making a larger negative....

scootermm · Jul 15, 2004

I spent a good while reading the Digital Negative thread in the Alt process forum and also the thread started abotu Re-Defining APUG that sean started.
on about page 4 or so of the Redefining APUG thread there was mention of traditionally enlarging negatives for contact printing.
I attempted a search but dont know what keywords to use to bring of what has undoubtedly been discussed previously in the APUG community.
I have many a 4x5 negative that Id like to enlarge to 8x10 or 11x14 negatives to contact print and perhaps experiment with alternative processes. I read the digital negative thread but am more curious of the traditional manner of enlarging a negative and creating a negative from that negative and the means and ways to do this.

any help or links to past threads or other websites or books would be appreciated.

David A. Goldfarb · Jul 15, 2004

Here's the previous thread:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

scootermm · Jul 15, 2004

Thanks so much david.

roy · Jul 15, 2004

I have used Bergger BPFB 18 Ortho film for this and the great advantage with this type of film is that it can be used with a red safelight. Ordinary sheet film can also be used but there are obvious drawbacks.

doughowk · Jul 15, 2004

Bob Herbst article at Unblinking Eye describes a traditional method for enlarged negatives. It seems simpler than some of the digi-neg methods (especially if you include all the post-scan photoshop work) & alot cheaper if you have an enlarger. I've used imagesetter negs for contact prints on Azo, but disliked the loss of process control & will be trying Herbst method soon. If you're looking to sell prints, a traditional 8X10 contact print should be a good, price-leader for enlarged prints.

mark · Jul 15, 2004

It is a tough process to get right but you can make a negative better than it originally was. It can also get expensive in the learning stage if you do not control the process. I have seen 20x24 negs made from 2 1/4 originals that were cool. the problem with the process is you have the whole enlargement issue of losing sharpness. SUpposedly the digital neg gets rid of this problem. Going from 4x5 to 8x10 should not be a problem at all. If you do it well there should be no loss of sharpness. Good luck. I have made a few and I thought the process was fun, and working with film in a manner that you can watch what happens the whole time is quite neat as the silver developes.

mikewhi · Jul 15, 2004

doughowk said:
Bob Herbst article at Unblinking Eye describes a traditional method for enlarged negatives. It seems simpler than some of the digi-neg methods (especially if you include all the post-scan photoshop work) & alot cheaper if you have an enlarger. I've used imagesetter negs for contact prints on Azo, but disliked the loss of process control & will be trying Herbst method soon. If you're looking to sell prints, a traditional 8X10 contact print should be a good, price-leader for enlarged prints.

I am jsut getting into making some inter-positives using Ilford Ortho Plus developed in D-76. One thing that Bob mentioins in his article and that I'm finding out, is that the inter-positive needs to be of low-contrast. And I mean really low contrast. I have produced some interpositives that push Grade 2 Azo to the limit in terms of density range. And to the eye, the interpositives don't look contrasty at all. If there were prints, I'd want to add a LOT more contrast to them. I'll be back in the darkroom tonight making interpositives of much lower contrast. With the ones I have now, when I read the densities on my densitometer I get a range of about 1.00 (as I recall) and that appears to be way too much.

-Mike

sanking · Jul 15, 2004

doughowk said:
Bob Herbst article at Unblinking Eye describes a traditional method for enlarged negatives.

Let me also suggest another article on the unblinkingeye.com site on making enlarged negatives by reversal processing, at http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/NbyR/nbyr.html

Ed Buffaloe's procedure follow rather closely an ingenious method develped by Liam Lawless and published in Post Factory Photograpy some years ago. I used Liam's method for several years and can state for a fact that this method works quite well.

There is somewhat less control with the reversal process than with the positive/negative method but there are also some advantages.

From purely economic point of view this method of making enlarged negatives for alternative printing is clearly less expensive than making digital negatives

Ole · Jul 15, 2004

Does anyone know if AGFA Gevarex is still available? I got about 100 (9.5 x 12") sheets of this with my 18x24cm camera. It's a continuous tone, variable contrast orthochromatic copy film.

I've now found a source of MACO UP100+ in 18x24cm, so I can use the Gevarex for what it's intended for

Aggie · Jul 15, 2004

One thing I found works really well for enlarged negatives, is in the first inter positive. Instead of buying fresh ortho film for it, watch ebay for really out dated ortho or copy film. You want a flat negative at this stage, and the out dated film works beautifully.

mobtown_4x5 · Jul 15, 2004

God bless this discussion.

I knew there was a viable way to do this with silver.

I have some 8x10 Ortho and am looking forward to attempting 4x5 to 8x10 for my first go at platinum and POP.
Nice job APUG'ers

Matt

Jorge · Jul 15, 2004

Reversal process....

In Ed's site there is also another article called "Less is more" where they explain how to make direct positives (IOW no internegative) with Ortho film. SOunds like a great process for those of you who want to try and enlarge negatives for alt processes. I must confess I was tempted to try it, but I am too lazy, so decided to buy the big cameras...

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot....lol......

scootermm · Jul 16, 2004

wow
this is alot of helpful info. Im eager to try some of it out.
(hoping that somewhere in town sells sheets of ortho film)

mikewhi · Jul 16, 2004

On another thread, someone suggested developing ortho film in very-weak Dektol, like 1:15 for 90 seconds or so. Since my first shot at inter-positives on Ilford Ortho were too contrasty, this sounds good to me. The Ilford literature recommended only film developers and didn't mention Dektol. I'll give this a try next. Anyone have any experience with this? How about Rodinal 1:200 or something like that?

Thanks.

-Mike

clay · Jul 16, 2004

mikewhi said:
On another thread, someone suggested developing ortho film in very-weak Dektol, like 1:15 for 90 seconds or so. Since my first shot at inter-positives on Ilford Ortho were too contrasty, this sounds good to me. The Ilford literature recommended only film developers and didn't mention Dektol. I'll give this a try next. Anyone have any experience with this? How about Rodinal 1:200 or something like that?

Thanks.

-Mike

There is also Dave Soemarko's LC-1 Developer which can be tailored for specific contrast requirements:

http://members.aol.com/fotodave/Articles/LC-1.html

mikewhi · Jul 16, 2004

I see his formula is for 'lith' films. They are a lot more 'contrasty' than ortho films, aren't they, or are ortho and lith the same thing? I always thought lith film was used for things like photographing text and used in making circut boards. I will try my ortho with Dektol highly diluted and see how it goes....

-Mike

Aggie · Jul 16, 2004

mikewhi said:
On another thread, someone suggested developing ortho film in very-weak Dektol, like 1:15 for 90 seconds or so. Since my first shot at inter-positives on Ilford Ortho were too contrasty, this sounds good to me. The Ilford literature recommended only film developers and didn't mention Dektol. I'll give this a try next. Anyone have any experience with this? How about Rodinal 1:200 or something like that?

Thanks.

-Mike

fresh film will have more contrast to it. What I do is actually hold it out to be exp0sed to the safe lights for a while. Or barring standing there like the statue of liberty for upward of 20 minutes, I have used a sytrofoam cup over the enlarger lens. This subdues the light and gently adds some flashing to the film. You can do tests to see how long you need to flash the film this way to get the flatness you want.

As for Dektol I found that a tray that had been used for years as a paper developer tray that had a residue of old dektol built up on it, was the greatest thing to develop the ortho film in. I just added water no developer and it was just enough to process the film in 90 seconds. barring this I saved some old developer that was nearly exhasuted and used it.

I keep a watch for old ortho/copy film on ebay. The stuff that is about 30 years old is great. Nice flat interpositives with it. Also the stuff on ebay is about 1/4 the price of the new ortho film. I currently have a stock pile of around 500 4x5 sheets that I do not refrigerate. I want it to not be contrasty. The opposite holds true for the final negative. You want the contrast. Just be careful and do not over do the contrast.

I've added two examples of an interpositive. One is the final positive, the other is the test strip to see what exposure I wanted. each incriment is 1 second.

clay · Jul 16, 2004

mikewhi said:
I see his formula is for 'lith' films. They are a lot more 'contrasty' than ortho films, aren't they, or are ortho and lith the same thing? I always thought lith film was used for things like photographing text and used in making circut boards. I will try my ortho with Dektol highly diluted and see how it goes....

-Mike

Yes, he designed it for lith films, but the neat thing about it is the variable contrast you can get by mixing the A and B parts in different proportions. It sounded like you needed lower contrast than you were getting, so this formula came to mind. YMMV

mikewhi · Jul 16, 2004

Aggie said:
As for Dektol I found that a tray that had been used for years as a paper developer tray that had a residue of old dektol built up on it, was the greatest thing to develop the ortho film in. I just added water no developer and it was just enough to process the film in 90 seconds. barring this I saved some old developer that was nearly exhasuted and used it.

Great <insert sarcasm>. Something new to watch for on eBay - a 20 year old tray with Dektol residue. Thanks to your post, it'll probably go for $500. Hang onto any that you have and submit numerous posts on the 'net about how great they are and you'll build up a demand. Then, put it up on eBay and stand back!

Seriously, though.....

I am intending on printing directly from my interpositive onto silver paper so that I get a negative image on the print. I am not going to make an enlarged negative. I have a lot of images that look much better as negative images than they do as positives. You can checkout the critique gallery for 3 that I posted or look at my member gallery to see what I mean.

Even still, I'm amazed at how low contrast the interpositive needs to be to pull a print that I want. I made what looked like a slightly low contrast interpositive on Ilford Ortho and Grade 2 Azo in Dektol 1:3 could barely handle
the contrast.

-Mike

mikewhi · Jul 16, 2004

clay said:
Yes, he designed it for lith films, but the neat thing about it is the variable contrast you can get by mixing the A and B parts in different proportions. It sounded like you needed lower contrast than you were getting, so this formula came to mind. YMMV

Hi Clay: I do appreciate the info very much. I was just wanting to clarify that this might work with orthos films, too. I believe I have all the chemiclas for the formulas he gave so I can give it a try.

Thanks.

-Mike

roy · Jul 17, 2004

mikewhi said:
The Ilford literature recommended only film developers and didn't mention Dektol.Thanks.

Possibly the thing here is that the larger negatives tended to be used for alt. processes which often required a more punchy negative. I have developed sheet FP4 in paper developer on occasions to achieve this.

glbeas · Jul 17, 2004

sanking said:
Let me also suggest another article on the unblinkingeye.com site on making enlarged negatives by reversal processing, at http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/NbyR/nbyr.html

Ed Buffaloe's procedure follow rather closely an ingenious method develped by Liam Lawless and published in Post Factory Photograpy some years ago. I used Liam's method for several years and can state for a fact that this method works quite well.

There is somewhat less control with the reversal process than with the positive/negative method but there are also some advantages.

From purely economic point of view this method of making enlarged negatives for alternative printing is clearly less expensive than making digital negatives

I read the atricle and thought I might be able to try it out with chemicals I had on hand in the darkroom. I had some nice Agfa ortho litho film as well as a few other brands to work with.
I didn't have any Ferro to make the bleach with but I had some C-41 bleach which I'm pretty sure is the permanganate type mentioned in the article. Only problem it doesn't seem to do a complete bleach as there is still a definite image after it seems the bleach will go no further. Then I put it into the 5% sulfite to clear it and nothing clears. So obviously the bleach is wrong for this. Is there a fundamental difference between the C-41 bleach and the permanganate/sulfuric acid bleach? Can the C-41 bleach be modified to work?
Looks like I'm going to have to make a few more shopping trips.

Jorge · Jul 17, 2004

glbeas said:
I read the atricle and thought I might be able to try it out with chemicals I had on hand in the darkroom. I had some nice Agfa ortho litho film as well as a few other brands to work with.
I didn't have any Ferro to make the bleach with but I had some C-41 bleach which I'm pretty sure is the permanganate type mentioned in the article. Only problem it doesn't seem to do a complete bleach as there is still a definite image after it seems the bleach will go no further. Then I put it into the 5% sulfite to clear it and nothing clears. So obviously the bleach is wrong for this. Is there a fundamental difference between the C-41 bleach and the permanganate/sulfuric acid bleach? Can the C-41 bleach be modified to work?
Looks like I'm going to have to make a few more shopping trips.

As the name implies in the C41 process, you have bleach and fixer. So I am not surprised you still had some image left. The bleach is potassium dichromate not permanganate so it is a vastly different compound. Pot dichromate is dirt cheap, I use it as contrast agent in pt/pd and a little bit goes a long way. If you want to use ferry make sure you use it without the sulfite or you wont get any image back.
So to answer yor question, yes there is a big difference between the C41 blix and regular pot dichromate bleach, better just stick with the formulas given in the article.

glbeas · Jul 17, 2004

Jorge said:
As the name implies in the C41 process, you have bleach and fixer. So I am not surprised you still had some image left. The bleach is potassium dichromate not permanganate so it is a vastly different compound. Pot dichromate is dirt cheap, I use it as contrast agent in pt/pd and a little bit goes a long way. If you want to use ferry make sure you use it without the sulfite or you wont get any image back.
So to answer yor question, yes there is a big difference between the C41 blix and regular pot dichromate bleach, better just stick with the formulas given in the article.

This wasn't the blix, it was a separate bleach and fix process. The article does mention using permanganate instead of dichromate for a less toxic version but the bleach in the C-41 kit must have a basic difference from the version in the article. Just curious as to what that difference is. It may be a while before I get my hands on the rest of the supplies needed.
I'm looking forward to trying to get a setup for doing palladium prints, I have a vacuum frame I got from work for free as well as an Olec light unit that needs work on it. I also got hold of two different Ziatype kits used and have no idea really what to do with them as they were both very different from each other in spite of claiming to be Ziatype kits. My one attempt to make a print was a flop as I had the wrong type of paper. Haven't had time to delve into it further since I got it.

Jorge · Jul 17, 2004

glbeas said:
This wasn't the blix, it was a separate bleach and fix process. The article does mention using permanganate instead of dichromate for a less toxic version but the bleach in the C-41 kit must have a basic difference from the version in the article. Just curious as to what that difference is. It may be a while before I get my hands on the rest of the supplies needed.
I'm looking forward to trying to get a setup for doing palladium prints, I have a vacuum frame I got from work for free as well as an Olec light unit that needs work on it. I also got hold of two different Ziatype kits used and have no idea really what to do with them as they were both very different from each other in spite of claiming to be Ziatype kits. My one attempt to make a print was a flop as I had the wrong type of paper. Haven't had time to delve into it further since I got it.

Since it must be about 20 years since I developed color, I guess the kits come differently now. I remember the Beseler kit was a blix combination to save steps. It has been a long time since I read the article, so I dont remember the permanganate part, but I am sure it would work as almost any oxidizer will bleach metalic silver.

Yep, the paper has a lot to do with the quality of the image, but hang in there, once it clicks, there is no going back. WHat was the difference between the kits? perhaps we can help you, not that I am an expert on Zias, but I ruined enough negatives to tell you what not to do...

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