How Carbon Characteristic Curve could be done on Film

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

I read several websites and amazed with Carbon Curve.

I am not printing my films but scan. How can I transform Tri X curve in to Carbon Characteristic Curve at my negatives and especially 6x17 Positives ?

Mustafa Umut Sarac
Istanbul

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

What you're asking is beyond the scope of APUG - you'd be better served asking over on DPUG, where there are discussions on the pros and cons of each of several methods of making digitally enlarged negatives for alternative process printing.

 

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

I am asking an analog way , chemistry.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

That's all done by controlling exposure and development. It's really just a matter of doing a lot of test charts and densitometer readings, and making carbon prints. Carbon has a very long tonal scale, so you'd need a negative with more inherent contrast than a normal silver gelatin negative.

But I'm confused, as you say you are not printing your negatives but scanning them instead.

 

[Vaughn]

I print carbons from camera negatives only.

How I expose and develop the negative all depends of the brightness range of the original scene. If the scene has 13 or more stops in it, I can pretty much expose to put the shadows in Zone III (read the shadows and subtract two stops) and let the highlights run out to where they want to go with 'normal' development. Such as the sea cave below. I think it is on Tri-X in HC-110, Dil B for perhaps 7 minutes (constant agitiation in a tray -- but this is from memory from about 1993).

Less range of light in the scene requires the same exposure but up to 100% more development. Lately I have been using Ilford PQ Universal developer or Dektol at paper strength or stronger with nice results, as in the image of the girders of Golden Gate Bridge (though it could have used a little more development). It was developed in straight Dektol at 70F for 10 minutes in a Jobo drum (this year, so I am pretty sure of its development!).

If the subject only has 4 or 5 stops of range of light, I usually don't bother trying to get a negative for carbon printing -- but I can get one for platinum (I do not use a contrast-boosting agent).

PS -- it may not show it in the image on the screen, but the sun-lit sand has full detail. I have a pure black in some of the areas of the inside of the cave. My Pentax Spot Meter read 0 up there, but I did not not know how much below 0 it actually was -- so it is clear on the neg...no matter to the image. The sand read 13.

You may not be able to scan a negative easily that has the range I want for carbon printing -- it would have a hard time punching thru the highlights!

 

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

I think I am confused you , sorry. My question is to get a carbon like image from bw slide film. Can we change a film curve to a carbon print curve , that was I was asking for.

 

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

I learned cinema industry print one film to other to control things and beyond the zone system cover above question ?

 

[Vaughn]

You seem to be confused...a carbon print is a carbon print. It is a positive on paper, often with a raised relief. If the info is on the negative, you can get it in the print -- fairly straight line 'curve'.

So the answer is no...I don't think there is a way to get all that information onto a B&W slide film...unless there is not a whole lot of information to begin with (low contrast scene).

I learned cinema industry print one film to other to control things and beyond the zone system cover above question ?

Not without compressing and losing most of the available information. Keeping that information is what carbon printing is all about (IMO).