Looking for a little info on printing paper negs with the sun

I’m getting back into some paper negative work and need to try a workflow involving printing the negs using the sun. Previously, I’ve always printed using an enlarger light and have taken advantage of color filters (typically magenta) to control the color of the light source. This time around, I’d like to try printing with the sun. I’m in Southern California so light is abundant (and strong). The paper negs are made with various ilford RC VC papers and prints are to be on Ilford VC fiber papers. I’m very familiar with using the sun to print in alt processes but not so much printing onto VC papers.

I know that the paper base of the negs work well to diffuse light going through the neg but I’m curious how sun exposure will effect print contrast on VC papers. I know it will have an effect as I expose the paper negs in camera through a #2 yellow-ish filter to control contrast in the negative. I’ve thought about picking up a magenta photo gel to place atop the neg in the printing frame to get similar contrast control as a magenta filter in an enlarger and I’m curious if others have done this and gotten improved results (or found that it’s not necessary).

Would love to hear from those who’ve done something like this.

I've never tried to contact print normal photopaper in daylight. There were "solar enlargers" where a mirror would reflect sunlight into a darkroom and into the path of the negative. You might want to try something like lupex to make the exposures more manageable? Or paint a little 1% silver nitrate onto the photopaper and print it out instead of developing it?

NedL said:

I've never tried to contact print normal photopaper in daylight. There were "solar enlargers" where a mirror would reflect sunlight into a darkroom and into the path of the negative. You might want to try something like lupex to make the exposures more manageable? Or paint a little 1% silver nitrate onto the photopaper and print it out instead of developing it?

Click to expand...

I actually realized that I do have an enlarger that I’ll be able to use for light source (the perils of having a lot of stuff in storage for years). So I’ll probably still try sun printing through a magenta gel at some point just to see what happens but the urgency is gone. However, you’ve peaked my interest with your reply about the 1% silver nitrate. Have you done this before? Can you actually make POP paper out of Ilford multigrade paper just by painting on 1% silver nitrate? I love the idea if that’s actually a thing. If you’ve done this, tell me more please! Side note: I’m aware of the process of using fixed out photo paper to make salt prints etc. Just never heard of essentially getting a POP paper by just adding the silver nitrate.

ha! I thought you wanted to use the sun for specific reason ( maybe art-related, like printing desert images or solarized prints or something ) and didn't realize you just needed a light source for contact printing! If you don't want to dig out and set up your enlarger, there are other simple options. One idea from Joe Van Cleave that works great: you can make a good contact printing light from a bean can with a flashlight bulb in one end and a wire hanging down with a switch to turn it on and off. A paper with a quarter-sized hole on the open end makes it more like a point source and makes the light more even ( otherwise reflections in the can make "rings", like you see with a flashlight ). Mine has a little cardboard "shelf" glued to the bottom that is the right size for my green and blue contrast filters. Took maybe 20 minutes to make out of junk I already had in the garage, and works great. I used it for quite a while to pre-flash papers and to make contact prints ( my enlarger is set up all the time now and is slightly more convenient ) I've also heard of people using flashlights, and the trick of taping on a paper "aperture" works on a flashlight too -- just kind of a hassle to hold the flashlight while printing

Yes, one of the differences between POP and DOP is that POP has excess silver. Usually it has more chloride too, but silver bromide will print out just fine. I tried it once and it worked, I can't remember what paper I tried, and I never got back to it after that. There was a fellow here username vedos who had some nice examples. His website is gone now but I found something here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20190426164531/http://vedos.samk.fi/?cat=10

I think I used 1 or 2% silver nitrate, not 4% like that page shows.

Have fun!

Ha, yea I just wanted to use the sun to see what results were like. And I’m fairly familiar with some POP formulas. I’ve made a fair amount of collodio-chloride prints in the past. I just never thought to sensitize enlarging paper as POP paper. This will be fun. And thank you for the link! That shows some very interesting examples. I like the Tetenal gold tones example the best but now I can’t find any of that specific gold toner. Time to go searching.