Red meat: Conventional B&W vs. C-41 options

MartinP · May 19, 2015

The Ilford digital black-and-white papers are panchromatic(-ish) so why not try projection printing on those, from C41 colour negs? The main answer might be the fixed contrast-grade (as contrast is expected to be sorted out in the digital part of the expected workflow), while a secondary one might be that they are only available in large rolls, with a third reason being that many people can't face working without a safelight. Those papers, two RC and one fibre-based, should still give some sort of results when using an enlarger - perhaps Bob Carnie has experimented with that, alongside the usual way to expose the paper?

There sometimes seems to be more sky/cloud contrast in an unfiltered colour-print neg than in an unfiltered black-and-white one, so they can indeed record differently. This is easily compensated by everyones' favourite yellow, or yellow-green, lens filter on b+w film so is not a real 'problem'. As we know, the use of other colours of filter on black-and-white film can be useful too, and give results not available from projection printing a colour-neg film. Now I'm wondering if a hypothetical 'perfect' colour-neg film could be used for producing b+w prints with tone modifying filters on the camera lens, like b+w film - obviously one would lose the utility of making RA4 prints, in addition to b+w ones on a panchromatic paper. It makes me think 'why bother?' actually!

Bob Carnie · May 19, 2015

I can make tailor made negatives for this paper Ilford Galerie panchromatic... really just a grade 4 with extended red sensitivity.

but very much off topic here.

MartinP · May 19, 2015

Bob Carnie said:
I can make tailor made negatives for this paper Ilford Galerie panchromatic... really just a grade 4 with extended red sensitivity.

but very much off topic here.

Thank you for the expert knowledge. It is not a material that is widely used by amateur printers I think, especially given the cost of the hardware used with it.

Xmas · May 19, 2015

MartinP said:
Thank you for the expert knowledge. It is not a material that is widely used by amateur printers I think, especially given the cost of the hardware used with it.

Don't understand that it is a panchromatic silver bromide emulsion needs total darkness dry and 'tube' for wet?
But fixed grade...

Xmas · May 19, 2015

bvy said:
Good work, David! Hopefully folks will believe us now when we say you can't get correct color balance from low temperature C-41 processing...

I thought you could but you would have casts in high lights and shadows away from a mid tone grey card.
We need Ron to explain why the process is only optimal with standardised processing...

MattKing · May 19, 2015

Xmas said:
I thought you could but you would have casts in high lights and shadows away from a mid tone grey card.
We need Ron to explain why the process is only optimal with standardised processing...

Ron (PE) would do this better than me, but it is fairly simple.

The red, blue and green sensitive parts of colour film are each "tweaked" separately to provide similar sensitivity and contrast responses over the range of subject brightnesses in a scene. As a result, if the illumination is from a consistent source and a photo is balanced in colour in the highlight areas, it will be balanced in the mid-tones and shadows as well.

However, that "tweaking" is predicated on a particular development temperature. If you vary that temperature, the response of the red sensitive parts of the film will vary a different amount than the response of the blue sensitive parts of the film which will vary a different amount than the response of the green sensitive parts of the film.

So you can end up with something like a portrait with highlights that have a yellow colour cast, mid-tones with a magenta colour cast and shadows with a cyan colour cast - all in the same negative!

I haven't had to struggle with those colour casts from crossover for a long time, so the example above may have switched the colour casts around a bit, but you get the idea.

Paul Verizzo · May 19, 2015

One of the mostly unnoticed benefits of shooting color in the hybrid workflow even if ending up with B&W is that you can add filters via software, howboutthat. Emulate those colored discs.

RPC · May 19, 2015

The principle three emulsion layers are designed to give exactly the same contrast at 100F. To do this, diffusion of the developer must take place at a proper rate into the layers. At other temperatures, the diffusion and development rates of each layer change, related to their stacking order, so the contrast of the three layers will change and be different relative to each other, causing color shifts related to density changes. In short, you get distorted colors that can not be corrected by simple color balancing.

MartinP · May 19, 2015

Xmas said:
Don't understand that it is a panchromatic silver bromide emulsion needs total darkness dry and 'tube' for wet?
But fixed grade...

Your meaning is a bit unclear, but I assume you mean that it can only be developed in tubes? The Ilford Galerie Digital range can actually be developed using any normal black-and-white paper-developer procedure, from trays to roller-transport machines. Trays would be adequate, within the limitations of handling large sheets cut from rolls, despite having no safelighting.

The limitations for most amateurs would be the cost of the digital printing-equipment which gets the image on to the paper -- without this gear (Lightjet etc.) and it's implied stage of digital manipulations, it is restricted in 'ordinary' usability compared to Multicontrast products. Specialist professionals, like Bob Carnie's lab, can make negs to suit the specific paper, but generally there are good reasons why variable-contrast papers came to dominate for most people.

Roger Cole · May 20, 2015

Bob Carnie said:
I can make tailor made negatives for this paper Ilford Galerie panchromatic... really just a grade 4 with extended red sensitivity.

but very much off topic here.

Hum, would it give about a grade 3 in a Selectol-Soft clone I wonder?

I can deal with the safelight same as I can with Panalure (with my Duka sodium!) but the large rolls are off putting.

OT or not I find the idea interesting. I've missed a way to (optically) make good B&W prints from color negs since Panalure went away. I know some people use regular VC but I've tried it and found it, in a word, "yuck."

Xmas · May 20, 2015

MartinP said:
Your meaning is a bit unclear, but I assume you mean that it can only be developed in tubes? The Ilford Galerie Digital range can actually be developed using any normal black-and-white paper-developer procedure, from trays to roller-transport machines. Trays would be adequate, within the limitations of handling large sheets cut from rolls, despite having no safelighting.

The limitations for most amateurs would be the cost of the digital printing-equipment which gets the image on to the paper -- without this gear (Lightjet etc.) and it's implied stage of digital manipulations, it is restricted in 'ordinary' usability compared to Multicontrast products. Specialist professionals, like Bob Carnie's lab, can make negs to suit the specific paper, but generally there are good reasons why variable-contrast papers came to dominate for most people.

Sorry

A) it used to be that you had to get your negative to fit to grade 2 (with burn and dodge as necessary) for your enlarger type. The other grades were not as nice and unavailable on Sunday.
B) cibachrome was easy you picked a perfect slide switched off the safe light did the colour wheel test fitted the filtration for the box of prints etc.
Cause part of the kit was a print drum (tube) that could be processed in daylight, like a negative tank. Mine was only 8x10 but there were larger.

The lesson that ciba taught me was a perfect slide only need one test strip!

The pan papers available then were the same though I only ever saw normal grade.

But I used a normal enlarger actually a FSU suitcase spy job.

So this Ilford paper is no different from Pan silver halide papers?

MartinP · May 20, 2015

It is indeed a panchromatic silver-halide paper. There are two RC versions and a fibre-based one, see here.

The curve showing sensitivity of the paper to different wavelengths is a bit peaky, but I suppose that comes from the extra sensitisers in the paper and the matching to the expected laser and led light-sources. It is specifically stated, by Harman, to work adequately with traditional enlarger light-sources, so direct printing of colour negs should be a worthwhile experiment at least.

Xmas · May 20, 2015

Super the only problem is are my c41 negs near to grade 4...

MartinP · May 20, 2015

So is the Galerie Digital paper

Red meat: Conventional B&W vs. C-41 options

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