Reducer Formula

[Vlad Soare]

Hello,

The attached picture is one of my first 4x5" shots, made about two years ago. At that time, being new to large format, I was so concerned with getting the technical matters right that I didn't notice that sun ray falling on my wife's nose.

Burning it in during printing doesn't work. The nose gets gray instead of white, but still with no detail. Besides, it must be done so heavily that there's no way to hide it. Even with a #00 filter it still shows.
That's why I gave up and forgot about it.

I recently rediscovered this negative and thought I'd give it a second chance.
I can think of only one thing that could rescue it, and I'm determined to try despite the risk of damaging it for good. After all, it's unusable as it is, so it can't get worse than that. I'm thinking about a reducer.

As far as I know, there are two kinds of negative reducers: ones that affect all areas to the same degree, and others that affect highlights more than shadows - I believe these are called proportional reducers. I'm thinking of using a proportional reducer. This should in theory reduce the density of the nose without affecting the rest of the image too much.

First, do you think it will work? Is it possible to reduce the nose to normal density without reducing the shadows to an unprintable level?
Second, could you recommend me a formula for a reducer that would be appropriate in this case?

Thank you.

 

[Gerald C Koch]

Since you have a large negative have you considered abrasion to remove some of the excess density. Consult a book on photo retouching for a description of the method.

 

[Neal]

Dear VladSoare,

Save yourself the frustration. Have your Wife sit for you again! ;>)

Neal Wydra

 

[Ian Grant]

Dear VladSoare,

Save yourself the frustration. Have your Wife sit for you again! ;>)

Neal Wydra

Have to agree, a lot easier.

Ian

 

[Vlad Soare]

I'll do that, too.
But I'd still like to try and rescue this negative, be it for no other reason than just to prove myself that I can do it. If I can't, then at least I'll know that I didn't give up without a fight.

The Darkroom Cookbook gives the following formula for a Farmer's proportional reducer (#171):
Solution A: potassium ferricyanide 7.5g, water to make one liter.
Solution B: sodium thiosulfate 200g, water to make one liter.

Will this do? Did you ever use this formula, and did you get good results with it?

 

[ic-racer]

. The nose gets gray instead of white, but still with no detail. .

Seems like the highlight is up on the film's shoulder. Nothing can be done to get back subject tonal information that is not recorded on a usable part of the film curve. BTW was this inexpensive film? My experience has been that the inexpensive LF films have a shorter usable tonal scale and are more likely to do this.

 

[Vlad Soare]

Actually, it was quite expensive.
It was Rollei Infrared 400.
But that sun ray was so strong that it would have probably blocked any film (except TMY, perhaps).

 

[Ian Grant]

If you print an a FB paper it might be possible to alleviate the problem with a bit of burning in then retouching, but it needs practice. On a matt paper I'd used pencil for the nose, on glossy Spotone (or similar) very dilute, Spotone on the hair in both cases.

The secret with retouching is less dye/pencil than you think, don't try to match, build up very slowly, at some point it then becomes unnoticeable.

Ian

 

[ic-racer]

Actually, it was quite expensive.
It was Rollei Infrared 400.
But that sun ray was so strong that it would have probably blocked any film (except TMY, perhaps).

Ok. I'll admit that I don't know anything about that film's response or tonal range.

 

[eclarke]

You can also pre bleach (they are calling this technique SLIMT and others) the print before development It takes a few tries because you have to make a print which will make the nose come to where you want it and then make some tries to see how much bleaching to reduce the rest of the print. It's just not worth it, take it as an observation lesson and tease her with it once in a while!!..Evan Clarke

 

[Vlad Soare]

Oh, I didn't think about that. I was hoping that the reducer could somehow turn back the development process, I mean that it could bleach the silver grains on a LIFO basis - start with the last developed grains and go back in reverse order.
But I guess you're right. This is probably impossible. It will probably bleach the nose uniformly, without bringing back any detail.

Thanks guys.