Negative retouching for skin blemishes

Dusty Negative · May 31, 2020

Not entirely sure where to post this one. I have limited experience in the darkroom, particularly as it relates to manipulating the print. I've dodged, I've burned, and I've spot-retouched.

But...what I am very interested to know is how difficult is it to retouch the *negative* for things like under-eye bags and dark circles?

Coming from the digital world, the idea of physically altering/manipulating the negative strikes me with fear and trembling, and I was hoping that some of the experienced folks around here could provide any stories, links, vignettes, etc., on how they remove(d) those kinds of blemishes.

"D"

Donald Qualls · May 31, 2020

Around the middle of the 20th century, large format film was made with a textured surface (on the base side, as I recall), specifically for retouching. The work was done with highly sophisticated tools: soft graphite pencils.

There were oscillating negative holders for this work, that would automatically turn a touch into a mark, the broadness of which was set by the oscillation magnitude, and the density by the combination of pressure and oscillation speed. The general idea was much like spotting -- you tried to blend your marks so that they were invisible. In practice, even the best retouching was visible with enough enlargement, because the pencil mark had a different texture than emulsion grain -- but at reasonable sizes (say, up to 16x20 from 4x5) this wasn't noticeable.

MattKing · May 31, 2020

TXP 320 in 120 size also had the retouching tooth.
You might find this thread and the OP, Katherine J. Gillis, to be interesting.
https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...ith-analog-photographers.145913/#post-1924783

David A. Goldfarb · May 31, 2020

You can start with soft pencils a blending stump and a light box, and ideally a 4x5” or larger neg. I’ve done it mainly on 8x10” negs. I have an Adams machine that vibrates the neg, but it’s not absolutely necessary. It’s best to work on the non-emulsion side and to use film that has a retouching surface on that side. Alternatives are to use the emulsion side (be careful) or a retouching fluid that will add some tooth to the back side of the film. Wear white cotton gloves and use paper with a hole in it or a few overlapping sheets of paper to shield the part of the neg you aren’t working on. You’ll basically be trying to fill in light areas on the neg at first to bring them closer in value to the surrounding area. You can use powdered graphite to lighten or smooth out a larger area.

Once you’ve got this under control, you can work on reducing the density of dark areas on the neg with abrasive reducer (essentially sanding down the emulsion with an abrasive paste), or with a sharp blade (this is harder, but if you go too far, you’ll know how to correct your error with a pencil.

Dyes are another option.

Dusty Negative · May 31, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
Around the middle of the 20th century, large format film was made with a textured surface (on the base side, as I recall), specifically for retouching. The work was done with highly sophisticated tools: soft graphite pencils.

There were oscillating negative holders for this work, that would automatically turn a touch into a mark, the broadness of which was set by the oscillation magnitude, and the density by the combination of pressure and oscillation speed. The general idea was much like spotting -- you tried to blend your marks so that they were invisible. In practice, even the best retouching was visible with enough enlargement, because the pencil mark had a different texture than emulsion grain -- but at reasonable sizes (say, up to 16x20 from 4x5) this wasn't noticeable.

Wow. Was this done by only the Wisest of the Wise, or was everyone "proficient" in the darkroom generally able to do this kind of retouching?

Dusty Negative · May 31, 2020

MattKing said:
TXP 320 in 120 size also had the retouching tooth.
You might find this thread and the OP, Katherine J. Gillis, to be interesting.
https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...ith-analog-photographers.145913/#post-1924783

Fantastic. I'll take a look. Thank you.

Dusty Negative · May 31, 2020

David A. Goldfarb said:
You can start with soft pencils a blending stump and a light box, and ideally a 4x5” or larger neg. I’ve done it mainly on 8x10” negs. I have an Adams machine that vibrates the neg, but it’s not absolutely necessary. It’s best to work on the non-emulsion side and to use film that has a retouching surface on that side. Alternatives are to use the emulsion side (be careful) or a retouching fluid that will add some tooth to the back side of the film. Wear white cotton gloves and use paper with a hole in it or a few overlapping sheets of paper to shield the part of the neg you aren’t working on. You’ll basically be trying to fill in light areas on the neg at first to bring them closer in value to the surrounding area. You can use powdered graphite to lighten or smooth out a larger area.

Once you’ve got this under control, you can work on reducing the density of dark areas on the neg with abrasive reducer (essentially sanding down the emulsion with an abrasive paste), or with a sharp blade (this is harder, but if you go too far, you’ll know how to correct your error with a pencil.

Dyes are another option.

"Sanding down the emulsion." Lord have mercy. If I go too far now, I just delete that layer and start over.

MattKing · May 31, 2020

Dusty Negative said:
Wow. Was this done by only the Wisest of the Wise, or was everyone "proficient" in the darkroom generally able to do this kind of retouching?

Retouching definitely requires skill and practice, although I'm not sure that Wisdom is always involved.
And a lot of the best retouchers rarely went into a darkroom - they were specialists.
My skill extended/extends to dabbing a bit of crocein scarlet on a pinhole, to be followed with spotting the print later.
I think a lot of the need for commercial retouching went away when lighting styles moved toward larger, more diffused sources.

Dusty Negative · May 31, 2020

MattKing said:
TXP 320 in 120 size also had the retouching tooth.
You might find this thread and the OP, Katherine J. Gillis, to be interesting.
https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...ith-analog-photographers.145913/#post-1924783

Interesting how little interest her pitch generated. I can understand some suspicion (her advertising approach was a bit evasive) but I, too, would have thought this would be the forum for it. I suppose folks (like me) are simply scanning their negatives and retouching in PS/Affinity.

Donald Qualls · Jun 1, 2020

Dusty Negative said:
Wow. Was this done by only the Wisest of the Wise, or was everyone "proficient" in the darkroom generally able to do this kind of retouching?

There were specialists, as with any skill, but most portrait photographers were at least minimally capable, because "removing Aunt Hilda's mole" was part of their stock-in-trade.

Dusty Negative · Jun 1, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
There were specialists, as with any skill, but most portrait photographers were at least minimally capable, because "removing Aunt Hilda's mole" was part of their stock-in-trade.

Makes sense. Fascinating...from top to bottom a much more 'manual' art than digital. I'm not sure I'd want to trade the comfort of my desktop (and the one click in Affinity to remove it) to manually extract that mole, though.

Donald Qualls · Jun 1, 2020

Dusty Negative said:
from top to bottom a much more 'manual' art than digital.

You can say that again. Go read Ansel's The Print to see his dodging/burning/split burning scripts for a few of his well known images. Making a Zone-perfect negative is just the beginning -- and Ansel almost never retouched (can't say with confidence he never did, but it was a rarity if he did).

Negative retouching for skin blemishes

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