Making B&W neg on transparancy film from color?

[picker77]

This is a little off the wall, and I don't see a forum niche this question fits in, so here goes:

Has anybody tried to scan and convert a color negative to b&w and print it to transparency film for enlarging and toning?

Edit: Obviously I can' t spell "transparency" correctly every time. Sorry, the forum software won't let me edit the title...

 

[glbeas]

The scanning part is not particularly necessary, just enlarge onto film and make an interpositive then contact it onto another film for a negative.

 

[markbarendt]

This is a little off the wall, and I don't see a forum niche this question fits in, so here goes:

Has anybody tried to scan and convert a color negative to b&w and print it to transparency film for enlarging and toning?

Edit: Obviously I can' t spell "transparency" correctly every time. Sorry, the forum software won't let me edit the title...

The reason you don't see it here is because discussing the scanning you are suggesting is off topic on APUG.

This is a perfect question for APUG's sister site - http://www.hybridphoto.com/

 

[keithwms]

Has anybody tried to scan and convert a color negative to b&w and print it to transparency film for enlarging and toning?

You'll probably want to use a maskless colour neg if you do it traditionally; otherwise the mask will cause issues. To my knowledge there is only one such film on the market right now, namely Rollei digibase. I have used it a few times with this purpose in mind (albeit not with the b&w step, in my case I simply wanted negative colour).

But what are you trying to accomplish? Just do an analogue negative colour to b&w conversion? That's easy, just enlarge it to panchromatic b&w film, then contact print that to ortho film.

Every now and then I do conversion of colour positive to b&w (I like the look). For that you just need to enlarge the slide to panchromatic b&w film. If you start with a scala (or dr5) b&w slide then you don't need a panchromatic film, you can just use ortho film which is less expensive.

 

[picker77]

The reason you don't see it here is because discussing the scanning you are suggesting is off topic on APUG.

This is a perfect question for APUG's sister site - http://www.hybridphoto.com/

Hmm... creating a negative from another negative so I can print it on paper in my darkroom is off topic on APUG? Son of a gun. My apologies.

Gosh, I didn't even know the other site existed. I shot these 6x6 images with my SQ-Am a couple of years ago on color film, and now that I have three enlargers and a darkroom, I was interested in dragging out a few of these older color negatives and printing them in B&W--on toned fiber, as opposed to an inkjet.

But rather than clutter up APUG with questions about film and negatives and enlarging and such, I think I'll just go to my darkroom and try it and see what happens--and in the future I promise to try to avoid use of the words "scan" or "scanning". Come to think of it, it would be interesting to see if the Hybridphoto forum will allow use of words like "enlarging" and "darkroom". Certainly the last thing I want to do is step on topic toes on either forum.

 

[keithwms]

Hmm... creating a negative from another negative so I can print it on paper in my darkroom is off topic on APUG? Son of a gun. My apologies.

No. It is absolutely not off topic. Any analogue process is of interest here.

 

[picker77]

Thanks, Keith. I guess I was just being lazy and wondering if there was a shortcut (such as going direct to transparency material) that would avoid the two-step thing with pan and ortho. Curiosity will probably make me try this anyway. Besides, the worst I can do is waste some time and transparency material.

 

[keithwms]

Well you can enlarge to panchromatic b&w film and reversal process it or send it off to dr5... that would be single step.

 

[picker77]

Wow.. I just looked over dr5's price list. I guess I'll try to do this myself first. Besides, a guy can't learn anything by just writing a big check.

 

[2F/2F]

This is a little off the wall, and I don't see a forum niche this question fits in, so here goes:

Has anybody tried to scan and convert a color negative to b&w and print it to transparency film for enlarging and toning?

You don't see a "forum niche" because it involves hybrid processes. Try www.hybridphoto.org for this question.

If you are looking for a way to get your desired product using analog methods, this is the place to ask. However, I would simply ask how to obtain your desired product, instead of asking us specifically how to do it via hybrid methods.

 

[5stringdeath]

This is a little off the wall, and I don't see a forum niche this question fits in, so here goes:

Has anybody tried to scan and convert a color negative to b&w and print it to transparency film for enlarging and toning?

Edit: Obviously I can' t spell "transparency" correctly every time. Sorry, the forum software won't let me edit the title...

No but I've printed color negs straight to VC paper using VC filters ....

 

[picker77]

I have no idea how to do that, 5string... (BTW, I play a 1938 Mastertone Top Tension). I thought about just trying to print directly, but since for instance my red truck shows up as a green truck on a color negative, I didn't know how the paper's emulsion layers would react to green light, or many other "wrong" colors (and maybe red wouldn't show up at all). It appears the only way to get a true gray scale image from a color negative without stepping through copying to other film types or doing reversals is via the dreaded not-to-be-mentioned dig**** process using a comp****, where it can be easily done with two or three mouse cli***.

Being a film shooter and paper printing enthusiast who also has and uses some dig**** equipment, it's hard sometimes to keep the impenetrable iron curtain up between the two.

Thanks to the many helpful members for the info on this totally new (to me) process.

 

[keithwms]

No but I've printed color negs straight to VC paper using VC filters ....

Hmm. For printing colour neg to b&w paper, the digibase (maskless) film might do a bit better than the normal colour neg film I tried. I might give it a go.

But if reds and greens play an important tonal role in the scene, then you'll likely get much better results printing colour slides to direct positive paper, which at least is panchromatic.

 

[5stringdeath]

I have no idea how to do that, 5string... (BTW, I play a 1938 Mastertone Top Tension). I thought about just trying to print directly, but since for instance my red truck shows up as a green truck on a color negative, I didn't know how the paper's emulsion layers would react to green light, or many other "wrong" colors (and maybe red wouldn't show up at all). It appears the only way to get a true gray scale image from a color negative without stepping through copying to other film types or doing reversals is via the dreaded not-to-be-mentioned dig**** process using a comp****, where it can be easily done with two or three mouse cli***.

Being a film shooter and paper printing enthusiast who also has and uses some dig**** equipment, it's hard sometimes to keep the impenetrable iron curtain up between the two.

Thanks to the many helpful members for the info on this totally new (to me) process.

Its not ideal but using a #5 filter on regular VC paper can yield print results. This is in a regular condensor enlarger ... not sure the same results can be had with a color head.

 

[Mike Wilde]

Yes, it is possible. My most recent postcard exchange was a low contrast c-41 neg, and it printed as a low contrast b&w print with a LOT of magenta filtration in my dichroic head enlarger. Yes, if things are tonally distorted, but try it, it can work.

If you want, print the c-41 neg onto panchromatic b&w film (howard bond has written this up in the past 4 years in Photo Techniques for making 1:1 sized unsharp masks for colour printing on tmax 100 as I recall).

It is possible to reversal process conventional negative material. Tricky to calibrate though, and better be prepared to home mix from scratch for optiomal reuslts, although there is/was a direct reversal kit for tmax 100.

It is also possible to substantially filter the c-41 mask away with the right filtiration from a dichroc head. An analyser will go a long wary to make this a faster process to calibrate and get predictable repeatable results.