Unsharp masking question

[Steve Goldstein]

Does the mask film thickness have much of an impact? I’ve used Ilford Ortho Plus 4x5 for the occasional mask because I like that I can handle it under red light. But sheet film is much thicker than 120 and I’m wondering if I’d do better to use 120 Ortho for masking 120 negatives and stick with the 4x5 film for masking 4x5 negatives…

 

[DREW WILEY]

You always want thick PET based sheet film for sake of its stiffness and dimensional stability, even when masking thinner 120 film originals.

 

[Steve Goldstein]

I know the sheet film is more stable, but I'm wondering if there's a visually detectable difference between prints made using masks for the same negative on 120 and 4x5 film. The 4x5 mask sits further away from the film emulsion because the film base is more than twice the thickness of 120 film base, even though we're only talking a few thousandths of an inch.

I guess I'll have to buy a couple of rolls of 120 ortho and see for myself. And while I'm at it I can explore the general imaging possibilities or ortho, which I've never tried before.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Significant spacing apart from the original will result in a more diffuse mask. A few microns of thickness difference does not. Typically in unsharp masking, you want a 5-mil sheet of frosted mylar in between anyway, when making the mask exposure. That can be reduced to 3 mils of mylar thickness if you wish; but that thinner version of it is more sensitive to handling and crease marks.

Remember, you have to register both films together dead flat, both during the exposure and for final taping. That's going to be quite a challenge if both are thin and want to curl.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

The thickness of the masking film gives plenty of sharpness. I used sheet film for large format and for 120. I have used 120 to mask a 120 negative, and it looked wonderful.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Most registration punches just go down to 4X5 inch film size. You punch a leader and tape it to the 120 film original,
and then in the dark, punch a sheet of 4x5 masking film directly, then after processing register them together on the same set of pins. That's what works best and is most precise.

I will admit, that when I was first learning masking, I resorted to 6x7 registered glass slide mounts, and an inexpensive matching Gepe 6X7 film punch. I probably still have that stashed away somewhere, but can't remember exactly where.
I haven't used it in 45 yrs. But it worked pretty good for learning purposes, at least briefly. Quite soon, I graduated up to a 4X5 camera and enlarger.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

I never bothered with pins or any registration system. I can see the advantage of doing so when switching masks in and out, but I only worked with unsharp masks, carefully registering them and taping together. I may have eventually went the pin registration system, but I switched to Alt. printing many years ago...

 

[DREW WILEY]

Try doing hundreds of them precisely without a punch and pin registration system. The movie, One Flew Overs the Cuckoos Nest, depicts what happens to those folks.

And many alt methods, especially color ones, highly depend on punch and registration gear, albeit it is sometime bigger and derived from the printing industry.

But one can certainly learn the basics of unsharp masking without special gear, and in that manner decide if they really need it or not. Once masking gets more involved, however, or requires multiple masks per image, a precise punch and registration system will be worth its weight in gold.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Try doing hundreds of them precisely without a punch and pin registration system. The movie, One Flew Overs the Cuckoos Nest, depicts what happens to those folks.

And many alt methods, especially color ones, highly depend on punch and registration gear, albeit it is sometime bigger and derived from the printing industry.

Why would I want to do hundreds of them? I'm only concerned with little 'ol me in my tiny little darkroom. I have done tri-colour carbon transfer, getting by with two pins on a piece of plexi for registration. I also do tri-colour gum... with thumb tacks. If I ever had to do hundreds of them, or make a living from it, then yes, I'd invest in a pin registration system. The average darkroom worker can get by without them.

 

[DREW WILEY]

I don't know what you mean by "average". Those of us who learned color printing during the Cibachrome generation needed to make masks for nearly every single image, even if it was personal rather then commercial work. Dye transfer printers of the previous and somewhat overlapping generations had to make far more, along with registered color separations, often as many as 15 sheets of registered film per image. And even today, there are some individuals who do a fair amount of masking even for sake of their black and white prints.

Gum is rather forgiving because it forms a relatively soft image. Cibachrome was an extraordinarily crisp medium and
very unforgiving, and anything like a dimensionally unstable acrylic substrate would be evident in the print. I'm just little ole me too, but lil' ole me passing on certain suggestions about how to do things more precisely.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

I don't know what you mean by "average". Those of us who learned color printing during the Cibachrome generation needed to make masks for nearly every single image, even if it was personal rather then commercial work. Dye transfer printers of the previous and somewhat overlapping generations had to make far more, along with registered color separations, often as many as 15 sheets of registered film per image. And even today, there are some individuals who do a fair amount of masking even for sake of their black and white prints.

Gum is rather forgiving because it forms a relatively soft image. Cibachrome was an extraordinarily crisp medium and
very unforgiving, and anything like a dimensionally unstable acrylic substrate would be evident in the print. I'm just little ole me too, but lil' ole me passing on certain suggestions about how to do things more precisely.

Average as in the majority of us darkroom workers. I'm not talking about skill level. I used a lot of pin registration when I did photo litho back in the day. I also did a lot without pin registration, and my worked looked fine. And I'm talking about working on stones, not plates. One day I'd like to work that way again, but it probably won't happen. Yes, tri-colour gum is pretty darn forgiving in some regards (probably why I love it), but not when it comes to registration. It's just easier to register the negatives.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Well, on this particular thread, we're talking about someone wanting to register relatively tiny 120 film images for sake of masking purposes, which is quite different than how graphics folks would register big sheets and use big punches in relation to taping them together over a light box. I have that kind of big stuff myself, but it rarely comes into play, since I enlarge most of my images. I did do some tricolor "assembly" printing experiments via dye transfer, but would need another lifetime or two to perfect that, let alone fiddle with something like tricolor carbon. I already have more than enough to do with my remaining time.

All my current masking work is done with either Condit micro-pin gear or matching accessories I made myself, and pertains to film originals all the way from 35mm film up to 8x10 film. I also have made quite a number of precision duplicates and internegs which required extremely accurate registration of multiple sheet of film, so I'm very glad I invested up front, quite early, in some top end Condit micro-pin equipment.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Well, on this particular thread, we're talking about someone wanting to register relatively tiny 120 film images for sake of masking purposes, which is quite different than how graphics folks would register big sheets and use big punches in relation to taping them together over a light box. I have that kind of big stuff myself, but it rarely comes into play, since I enlarge most of my images. I did do some tricolor "assembly" printing experiments via dye transfer, but would need another lifetime or two to perfect that, let alone fiddle with something like tricolor carbon. I already have more than enough to do with my remaining time.

All my current masking work is done with either Condit micro-pin gear or matching accessories I made myself, and pertains to film originals all the way from 35mm film up to 8x10 film. I also have made quite a number of precision duplicates and internegs which required extremely accurate registration of multiple sheet of film, so I'm very glad I invested up front, quite early, in some top end Condit micro-pin equipment.

I'm aware of that. I stated earlier that I have masked 120 films...

 

[DREW WILEY]

Oh gosh. And here I was working with pigments, not dyes, most of my life, but not photographically (architecturally). I had the connections to come up with a very nice process set of my own, in a number of ways superior to the usual suspects, but never the time to do more than just test it. UV printing was not in my cards. Even the workspace area I had assigned to that got taken over with another big 8X10 enlarger. Oh well. It's all fun and visually rewarding. I can't complain.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

As long as it's visually stimulating and fun, I'm in!

 

[DREW WILEY]

Well, you obviously do have fun with numerous aspects of it, including sharing your results with others via how-about-this flicks. Just don't fall through the ice next winter!

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Well, you obviously do have fun with numerous aspects of it, including sharing your results with others via how-about-this flicks. Just don't fall through the ice next winter!

No ice to fall through here, but I'll bare that in mind, just in case! That did happen a few times playing pond hockey growing up in Saskatchewan, though. One learns quickly that the hockey stick is a great tool for extricating oneself from the icy water!