Printing B&W from colour neg

[Matt5791]

Is this straightforward?

Any hints and tips appreciated,

Thanks

Matt

 

[pentaxuser]

Is this straightforward?

Any hints and tips appreciated,

Thanks

Matt

Matt. Loads of threads on this in APUG. Have a look via search engine. The key to this in the opinion of most revolves around stuff called Panalure, no longer made and appears to be impossible to get hold of in the U.K. It can/could be ordered from the U.S. at a price.

Panalure translates the full range of colours into correct tones in B&W. Ordinary multigrade B&W paper will produce a print but opinions on quality vary. Long exposure times are the norm. Some negs seem to produce OK prints and others not.

I have tried to briefly summarise my understanding of the status. No doubt other members with actual experience will contribute usable knowledge should you want to give it a go.

Pentaxuser

 

[ann]

summed up very nicely, pentaxuser.

However, give it a try for yourself.

 

[jim appleyard]

You can also print this on your "standard" b/w paper; whatever that may be. The orange mask of the color neg will make it a bit more difficult to align the image on your easel and make focusing a bit harder. A longer exposure time is required too.

You'll find that you'll need to up the contrast quite a bit and the image will be grainy. VC paper is probably best for this.

 

[srs5694]

To expand just a bit, most B&W papers are sensitive mainly to blue and green light, and are relatively insensitive to red. This will throw off the "color" balance of the print -- some objects will be lighter or darker than you'd expect, or than you'd get if you'd used a conventional B&W film. Kodak's Panalure has full-spectrum sensitivity, which means you've got to treat it a lot like color paper in terms of safelighting, but it produces prints closer to what you'd have gotten with conventional B&W film and paper. You might still be able to get some Panalure from some dealers or from eBay, but it seems to have vanished from the market faster than Kodak's other B&W papers.

 

[jim appleyard]

You might still be able to get some Panalure from some dealers or from eBay, but it seems to have vanished from the market faster than Kodak's other B&W papers.

It's just a guess, but I don't think this was big money-maker for Kodak and I'm not sure that they made globs of this stuff. I'm not sure it there was a lot of around to disappear.

 

[JHannon]

I had the best results with Panalure, but it may be hard to find.

Like Jim and the others have said, you can use multigrade papers with at least #3 or 4 filter to start depending on the contrast of the original. Also expect the exposure times to be 3 to 4 times longer or more.

 

[Nige]

...and are relatively insensitive to red. This will throw off the "color" balance of the print

my experience exactly... which means images with (close up) people turn out funny! Ones without people can be acceptable, depending on your goals!

 

[fhovie]

My angst is the lack of grain in a color negative makes the image real mushy. The contrast is usually all wrong as well. I won't even use the chromogenic films because of this.

 

[Matthewt]

Just my 2 cents worth....I printed this last night. The film is Fuji Superia 200 iso color film. I printed it on Arista Matte black and white paper and developed it in Arista Ultra cold tone developer. No contrast filter was used at all. Exposure time was 40 seconds. I print color film on black and white paper all the time.. So far I have never had a problem.

 

[PeterB]

Matt. Loads of threads on this in APUG.

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

 

[pentaxuser]

Just my 2 cents worth....I printed this last night. The film is Fuji Superia 200 iso color film. I printed it on Arista Matte black and white paper and developed it in Arista Ultra cold tone developer. No contrast filter was used at all. Exposure time was 40 seconds. I print color film on black and white paper all the time.. So far I have never had a problem.

Looks pretty good to me. Nothing funny about the person shot which seems to be different from the experience of one of the contributors. I use Fuji Superia also - usually 100- but this shouldn't make a difference. That leaves the paper and developer. Hopefully Ilford Multigrade and Nova developer should perform similarly.

If not, is Arista Matte black( presumably this is Fibre?) and Arista developer a U.S. product only available in the U.S.

I know I have come across those occasions when using colour that I have thought a B&W print would be interesting. Your print suggests that carrying two cameras may not be the only solution left.

Pentaxuser

 

[Matthewt]

Looks pretty good to me. Nothing funny about the person shot which seems to be different from the experience of one of the contributors. I use Fuji Superia also - usually 100- but this shouldn't make a difference. That leaves the paper and developer. Hopefully Ilford Multigrade and Nova developer should perform similarly.

If not, is Arista Matte black( presumably this is Fibre?) and Arista developer a U.S. product only available in the U.S.

I know I have come across those occasions when using colour that I have thought a B&W print would be interesting. Your print suggests that carrying two cameras may not be the only solution left.

Pentaxuser

Yes Arista is fiber based paper. I get all my Arista supplies from Freestyle in Los Angeles California www.freestylephoto.biz. And, yes it always struck me as funny that you can't print from a color negative onto black and white paper. But, I do. Now, granted, it might not have all the tonality when printing from a bw neg, but it gets very close.

 

[srs5694]

is Arista Matte black( presumably this is Fibre?) and Arista developer a U.S. product only available in the U.S.

"Arista" is the house brand of Freestyle Photo. It's made by various manufacturers, depending on the product. Searching their catalog, it looks like Matthewt is talking about something in the "Arista Classic" line. I'm not sure who makes this specific product. I know Freestyle has used Agfa, Ilford, and I believe Kentmere as suppliers, so it could be any of them. (They also use or used Forte and Foma, but under the "Arista.EDU" and "Arista.EDU Ultra" lines, so I'm pretty sure it's not them.) I've no idea who makes Freestyle's chemicals, I'm afraid.

That said, I doubt if the specific brand and type of paper is key here -- AFAIK, outside of Kodak Panalure, all papers respond to similar wavelengths and are lacking in red response, so it's a question of subject matter how well the print will work. That said, there are differences in the relative levels of green and blue sensitivity between papers, and probably in sensitivity to specific wavelengths (I've not looked into that), so I would expect different papers to produce different results with the same color negative, but they'd all be insensitive to red.

 

[kunihiko]

Though I don't know its world wide availability, Fuji has "FUJIBRO PANCHRO WP" in 12x16.5cm to 45.7x56.0cm.
Panchromatic, Resin coated, graded (now it's #3 only).

Sorry, the link bellow is in Japanese.
http://fujifilm.jp/personal/jan/monochrome/paper.html#h501010103

 

[srs5694]

AFAIK, no US retailers carry Fuji B&W papers, although Fuji color papers are quite common in the US. Some B&W Fuji films (such as Neopan 100SS) are also hard to find in the US, although not impossible (B&H carries Neopan 100SS, for instance). Dead Link Removed is a Japanese-based outfit that carries such products and that reportedly ships worldwide, but I've never bought from them, so I can't vouch for them personally.

Edit: Oh, I just checked and couldn't find the Fujibro Panchro WP at Megaperls.

 

[Bob Carnie]

Just a heads up on this discussion

I just recieved a roll of Ilford panchromatic rc black and white paper to use on my Lambda printer. Have been assured it would work under an enlarger. Ilford plans on making a fibre version after the material has been tested in a few locations. This black and white paper cannot be used under *normal* safe light conditions.
I would imagine this paper would be better for colour negatives, much like panalure.
I will post my thoughts after we have tested the roll in January.

 

[thebanana]

I have a chance to buy some Panalure from an aquaintance, but one question...I think this paper can't be used with a typical darkroom safelight, correct? This is a problem for me as I share a communal darkroom with 3 or 4 others, so total darkness would be a problem if this is the case. Anyone know for sure? Thanks
John

 

[Matt5791]

Thanks for the help everyone - I'm going to have a go with some Ilford multigrade and see what happens - seems like the best thing will be to just experiment.

In the meantime the paper mentioned by Bob Carnie above from Ilford sounds like a good idea.

Matt

 

[jim appleyard]

I have a chance to buy some Panalure from an aquaintance, but one question...I think this paper can't be used with a typical darkroom safelight, correct? This is a problem for me as I share a communal darkroom with 3 or 4 others, so total darkness would be a problem if this is the case. Anyone know for sure? Thanks
John

I don't remember which safelight you need to use, I'll guess at a #13 green, but you are correct in that you do need a special one. Ordinary safelights will expose Panalure.

 

[pentaxuser]

Just a heads up on this discussion

I just recieved a roll of Ilford panchromatic rc black and white paper to use on my Lambda printer. Have been assured it would work under an enlarger. Ilford plans on making a fibre version after the material has been tested in a few locations. This black and white paper cannot be used under *normal* safe light conditions.
I would imagine this paper would be better for colour negatives, much like panalure.
I will post my thoughts after we have tested the roll in January.

This looks an interesting lead.I have been keeping my eyes open but have seen nothing.Can we take it that you haven't tested yet? I apppreciate that Jan is barely half way through but any idea of when you might test?

I guess crucial to this is whether this paper is OK under colour safelights such as the DUKA which is fine for RA4. Did Ilford give any info on this or its applicability to printing from colour negs. You'd think that with Panalure now extinct, Ilford would see the marketing sense of suggesting it as a substitute for Panalure, even if it isn't an exact equivalent. Ilford must be astute enough to recognise that there's a market for advertising it as at least beneficial when attempting to print B&W from colour negs.

Thanks

Pentaxuser

 

[Bob Carnie]

Hi There

I recieved the paper directly from Ilford tech rep here in Canada.

This paper is meant for Lambda printing, it is RC right now and they are considering making it in Fibre form.

There are very few labs in the World printing fibre from digital files, we have been doing this for a couple of years with a Lambda exposing unit.
I will try this paper under the enlarger as well. I think this paper is being tested in only a few sites.

I just got the roll and I am going to test it shortly *Jan 2006*. I will not be using any safe light for Lambda or Traditional printing of this paper. I am crossing my fingers that they will make this in Fiber as well as right now we are using Agfa Classic and having a new paper for our purposes is awesome.

I think much like panalure, the idea is to achieve better tonality from digital capture which is generally in colour. The fact that the emulsion is pancromatic I imagine the seperation of colour tone or hues will separate better. This will be easy at our end as we will test both traditional emulsion that we are using right now and this *new * emulsion.

With the new digital enlargers and exposing units the ability to do this would be a strong point for Ilford to market. whether they persue this poduct line I am not an authority to know.

 

[pentaxuser]

Thanks. I look forward to the results of you trying it under an enlarger.

Pentaxuser

 

[Samuel B]

One option is to print on a chromogenic colour paper such as Oriental Seagull Chromogenic B&W paper, which is an RA-4 paper. It's available in Black or Sepia, and gives good results from colour negs. The problem is you can't control the contrast, and the tone of it tends to vary a bit depending on the condition of the developer. The colour of it tends to go off if it's stored for a long time too.

 

[p krentz]

It looks pretty darn good to me. Pat