rescuing underexposed negative

[RobC]

As for scanning and ink jet printing, not many people here give a RIP :]

Well I think quite a few do but its off topic for this forum so I will desist.

My final word on it is that if you are not going to wet print in the darkroom and intend to digitise all your work, then you would be better off using a digital camera instead of scanning WHICH IS A DESTRUCTIVE PROCESS regardless of what people try to tell you.

 

[pdeeh]

Oh dear!
Someone asks a question about Enlarging and some answer about Scanning.
That's very poor.

Not at all poor.

The OP asked explicitly about scanning as well as printing, although not advice about how to scan, and he got some generic replies about scanning, as well as advice about printing etc.

Please, lets stick with helping the OP, and try to resist making this this yet another of the recent rash of tribal D vs A wars we've had to suffer in numerous threads.

If nothing else it just gets ballsachingly boring

 

[removed account4]

bettersense:

agfa used to make a paper, can't remember what it was except for graded and RC ..
it worked beautifully with severely underexposed negatives
i cant' remember exactly what it was called maybe someone here remembers ?
and look for a something similar ... ..

so you can just print the image with less detail ..
i spent years struggling with under developed /or under exposed negatives and got pretty good
at re-interpretting ... maybe you can reinterpret your lost cause so it isn't so lost.

good luck.
john

 

[RobC]

if you have exposed for the shadows and underexposed by 2 stops which is what I think OP is saying, then you will lose 2 stops of shadow detail. You could have some of that back by using a speed increasing developer which would extracted more shadow detail from the neg but since you have already developed it, its too late for that.

Underexposing doesn't affect negative contrast, it just shifts everthing down the curve and drops what would have been at the bottom of the curve, off the curve.

If your subject was very low contrast to begin with you won't be left with much on the film. The problem with increasing contrast when printing to try and retrieve this situation is that increasing print contrast also loses fine detail so you will end up with a print that looks very grainy even if contrast of whats left is about right.
Also becasue everything is towards the bottom of the curve, the print time required to bring out the highlights will be much less than would be required to print a deep shadow. The result of adjusting print time and contrast to get a useable print is not likely to give you a good quality print.

As others have said, it if ain't on the neg, you can't print it.

Had you exposed for a highlight instead of a shadow, you would in all probability, have ended up with a perfectly useable negative which would print relatively easily. But I digress onto a highly contentious methodology for exposure.

 

[ic-racer]

...good amount of detail.

If grade 5 won't print the negative, you will need to intensify the negative.

 

[Jerevan]

I concur with the intensification idea.

Secondly, another (perhaps odd) idea in tandem with intensification would be to make (or have someone make) a lith print from the negative. Perhaps not the most "naturalistic" approach, but I know from experience that you can wring out some pretty good/interesting stuff from a negative that is "unprintable".

 

[RobC]

Have a look at following:

http://barrythornton.com/

goto "technique guide" and select "Bleach & Monobath"

At first it sounds like its completely the wrong thing but read on as the last big paragraph may be what you're looking for.

Just think about what it will do carefully before committing to it.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

chemical intensification works but the good once are very toxic.Try for a few minutes in strong selenium toner;You can do this in room light and judge by eye;It will help a little.For printing, your best bet is a diffusion enlarger and VC paper.start with a grade 3 and get ready for lots of D&B.but don't push your hopes beyond a rescue job.Underexposure is always critical.I'll cross my fingers for you;good luck and don't underexpose again

 

[Jim Noel]

"On the analogue front, you may have more success with duplicating the negative, and then printing from the duplicate.

But that, in itself, is quite an art."

You may think it difficult, but, as Franklin Jordan said in 1938, “I’ll take your word for how dumb you are, but even at that, you can learn to make a good copy negative in one evening.”

I used to teach all second semester student the technigue in one 3 hour session.

 

[MattKing]

It sounds like Jim is volunteering to teach you how to make a duplicate negative - go for it!

As you may have guessed from our respective descriptions, making duplicate negatives is a technique that requires certain skills and knowledge. You can acquire them, and they can certainly pay dividends, but at least some time, effort and (minimal?) expense will be required.

 

[cliveh]

Put it down to a learning curve and try to expose correctly with correct Time/temperature development of your negatives and move on. Rather than treat the effect, treat the cause.

 

[Doremus Scudder]

Selenium intensification will get you 1/2 to one Zone more contrast. It's good for beefing up a weak negative, but likely not strong enough for your needs.

I have good results with bleach/redevelop using a staining developer like PMK. Make a rehalogenating bleach from potassium ferricyanide and potassium bromide (you need the bromide to rehalogenate!). Try
15g potassium ferricyanide
15g potassium bromide
1 liter of water
(or equivalent)

Presoak the neg in a tray of water , then bleach until the image is completely gone. Rinse the bleach off then redevelop in the (staining) developer of your choice. Everything can be done in room light. You'll end up with your original silver image plus the stain from the staining developer. This process won't enhance what is not there, but it results in a gratifying increase in shadow detail and contrast.

The process can be repeated, but risks making the emulsion brittle. I would think that two iterations would still be safe.

Best,

Doremus

 

[Jim Noel]

If we are going to get into bleach/redevelopment, the density increase,which is what the negative needs, the simplest and best solution is, believe it or not, sepia tone that bugger. Just follow the directions on the package as if you were toning a print.

 

[RobC]

staining developers noramlly hold back the highlights. Well they do if you print on VC paper so if you use a staining developer try printing on graded paper which will give you more contrast from a stained negative (usually).

 

[RalphLambrecht]

staining developers noramlly hold back the highlights. Well they do if you print on VC paper so if you use a staining developer try printing on graded paper which will give you more contrast from a stained negative (usually).

a bit too late for that now

 

[RobC]

a bit too late for that now

But if you've bleached the negative and re-develop in staining dev, which is being suggested in post #36, then perhaps not too late. But personally I wouldn't go the staining developer route.

I think you will struggle to get a good image whatever you do if you have lost 2 stops of shadow detail, especially if the subject was low contrast to begin with.

Because the neg has already been fixed any potential latent image in the shadows will have been fixed away never to return.