How much do you print?

I make proof sheets for all 35 and 120 film I shoot. That is the first step in editing for the best potential negs for printing. With the cost of materials and time involved, it is critical that I print only negatives that will yield the results I want. How many "keepers" per roll? It can vary greatly. I have shot subjects where every negative on the roll is potentially a very good print and sometimes only one or two on a roll will be printed. And I have shot more than a few rolls and sheets of film that at the time of exposure were great but ended up less than inspiring on the proof sheet or light table.

Happy 100th Posting!

I contact print my 35mm and 120 film when I have one to four rolls. The 35mm takes to sheets of 8"x10" paper to get all the frames. I then set up the darkroom in one of my bathrooms for several days and print until I have enlarged all the negatives I want to.

So the frequency of printing photographs depends on how much film I am shooting at the time.

Steve

I only print negs I find inspiring or negs I want to explore. However I am finding that dull ordinary looking negs can have some interesting lighting effects inside so sometimes it's hard to tell if an ugly neg will make a beautiful print.

For 35mm, the contact sheet conundrum is the best argument for bulk loading. I buy the negative holders that hold 7 strips of 4 negatives each, and load 28 exposures per roll.

For medium format, I've got 6x4.5 and 6x6 covered, but that 10th 6x7 negative remains a source of frustration.

As to how many I print - it really depends .

If I have a particular purpose in mind when I set out with the camera, I most likely will end up printing fewer from a roll, because the contact sheet will give me answers about how successful my various shots are.

If, however, the shots on a roll are just the results of photographing things that I come across and find interesting, there may be several sets of shots on a roll that I choose between, and several prints may result.

Some times, of course, I'll take a bunch of photos at an event or a gathering (e.g. a birthday party) and I'll print just about all of them (smaller prints usually). For this sort of work, an enlarging meter is very useful.

As you are relatively new at this, it probably benefits you to print more of them. That way you'll learn about those circumstances where the small size of contacts tends to obscure the strengths of some images, even if you have a good loupe (and I heartily recommend a good loupe). Also, there is no better way to improve your photography (composition, perspective, exposure, dealing with movement of camera or subject, film development) than to practice printing both good and problem negatives .

Matt

I don't print nearly often enough but that's another post I suppose.
Generally i'll pick the one image which interests me the most, or the one that I remember shooting and thinking "this is the one". From there i'll work my way down. I generally never print every image. In one session, depending on how i'm feeling and how much time I have i'll print anywhere from 0 (yes, 0) to 8 images.

I'll go back days, months, even years later and print images which I had never thought of printing. Sometimes you change, sometimes the meanings behind the images change. Sometimes you print the little things to remember and they become more meaningful for you. I guess that's another post in and of itself, too.

While I'm sure it's not as reliable as contact prints, I've been [whisper] scanning [/whisper] my negatives (shooting almost 100% 6x6 MF) to blow them up and see what I think of the composition and spot the elbows and clutter I missed when shooting. Then I pick the shots that look promising and print them in one session, usually making prints about 5 inches or so square -- that allows cutting an 11x14 sheet in half and getting a few test strips plus two prints. I make a lot of notes during that process. The test print stack gets winnowed down to the very few I think are possibly exhibition worthy. I then have a second printing session to make bigger prints of those. So far it's a big year if I have six darkroom sessions, but such stuff is expensive, so I'm going for quality, not quantity (plus I have other obsessive hobbies ).

As an example, a 36 exposure morning at an old iron furnace got winnowed down to four framed prints. But three were juried into shows and one of those won an award -- I've no complaints about that!

As I get some other projects out of the way and get time to bring the darkroom up to better efficiency, I will probably do a little more work in it.

DaveT

Thanks everyone for your help, I'll digest your answers and hopefully I will be able to improve my printing

Cheers!

I spread the negs out on a light table and make my choices for enlarging. I'm just getting back into the darkroom after a long time (23 years) so I don't have a clue as to how many prints I might make. In the old days (early 70's) when I did commercial work I would print 200 or more 5x7 glossies a day to keep the publisher happy. Hard work, long hours but it paid well. Now that I'm older I could never keep up that pace.

I use 11x14 inch paper for contact prints. That is large enough to be sufficient for any format negatives which I use. If I have much wasted space on the paper, I cover it with mat board cutouts so that I can write notes with a marker in the margins.

The number of negatives actually printed varies depending on subject matter, quality, and time. I shoot mostly 4x5 and print at a ratio of 1:4 - 1:10 most of the time.

Although this is slight heresy, I don't like to make contact prints. Too much to keep track of, too much time, etc. If I do make contact prints, I buy the cheapest 11x14 Arista RC paper and crank them out. Otherwise, I like to study large format necatives on a light box with a loupe and try to figure them out without a positive. Another form of pre-visualization I guess, like reading an x-ray. Of course, 35mm negative are another story and I would make contact prints because they are so small.

If I shoot with small format I use 24 exposures fits 8x10. Unexposed film sits in the camera for weeks or a month or two if I use a film canister with 36 exposures. Only 1 out of 10 images are worth printing. I avoid negatives not exposed correctly, not interesting, or have composition issues. Only the best get printed. If they are family shots intended to be given away more images on the roll may be printed. The more we shoot and print the luckier we are. But luck is always an element.

jeroldharter said:

Although this is slight heresy, I don't like to make contact prints. Too much to keep track of, too much time, etc.

Click to expand...

I keep the negatives in archive plastic pages in three ring binders. The contact prints are placed behind each set of negatives so that I can find them.

jeroldharter said:

If I do make contact prints, I buy the cheapest 11x14 Arista RC paper and crank them out.

Click to expand...

I have been using 8"x10" paper, but I like your idea of using 11"x14" paper for 35mm negatives.

Steve

Sirius Glass said:

I keep the negatives in archive plastic pages in three ring binders. The contact prints are placed behind each set of negatives so that I can find them.

Steve

Click to expand...

I know. I used to be diligent about this. But I found that the same negs I would choose to print from the contact sheets were easily identified by inspecting the negatives. So I don't bother most of the time. If I am unsure about sharpness I will look with a 10x loupe. If I am unsure about the potential final print then I will make an 8x10 pilot print which I can do easily and that provides good information.

So I figure that if I were to print 4 negs out of a batch of 12 (which is pretty good for me) then I could spend the time to make 3 contact sheets including 8 non-print candidates or make 4 pilot prints of good print candidates.

Also, I disagree with the popular notion that I need a low contrast positive to see the potential of a good negative. I believe that is helpful but not essential and learning to interpret negatives is a good skill to develop.