How much negative information can be brought back in print?

[naugastyle]

Sorry, couldn't think of a more concise title.

So I took a photo and foolishly left my yellow filter on. Foolish because there was a sign in the photo where one prominent word was yellow. I love the photo otherwise, and when I look at the negative I can just barely make out the word, although admittedly the contrast between that and the white sign is very very low. Is there any possible way to pull the word on the sign out in print, while still keeping the rest of the exposure normal? If so, how?

It was not retrievable in a scan, by the way, which is why I'm wondering how much is possible w/ enlarging.

 

[David William White]

Make a test print of just the sign, high enlargement, at high contrast filtration (i.e. #5 or max magenta). Don't worry about the rest of the image - just optimize for the sign. If you get sufficient discrimination in the yellow word, then go back and do the print normally, likely dodging the sign entirely, then do a second exposure burning the sign at high contrast as your test suggests.

That's how I would do it.

 

[MartinP]

Or try split-grade printing, with extra burning in for the sign on the high-contrast exposure. That could be one time where separating the high and low contrast exposures is rather useful.

 

[nickandre]

I agree, but I would first make a base exposure for the image and then test additional high contrast burns on top of that.

EDIT: If you're using good scanning technique and it's not retrievable, (eg. adjustments of analog gain etc.) then it's not there.

 

[keithwms]

Nancy, I am a bit confused about what the magnitude of the issue is; can you post a scan of the neg?

Offhand, the above suggestions sound good to me.

Other than that let me refer you to St. Ansel's "Examples" book and example #39 "Winter Sunrise" in particular. In his accompanying text you may find some guidance... as well as extraordinary insight into his thinking:

The enterprising youth of the Lone Pine High School had [...] whitewashed a huge white L P for the world to see. It is a hideous and insulting scar on one of the great vistas of our land... I ruthlessly removed what I could [...] from the negative [...] and have always spotted out any remaining trace in the print.

So... remember that you have at least two opportunities to remove or subdue what offends you- in the neg and in the print. And if you make a dupe neg then you have two additional opportunities- in the interpositive and the dupe neg. In fact, if a neg really mattered to me, I would try to do the retouching on the interpositive or dupe interneg and let the original neg be.

The interpositive is a great place to address issues in the final print: you can easily add density in the interpositive which translates into reducing density in the dupe neg, which translates into adding density in the print, and so forth. And the interpositive material will likely be ortho film, which is made to be easily retouched. To do the converse, you retouch the dupe neg. If your dupe neg is the size of the final print (for contact printing) then it's quite easy.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

If you can't recover it with a scanner then you won't be able to get it back with traditional methods.

 

[keithwms]

If you can't recover it with a scanner then you won't be able to get it back with traditional methods.

This is true, but sometimes you can still retouch to get what you want.

Anyway, a decent scanner get get *something* out of almost nothing. Try vuescan software, which allows you to composite several exposures. It can dig out a tiny bit of extra shadow and highlight detail that is invisible to the eye.

 

[naugastyle]

Hi, I'm using Vuescan and a Scan Dual IV. It was Delta 400, not a favorite of mine, which seems to react strangely to my scanner/Vuescan combo. It was done a year and a half ago, and the sign was almost entirely white when scanned normally. It didn't occur to me at that time to scan as a negative and invert it, but I've done it now since Keith requested seeing the negative. It's better...not sure why I didn't think about that before!

This is what the scan looks like now, inverted from positive scan: http://www.nancychuang.com/2008/09/camp_malawi_banner_mzuzu.html.
This is what it looked like scanned normally: http://www.flickr.com/photos/naugastyle/2858378459/in/set-72157607297821146/

Big improvement!

Attached are the negative scan and print scan. You can't see anything in the negative scan--only when holding the neg up to light. No matter that I now realize I can get a somewhat better scan out of it, I still need to know how to make a print of it, if possible.

So yesterday, I hadn't seen the responses yet because I go to the darkroom quite early. I decided to go ahead with the split-grade, masking each part separately. Overall result is too dark and grey, although more subtle than the scan in a way. I just couldn't get the contrast to my satisfaction without bringing down the sign color and then wanting to bring down the rest of the print to match. I guess it was a lot of effort just to get to this point--2 full sheets of test strips, one sheet just to check exposure across the whole frame and then to cut into masks. Three sheets before even doing the final print... 5x7 RC sheets, but still! What are the other techniques other than filtering/masking? If we pretended I had extraordinarily steady hands, could I paint something on the "camp" on the negative that would darken it?

I can let it go if I have to, though...for the event I'm printing for, it would probably be the only negative requiring a multigraded paper, and I prefer to have consistency. Or research the dupe neg option, as I'm not familiar with how to do that.

 

[keithwms]

What are the other techniques other than filtering/masking? If we pretended I had extraordinarily steady hands, could I paint something on the "camp" on the negative that would darken it?

Sure. But you'd likely want to do that on an enlarged neg, preferably on ortho film, which is easily retouchable. If you make your dupe neg big enough to contact print, then you'll find it infinitely easier to retouch.

You could also inkjet yourself a dodge/burn mask and print through that.

Looks to me like you might be able to mask out the flag portion and print that to higher contrast to get what you want.

Spot bleaching the final print looks like it'd be very hard in this case, since the area you want to address isn't contiguous and would take time to paint.

If your scan is sufficiently good then why not dodge/burn it however you wish and send it off for an LVT.... if it really, really matters to you, so much that you are willing to set analogue principles aside

 

[naugastyle]

Nah, I'm not. Not because I'm so hardcore about analog principles, more that I'm a dork about consistency . Can't have 19 graded fiber prints and 1 digital print.

There is a limit to how much contrast can be applied to the flag unless I'm just doing it wrong. The word is so light that at grade 5 it blows out with the rest of the white background. I might give it another try next weekend but for now I think I'll have to skip this one.

Thanks!

 

[keithwms]

Nah, I'm not. Not because I'm so hardcore about analog principles, more that I'm a dork about consistency . Can't have 19 graded fiber prints and 1 digital print.

No, no, I am not saying do a digital print. I am saying you can make a contrast mask... I would *never* suggest that anyone's final b&w print be digital. Never!!!! Neeeveerrrrr!

Okay anyway, sometimes it's better to let one go