Printing C-41 color negs on B&W paper

Vonder · Jul 20, 2009

I tried this for the first time last night. Fuji Reala, 120, 645 format. Printed straight up with no filtration - ugh. That was one UGLY print. Then I stuck in a #4 filter and increased the exposure and voila! The print came out pretty darn nice. The contrast is still a bit low in the print I settled on - ran out of time - but it's got nice tones.

Anyone else a practicioner of this black art? Any color film that produces exceptional B&W images? I recall hearing that Kodak's Portra films are known for this ability.

Sirius Glass · Jul 20, 2009

You need a paper that Kodak no longer makes. There is not substitute available now. I forgot the name of the paper, but as I said it does not matter because you can't find it.

Steve

Steve Roberts · Jul 20, 2009

I occasionally do this, as you say. with a hefty filter to bump up the contrast and a correspondingly long exposure. The results can be quite effective with the right subject, though enlargements usually appear disproportionately grainy compared to the same size print from the same size neg on B & W film. No doubt someone here will be able to explain why.

Steve

Thomas Wilson · Jul 20, 2009

That was the old Panalure paper. It worked reasonably well.
I thought Ilford had an equivalent.

WRSchmalfuss · Jul 20, 2009

Try the "unmasked" ROLLEI Digibase CN 200 Pro (C-41) roll film 120, and then you can have both, color on color paper, and B&W on normal B&W paper!

Cheers

Sirius Glass · Jul 20, 2009

Thomas Wilson said:
That was the old Panalure paper. It worked reasonably well.
I thought Ilford had an equivalent.

Panalure paper was what I was thinking of. If Ilford does have an equivalent, I would sure like to know.

Steve

Derek Lofgreen · Jul 20, 2009

I did it once and was pretty surprised at the results. I used Kodak 200 print film from the drug store and printed a 11x14 from a 35mm neg on Arista fiber paper. No filtration was needed. It took about 15 minutes for the exposure but it looked great! I posted the print on apug awhile ago. It's the black and white shot of a 65 mustang fast back. I have a color version as well. you can compare the two to see what you think. It's in my apug gallery posts.

D.

pentaxuser · Jul 20, 2009

I tried it with some old 1970s colour negs that had begun to exhibit a colour caste due to age and possibly the state of 1970s colour negs and mini-labs of that era. They looked pretty good, I thought. They needed a grade 4 filter but the tonal range was better than I had dared hope for. Exposure was a little more but not ecessively so.

I have since tried it with recent "good" C41 negs and the B&W prints were no better. Certainly old and "passed their best" colour negs from which prints are needed are worth a try. Trying to print decent RA4 prints from such old negs may have produced much poorer prints.

pentaxuser

psvensson · Jul 20, 2009

Ilford still makes a panchromatic paper, Ilfospeed RC Digital. It's sold in big rolls for minilabs (which expose by tri-color laser) so it's not very convenient for the hobbyist. I haven't tried it.

Sirius Glass · Jul 20, 2009

psvensson said:
Ilford still makes a panchromatic paper, Ilfospeed RC Digital. It's sold in big rolls for minilabs (which expose by tri-color laser) so it's not very convenient for the hobbyist. I haven't tried it.

Hence why I did not know about it.

Steve

Mike Wilde · Jul 20, 2009

I have a 12" roll x about 200' at present of RA-4 portra b&w paper that I use for getting b&w from c-41 negs, but it is well past its best by date by now, and so you get black and slightly magenta prints. The look does work well with certian subjects though.

I also use it up to contact any b&w films that I am backlogged on once the colour RA-4 printinng from c-41 is done for a night, and the processor is all warmed up and keen to keep pumping the prints out. I dial in the equivalent to a c-41 mask, and by varying the red filtration you can get the equivalent to multigrade ranges of 2-4. I have even calibrated the response with a step wedge to figure out what neutral density to dial in to get equal printing times when you switch grades. It is the only time I ever touch the cyan dial on the head.

wogster · Jul 20, 2009

pentaxuser said:
I tried it with some old 1970s colour negs that had begun to exhibit a colour caste due to age and possibly the state of 1970s colour negs and mini-labs of that era. They looked pretty good, I thought. They needed a grade 4 filter but the tonal range was better than I had dared hope for. Exposure was a little more but not ecessively so.

I have since tried it with recent "good" C41 negs and the B&W prints were no better. Certainly old and "passed their best" colour negs from which prints are needed are worth a try. Trying to print decent RA4 prints from such old negs may have produced much poorer prints.

pentaxuser

This is one of those areas where scanning actually can be the best way of doing things, some old colour negatives that have faded can actually be rescued nicely this way. It depends though on the colours in the image originally and how the dyes have faded over time, if an image had a lot of blue in it and yellow is the dye that faded the most, the results could look like crap no matter what you do.

Printing C-41 color negs on B&W paper

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