What is best Contact Printing Frame size?

[Dan Pelland]

I make hardwood contact printing frames. I'm getting great response from customers, but I only have my own experience to draw on for the designs. I've talked with Michael A. Smith who gave me some very helpful suggestions, including that I allow some extra glass around the paper/negative. I'd really like to hear your opinions on the "extra space" issue. I guess the question is "What's the best Contact Printing Frame size for making 8x10 prints?" thanks - DP

 

[Donald Miller]

Nine by eleven would work for me. In fact that is approximately what mine is. If you want to come up with a "killer design", design it so that you have spacers that position the paper and film in the proper orientation within the frame so that no possibility exists for the wood frame to obscure a portion of the print.

 

[Jeremy]

9x11 is what I have, too. It works great and I don't see a need to alter that size.

 

[Alex Hawley]

Make that 3 votes for 9x11. My only wish is to have some spacers that the paper and negative could butt up against for registration.

 

[WarEaglemtn]

I would think at least 11x14 so it would be usable for larger paper for hand coated papers such as platinum printing. Coating the larger sized paper to match the negative & having the extra space outside the image area so we can 'float' the image on the paper works well for me. With silver contact printing having the extra area so I can contact an 8x10 neg on 11x14 or larger paper & mask the surround so I have the print with white borders works very well.

If you are only contact printing on 8x10 paper a small contact printing frame makes sense. But if you want the print on the larger paper you need a bigger contact printing frame. I prefer the bigger frames so I have the extra space around the image area for handling protection & signing the original print, not he matboard.

 

[Ole]

I would like an inch of space all around, so 10x12" would suit me fine. And a 7x9" one for 5x7" negatives.

 

[colrehogan]

I would think at least 11x14 so it would be usable for larger paper for hand coated papers such as platinum printing. Coating the larger sized paper to match the negative & having the extra space outside the image area so we can 'float' the image on the paper works well for me. With silver contact printing having the extra area so I can contact an 8x10 neg on 11x14 or larger paper & mask the surround so I have the print with white borders works very well.

If you are only contact printing on 8x10 paper a small contact printing frame makes sense. But if you want the print on the larger paper you need a bigger contact printing frame. I prefer the bigger frames so I have the extra space around the image area for handling protection & signing the original print, not he matboard.

Me too. I have an 11x14 frame that I use now for both 4x5 & 8x10 negatives. I am printing the 8x10 negatives on 11x14 paper.

 

[Dan Pelland]

Thanks to everyone for your feedback. I saw an easy way to quickly improve by including the spacers that Donald and Alex suggested. Special thanks to you fellows. I'll add another size to my current line-up per requests from this thread and from a thread I posted on Michael A. Smith's Azo forum. Take care - Dan