making a digital negative and then contact printing at 100% size. Yikes, another rabbit hole.

I use a cheap Brother inkjet printer to print my contact sheets on Costco photo paper (which I haven't seen lately, so it may be NLA). Pretty inexpensive way to go. I have found that adjustments made to digital files don't always translate to the darkroom, so I don't fiddle with the scans much, maybe just enough to show what's there is the exposure is off. It also seems to me that perusing physical contact sheets is more appealing, being able to take a grease pen to mark and crop (especially off-square!) what I want to print.

 

[Europan]

Is it really that easy?

Slovenska kinoteka

Might have some print stock in a can.

 

[John Wiegerink]

I agree. For that reason, I inkjet print an index sheet and file that away with the film. For closer inspection, there's a computer right next to the enlarger so I can pull up the full scan of a negative and see if there's anything (dirt etc.) I need to keep in mind or that may affect my choice to print negatives.

That's using your head kodaks! I don't have a computer in my darkroom, but I have laptop that can travel there very quickly and I'm going to start using your idea.

As for wet printing contact sheets? I still do, but like Matt above was pointing to, "It's getting tooooo daaaaamn expensive". But we have to keep buying enlarging paper to contact print and everyone must go back to contact printing to make sure we use more paper. If we don't and we use much less paper the companies that make our enlarging paper will go out of business and no more enlarging paper. Signed Chicken Little

 

[GregY]

It depends on your assumptions. I don't own a scanner....nor a photo printer. They have no part in my practice of photography.

 

[Sanug]

Ilford Multigrade RC paper 24x30cm is about 2.00 Euro per sheet. Fomaspaad Variant about 1.50 Euro. I can afford this and will continue contact printing.

 

[chuckroast]

It depends on your assumptions. I don't own a scanner....nor a photo printer. They have no part in my practice of photography.

I own a scanner but not a photo printer.

I still make contact sheets, I just keep the costs down by buying brand X RC paper just for this purpose. That paper sells at about 1/2 the price of a good fiber paper like Fomabrom Variant 111. e.g., Multitone from B&H.

It may be expensive to print on silver, but the inks for a true photo printer are outrageously expensive to replace. Last I looked (a few years ago) replacing a full set of cartridges on an Epson photo quality printer was north of $500 US. That's a lot of boxes of cheap RC... (And, yes, I know that's not quite a fair comparison since you don't have to change the cartridges all at the same time.)

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Still making contact prints.

Once in a while I'll scan some finished darkroom prints. Never scan negatives. I already spend too much time in front of a computer screen.

 

[Don_ih]

the inks for a true photo printer are outrageously expensive to replace

If the digitally printed contact sheet is just for indexing purposes, a laser printer does fine. I have a Brother laser printer and the toner will print more than 5000 sheets before it's empty. It easily prints contact-size photos well enough for indexing purposes.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

I still make wet contacts, if I'm making a gelatin silver print (rare as I'm 99% Alt.). Makes more sense if one is making wet prints, anyway.

 

[snusmumriken]

I am torn between the two. On the one hand, I'd like the whole of my photography to be physical, something that I can have and hold, rather than nebulous electronic storage. On the other hand, I bought a scanner in order to be able to share images online. And having got used to that, I reluctantly admit that my use of conventional contact sheets has dried up.

The thing is, although I don't own a digital camera, I don't use a lot of film. When I finally finish and develop a roll, I am always impatient to see what's on it. I find it easy to judge from the negatives which - if any - are worth further consideration, and usually that's no more than 2 or 3 per roll. It's not worth mixing all the darkroom chemicals just to make one contact sheet, and paper has become a pricey commodity, so I just scan those few frames. Having scanned them, I can consider them on-screen for a few days or weeks, before deciding which ones are worth trying to print. I can even tinker with curves to consider exactly how I want the print to look. Also on my computer, I have a spreadsheet database of my (numbered) films, with thumbnail images of the 'keepers', so it's easy to identify an image and find it in my negative files.

 

[Pieter12]

I still make wet contacts, if I'm making a gelatin silver print (rare as I'm 99% Alt.). Makes more sense if one is making wet prints, anyway.

How so? I make scanned contacts and wet prints and see no advantage.

 

[Vaughn]

I stopped making contact sheets when I moved away from enlarging and into alt processes. Silver gelatin could not reproduce the tones of the high contrast negatives I wanted for alt processes so were of little help there.

Since I am contact printing, visual inspection on a light table is more than sufficient to inspect negatives… no need to digitally enlarge them on a screen for inspection. (Helps that I am also very near-sighted)

I find that my brain does a decent job of flipping a negative on a light table into a positive, but still gets surprised occasionally.

 

[Ian Grant]

It's been very rare for me to make contact sheet. Mostly only when shooting images for someone else (commercially), or very fast intense projects.

Since I began shooting LF in 1977 I've never made them off LF negatives, and I would guess it's 25 years since I last made contact prints, when I still shot rock concerts, and band promo material on films.

Back in the mid to late 1970s I had a specialist (applied) photographic company, I rented a factory and there was a sublet to a commercial/advertising photographer, he had some household name clients. When he had to produce long print runs, he would ask me to help, sometimes he would print, I would process, then we'd swap. I'm talking about a few hundred prints per session.

But what I'd already learnt was how to read and asses a negative, you know instinctively where to dodge & burn.

Ian

 

[GregY]

I'm with Vaughn & Ian..... no scans....no contact sheets