The "Metallic" look with a black and white film?

[keithwms]

I suppose I don't know what is meant by a metallic look in this case.

Indeed there seem to be two quite different takes on what metallic means! One is literal and apparently has more to do with the print medium; the other is more abstract and has more to do with the rendering of tone in the image. Obviously, I assumed that we were talking about the latter.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I took a Tri-X negative to a custom photofinisher and had him print it on color metallic paper as a black and white. The results are stunning, but I believe the OP was looking to do it himself. Short of printing on color metallic paper, I have not been able to product the results myself.

Steve

 

[per volquartz]

A "soothing metallic" look in a black and white print...

Extend the middle tones. Have very few pure white specular highlights.
Print down slightly.
Use at least a 4X5 camera, preferably 5X7 or 8X10.


Per Volquartz


Dead Link Removed

 

[Andrew Moxom]

Not sure if this is relevant or not, but the most metallic looking images I have seen are by Sandy King. His Carbon transfer prints onto RC paper are just outstanding!... they actually look like etchings and you can actually see the relief in them from an angle quite well. The RC versions especially show a very pronounced metallic look.

 

[keithwms]

Sandy, carbon, Sandy, carbon, carbon Sandy.... can somebody please send me a bloody print so I can see what the hooplah is about?!!!

Or maybe I'll just go down and visit Sandy....

 

[polyglot]

Depends what you mean by metallic - do you mean that the subject itself looks metallic or that the print has that glow to it? For the former case, lighting is key. You want a glossy subject that is specularly-reflecting a large white field, for example I recently found that wet rocks reflecting a cloudy sky look extremely metallic when printed on Ilford RC Pearl.

You can also buy metallic RA4 paper that has a load of fine silvery metal balls between the paper and the emulsion; I think it's called Kodak Pro Endura Metallic. I've had digital prints (no reason you couldn't do it from a scan) made on it with a lightjet and it works extremely well with subjects that contain a lot of saturated colour but it has poor dynamic range. You will lose a lot of both highlight and shadow detail compared to a normal RA4 paper. When a colourful print on this stuff is directly lit, the print has a beautiful glowing backlit appearance to it.