masking tutorial

[domaz]

I remember reading somewhere that some have made contrast masks by scanning the slide, making the mask digitally and then printing the mask out as a transparency to put over the paper. This is probably totally off-base but maybe it could work?

 

[Photo Engineer]

It works. Registration can present problems depending on what you are trying to accomplish though.

PE

 

[Pupfish]

Not that someone somewhere hasn't already done it, but a potential problem with that approach that immediately comes to mind is you need the image of mask itself to be diffuse as to be unnoticeable but not so diffuse that it causes glowing halos around edges. Another is that you'd also need the mask to be precisely the same size as the final copy, the registration issues now being dimensional, as well as mere alignment. Registration is relatively simple to do with large format when you contact a neg or transparency but now that's going to present something a challenge on the easel epecially if you'll be enlarging (Might find you'd need a perfectly flat field enlarging lens, too).

None of which may be such a problem in the larger formats contact printing at 1:1, though you still might need watch out for introducing an interference pattern (moire) with the slightest mis-alignment. Film masks would be relatively immune to this, though they do bump up the visual grain a bit. (Again, a diffuse light source helps keep this manageable).

Add to all this that if starting from a smaller format than 4x5, you're probably going to need a dedicated film scanner of the highest resolution in order to make contrast masks that can withstand any degree of enlargement without pixelization being obvious. Which begins to beg the question, if you're going to all that trouble, why not just hand off a masked scanned file to someone with a Chromira who runs Ilfochrome through it? Speaking only for myself, the whole point of any masking exercise is to improve upon the image, not detract from it-- which to me means it certainly isn't worth the bother and additional expense just for bragging rights or some gee-whiz factor of having hybridized the process.

 

[Wayne]

Search Usenet for Barry Sherman's Masking 101. Some of the materials have changed or become unavailable but there is still useful info in it I'm sure.

Here is it http://www.bonavolta.ch/hobby/fr/photo/masking101.htm

 

[Erik L]

Search Usenet for Barry Sherman's Masking 101. Some of the materials have changed or become unavailable but there is still useful info in it I'm sure.

Here is it http://www.bonavolta.ch/hobby/fr/photo/masking101.htm

Many Thanks Wayne! good read
erik

 

[Pupfish]

Great find. Yep, Barry Sherman-- this was the guy who inspired me with this article to make a register punch, and really get into CM. Greatly indebted to him for putting this up on the web some years ago (but I'd thought it was lost to antiquity-- and yet, here it is again!). Sad to read that was killed in an U/L plane crash back in 2002.

 

[Wayne]

I didn't reread it but I recall Barry preferred using the (then called) P3 commercial roller transport bleach. If you are masking anyway it shouldn't matter.

I made a glass pin register 4x5 carrier system from instructions on the web some 8 years ago. Those I cant find, despite scouring the web and the archives. When I unpack my stuff I'll take a shot of mine and post it here. Someone with a better grasp of web archives than me could possibly find the instructions, as they say nothing ever really disappears from the web. They were also published. He probably pulled it from the web so he or others could sell them instead of giving away the how-to.


Darkroom & Creative Camera Techniques:
Vol. 10 No. 4 (either July/August 1989 or Sept/Oct): How to make a contrast reduction mask and registration system

 

[Pupfish]

I've found the P3 chemistry just fine for JOBO use/non-roller transport (kept better unopened on dealer's shelves than the P30 kits, most notably the bleach components). It was the P3X chemistry that was made for speed and efficiency, which purportedly bumped up the contrast. Recall thinking that this P3X bump might explain why I never once got a Cibachrome back from being commercially printed that had acceptable contrast.

As long as you have a drill press and a set of number drills available to you-- and perhaps a fair amount of patience-- a registration system may not be all that hard to make. (Certainly wasn't a thousand dollars worth of difficulty!) Working in 35mm I chose to use 1/16" registration holes but you could perhaps get away with larger ones for LF film if that's what you work in exclusively.

First step is making a drilling jig is so that all of the pin stages and punch components will be consistent.

Instead of making some huge production out of fabricating a precise register punch device from scratch, I was able to scrounge the hinged tractor-feed from an old defunct TI dot matrix printer. This was a part precision molded in glass-reinforced nylon with zero slop to the hinge, and it was free to me. There were two on the printer. A couple of used mat board blades with holes bored in them to receive the punch pins, and a couple of pieces of music wire for the punches themselves and I was in business. (Well, after numerous attempts at grinding and filing precisely sharp and flat ends on the music wire, that is. If you use 1/16" music wire, use a slightly undersized number drill that results in a press fit for the music wire to seat in the bores)

The contacter was made using black Plexiglas (because I had a bunch of it) with a cutout for a piece of inlaid opal glass in 4x5. (The hinge? Gaffer's tape). The two pins for this stage require very smoothly rounded tips, so as to not scratch film in the dark, but otherwise were set in the same size holes drilled by the jig, mounted in the plexiglas.

The enlarger stage was easy, I mounted another set of music wire pins (carefully rounded and smoothed tips) in a block of nylon drilled with the jig that I then mounted onto the underside of the film carrier.

 

[Wayne]

I've found the P3 chemistry just fine for JOBO use/non-roller transport (kept better unopened on dealer's shelves than the P30 kits, most notably the bleach components). It was the P3X chemistry that was made for speed and efficiency, which purportedly bumped up the contrast. Recall thinking that this P3X bump might explain why I never once got a Cibachrome back from being commercially printed that had acceptable contrast.

I'm pretty sure the P3X is the 2008 equivalent of the P3 that Barry was using in the 90s, but it is not the P3 of recent years (but I'm prepared to become more confused). At any rate, the P3 he used was intended for roller-transport machines, and it was higher contrast.

As long as you have a drill press and a set of number drills available to you-- and perhaps a fair amount of patience-- a registration system may not be all that hard to make. (Certainly wasn't a thousand dollars worth of difficulty!)

I think mine cost $20. I couldnt find the pin carrier I made, but it was something like this: Get a 2 hole punch and some steel pins the same size as the punch holes (these can be bought but a handy person could probably make them from a second punch). Attach the pins to the front of the negative stage at the proper distance from each other, same as the punch. The pins I bought (cant remember where) had little flanges on one end. I punched a strip of sheet film, inserted the pins, and used double-sided tape to attach it to the stage. Get two pieces of glass and mask off the negative size on the lower one (at least). Take a piece of sheet film and attach it to one edge of the lower glass so that it hangs off the edge 1/2 inch or so. Punch it with the 2 hole punch and register it on the pins. Masks get a a similar punched piece taped to the edge such that they cover the film area so they can be registered in the same position each time. I'm sure I've missed some important detail but thats the nuts of it.


Wayne