Printing onto b&w paper from color film?

I remember Kodak Panalure, but it was around before I got into self processing. Is there a current black and white paper and/or technique that can can be used to make prints from color negative film or color slide film?

Duplicating onto b&w film is always an option, but how about direct printing from color film onto b&w paper?

I asked this too

Here is the thread:

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

It can be done, but you will need a long exposure and probably a filter of at least 4 to get any contrast at all.

I used Ilford MGIV RC and found that while grade 4 was required for most prints the exposure wasn't as long as I had been given to believe it would be and could be cut considerably simply by stopping down to f5.6. Although the tonality isn't quite as good as prints from B&W negs, I was again pleasantly surprised by the prints' quality.

Give it a go. You might be equally pleasantly surprised

pentaxuser

There was an Oriental paper that was made for this. It was recently discontinued, perhaps a year and a half ago, so you may be able to find some usable stock if you dig around for it.

Standard Multigrade IV works fine, but as said before, you will need to use a filter to kick up the contrast. Printing Color to BW does not give you the finer grain/sharpness that you would usually get from a normal BW/BW process though. Good luck!

Sorry, I'm forced to disagree with this. I've tried it and it just doesn't work well enough for me. Depends on your standards, I guess. I set the bar pretty high for myself.

The results printing to regular B&W paper also probably depend on the subject. I once tried a portrait of two people on B&W. One person came out looking OK, but the other person's skin tones were hideous; they were just off in a way that's hard to describe. Remember that B&W papers are sensitive only to blue and green light (or perhaps only blue light, for some graded papers), so part of the image in the negative just won't contribute to the exposure of the paper, which will produce odd results. Also, in the case of multi-grade papers, the different colors in the original will affect local contrast in the print.

B&Wpositive said:

I remember Kodak Panalure, but it was around before I got into self processing. Is there a current black and white paper and/or technique that can can be used to make prints from color negative film or color slide film?

Duplicating onto b&w film is always an option, but how about direct printing from color film onto b&w paper?

Click to expand...

panalure and the oriental stuff
were panchromatic (guessing ) papers,
not orthochromatic papers like a "normal"
black and white photo paper. since they had
the spectral dyes ( guessing ) they were able to print
color images onto them and have them look ... normal.
regular photo paper, since it is orthochromatic, will not
be sensitive to certain colors of the spectrum,
so the prints onto regular paper will look a bit off.
i don't mind red bricks or red lipstick being black
or skies being cloudless, ruddy complexions
a pre 1900s feel, but some people do ...

probably if you want full spectrum black and white,
duping onto black and white film might be your only option ...