How to Duplicate a 70 year old print

Well, I was just handed a 60-70 year old black and white silver print of my coworker's grandmother on an old motor bike along the shore of an Illinois pond. I was admonished not to harm the print under pain of unimaginable tortures.

Well, they asked if I could enlarge it. . . . OK.

I need to do this without harming the print. I could copy it onto new film by taking a picture of it but I would imagine that there is more information on the print than there would be in any negative I was to expose of it now. Is there a non-damagin way to transfer the data in this print to an enlargeable negative without harming the print?

Chris;

Photofinishers way back when had a copy setup to do just this and they reproduced the print in a new negative quite well. Usually, we photographed the original in 4x5 using a copy stand and a Speed Graphic or equivalent. The film was, at that time, Super XX or PX. Normal processing and printing gave quite good results and I still have some here and there around the house.

Unfortunately, scanning and PS has replaced this venerable old method, and with (unfortunately or fortunately) better results. Therefore scanning, restoration and a digital negative (gasp) is another route.

PE

I may try and expose it on 4x5 and go from there. Thanks, Ron. I wasn't even thinking large. I'll still expose 35mm as well as I can enlarge that and see what happens.

Digital is hard to beat for convenience. A straight scan can be retouched if need be, converted to negative at the touch of a button, digitally printed on transparent film, and contact printed on photo paper. Obviously, digital prints are also easily made. For longevity, I woud put my money on a final analog print, especially if it's a monochrome, though some of the digital systems can produce prints that have high resistance to fading.

Unless there is retouching to do, I think better dupes can be made with film than digitally. When I used to shoot performer's headshots, I worked with labs that specialized in this kind of work, and the best of them could produce dupes that were often indistinguishable from the original.

It's fairly routine work. Use a relatively neutral film like TMX or FP4+, preferably 4x5" or larger. Use two lights set at 45 degrees to the work and about 4 feet away from the copy surface to avoid hotspots, if you can.

With a reasonable setup and modern film you won't lose any detail in the sense of resolution. But what is easy to lose is shadow detail: your old print has compressed shadows, because all prints have. To capture as much as possible, make sure your exposure is enough to lift those shadows away from the toe of the film you're using. I have duped using 4x5 Tri-X, but i suspect that a film with a straighter curve would be better, such as TMax or Delta.

A bit of bracketing wouldn't hurt either.


There used to be some useful info on the Ilford web site. It talked about matching exposure and contrast for different copy jobs. I didn't save a copy of it, and last time i looked it was not there. I enquired about it to the webmaster and they either couldn't find it or didn't know what i was talkng about. There must be something out there on the net about it.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry9000/4.6.0.167 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102 UP.Link/6.3.0.0.0)

I made three p/n 55 exposures and I think I have a decent neg to start from and I'll go from there. My co-worker offered to replace the film I had used as I used my last four sheets doing this. I declined. He insisted. I told him he'd be spending $90.00 for a box of 20 expired sheets and declined again. He acquiesced.