Printing an uneven neg...?

[PKM-25]

So I have an otherwise great neg of an important image I started printing last night. This is from Rollei IR400 in Rodinal that probably needed to be pre-soaked as it has some weird streaking in a few frames. Well, I thought this image was clean until I made a 10" print in which I found a straight semi-hard edged difference in neg density, in sky.

It is pretty minor in terms of percentage, but it is there and would render the print unsaleable If not corrected. The only thing I can think to do is make a mask for it and just give it a try. It is even in terms of being consistently and slightly denser in the left 1.5" of the print, it already looks like I masked it.

Anyone else salvage this kind of problem?

 

[tomalophicon]

'Anyone else salvage this kind of problem?'.
Yep, I cut out a rectangular dodge tool with hard edges and put on the end of some wire. I dodged the area till I got it right. I couldn't see it. Whilst dodging I didn't move the tool around much. It wasn't exactly the same size but it didn't matter.
I s'pose you could do the same if you needed to burn-in.
Tom.

 

[keithwms]

A few ideas come to mind. One is to make a traditional dodge mask as tomalophicon described. Another idea is to go ahead and make a print to the size you want and then cut along the offending boundary in the print and make a dodge/burn mask that way. Another idea is to play with a GND under your enlarger lens, which may take care of the problem elegantly if it's the right kind of boundary. Another idea is to make a film positive and then a paper internegative and touch that up on the back side with pencil and then contact print for the final prints. Another idea is to scan the neg and use unmentionable techniques to make an overlay mask on transparency film that you can use to dodge each print reproducibly. Another idea is to scan and use unmentionable techniques to dodge appropriately and then send the file off to Chicago Albumen to have an LVT made.

 

[PKM-25]

Thanks guys, as long as I don't hear it's impossible, I'll give it a try. At first, I only need the masking for two print sizes, so maybe it won't be so tough...?

 

[Guillaume Zuili]

Also lith printing. You can hide this just by the texture and infectious development.

 

[brian steinberger]

You sure it's uneven development or water deposits? If it's the latter you can soak the negative in stop bath and re-wash to remove them.