How can I match this professional print??

[BobUK]

Purely amateur here.

When learning from books, and magazines back in the day, the consensus seemed to be anything bellow the lens would degrade the image, filters to be used in the filter draw above the negative. That seems to have gone by the board with a lot of people these days.

All those separate exposures add up to 24 seconds if I am right. Plus the time between exposures looking for filters, and positioning dodgers.
To my thinking it is a long time available to have a chance of enlarger movement.

The left side of the diagonal is fuzzy along the entire length. The same with other straight lines.
If the lens is good, I put my money on the enlarger wobbling during or between exposures.

 

[snusmumriken]

Image properties say they've both been scanned on an Epson ET-2650 flatbed scanner, which has a maximum paper size of A4, so the original prints could be 8x10" at most (unless multiple scans were stitched together). The pixel dimensions of the resulting files would be determined by the scanner resolution chosen. The OP could enlighten us, of course.

The OP is self-evidently keen to refine his technique. IMHO marginal improvements on every front are very much worthwhile, whatever size print he aims to make. And 8x10" is far from the limit for 35mm.

When learning from books, and magazines back in the day, the consensus seemed to be anything bellow the lens would degrade the image, filters to be used in the filter draw above the negative. That seems to have gone by the board with a lot of people these days.

We had a thread about this a while back (here). As far as I recall, no-one offered any evidence of degradation from under-lens filters. In the absence of any solid evidence, I think this could be a false trail for the OP. My own comparison showed no difference that I could see, but of course he could verify that for himself.

 

[koraks]

You assume the negative popped again between focussing and the end of exposure.

Yes. Note the double lines. Something moved. So if the movement was popping, it would have affected the center.

 

[pentaxuser]

Dragging and dropping the image into PS, it says that the canvas size is 40.778 ins by 27.819 ins or 103.58 cm by 70.66 cm. This sounds very large for a print and I can only presume that the OP enlarged it to this scale on their screen, as no mention of sizes are given.

Terry S

Thanks for this direct answer, Terry. Your figures suggest that this is a pretty large print for 35mm and HP5+ IMO and it seems his only real concern is to get the detail in the frieze on his print as good as the professional printer has managed on his. It all looks pretty marginal to me, as I said and one ( well this one at least ) wonders if at say 16 x20 inches a viewer of the print would pick this out as a a problem

I'd have thought that a print at 16x 20 inches which is about half the size of your figures above on 35mm and using HP5 might be getting close to the maximum possible before "problems" start to become discernible

pentaxuser

 

[Don_ih]

It really is a thing. Used to drive me mad giving lectures illustrated with transparencies.

Oh, I know it's a thing. Definitely more likely with a slide (it's trapped in the holder with a very hot light source) than in an enlarger. Expansion of a 35mm negative in an enlarger holder (normally made of metal, so conducting heat away) would be more uniform. But it's pretty much impossible to do it with an LED bulb.

 

[snusmumriken]

Thanks for this direct answer, Terry. Your figures suggest that this is a pretty large print for 35mm and HP5+ IMO and it seems his only real concern is to get the detail in the frieze on his print as good as the professional printer has managed on his. It all looks pretty marginal to me, as I said and one ( well this one at least ) wonders if at say 16 x20 inches a viewer of the print would pick this out as a a problem

I'd have thought that a print at 16x 20 inches which is about half the size of your figures above on 35mm and using HP5 might be getting close to the maximum possible before "problems" start to become discernible

pentaxuser

The image area itself measures 1636 x 2712 pixels. If printed at 300ppi, the resulting print would be approximately 9 x 5 1/2 inches.

 

[Doremus Scudder]

Koraks, I don't see any double lines, even in the cropped section you posted. If there are double lines, that, indeed, points to movement. A popping negative or bumping the enlarger or jiggling it during exposure will certainly cause those.

I assumed, maybe incorrectly, that the OP had made more than one print and had simply posted a representative sample.

OP, if you just made one print, make some more, being careful with focusing and not to bump or move the enlarger during exposure. Also, heat up the negative using the focus setting for a while right before the exposure to get the negative "popped" (if that is the problem), so it doesn't during exposure and then report back.

Doremus