What type of alternative process?

roy · Oct 8, 2003

Jorge said:
Thanks Sandy! well there you have it guys.
I know I have learned a lot from his articles on Kallitypes.

The last time I spoke to Terry King he said he was having some success making 'compunegs' using an OHP material. I have the Dan Burkholder book and if my understanding is correct, the services of a lab and drum scanner are needed for optimum results. I am trying to avoid this and would like to do the whole process myself. I am keen to start making Kallitypes but I want to work with a format bigger than my 5x4 produces and will either make bigger negs under the enlarger from a smaller format or, if the results are satisfactory, via computer, scanning a 5x4 neg. I am encouraged by Sandy's comments that his results are good so I shall keep this method in my mind and of course, watch this forum.
PS. I previously tried to send this during the upgrade Sean mentioned, so please bear with me if this is repeated.

rogein · Oct 9, 2003

sanking said:
I print in both carbon and kallitype with both in-camera ULF negatives and digital negatives. To this point most of my digital negatives have been made from scanned 5X7" original in-camera negatives, corrected and adjusted on Photoshop, and printed on an overhead transparency material called Pictorico (website = www.pictorico.com) on the Epson 2000P. I am very pleased with the results and consider that the quality of my kallitype and palladium prints on art papers closely approaches the quality of prints made from in-camera 12X20 negatives. With POP or AZO an original in-camera negative will give better quality than an inkjet negative, and about this there is no doubt.

Sandy,

I too would be interested in your workflow. I've been using a 2200 & OHP for negs to print in platinum. I'm using Burkholders curves slightly adjusted to increase contrast of the upper values. While contrast and density seem good so far I'm finding that large expanses of smooth tones have a '35mm-ish' grain to them. I contact emulsion to emulsion for best sharpness and print on Platine.

Cheers,
Roger...

fhovie · Oct 10, 2003

I am truely inpired by Sandys article on PyrocatHD - although I am satisfied with PMK for 4x5, I have had better results in 6x6 with DiXactol. I am now ready to brew my own PyrocatHD based on his article use that for most of my larger than 35mm use if it tests out like he lists (as I am confident it will) - So this brings the question -

Since I am about to try VanDyke and excited to do so - How would you all compare the AZO/Amidol results to a VanDyke/Selenium Tone result? Notwithstanding the variable of paper choice. (assuming the VanDyke was on similar fiber paper stock.)

sanking · Oct 10, 2003

fhovie said:
Since I am about to try VanDyke and excited to do so - How would you all compare the AZO/Amidol results to a VanDyke/Selenium Tone result? Notwithstanding the variable of paper choice. (assuming the VanDyke was on similar fiber paper stock.)

Frank,

This is one of those questions that can't really be answered because AZO is a photographic paper with an emulsion in gelatin on the surface of the paper, whereas the VDB sensitizer is actually embedded in the texture of the paper surface. You will get a much greater reflective density range with AZO (AZ0 can get up to a Dmax of over 2.0), and the image will be sharper. The VDB will have a much lower reflective density range (about maximum of 1.5) and the paper texture limits sharpness.

It is somewhat akin to comparing apples to oranges. Some people prefer the rich Dmax and sharpness of AZ0 while others like the matte surface and texture of hand-made prints like VDB, Pt/Pd and kallitype. Both are acquired tastes so the best thing is to just look at some good prints made by the two processes and do what works best for your own work.

sanking · Oct 10, 2003

rogein said:
"I too would be interested in your workflow. I've been using a 2200 & OHP for negs to print in platinum. I'm using Burkholders curves slightly adjusted to increase contrast of the upper values. While contrast and density seem good so far I'm finding that large expanses of smooth tones have a '35mm-ish' grain to them. I contact emulsion to emulsion for best sharpness and print on Platine."

I am going to write this up soon. Unfortunately I am just a bit swamped with work right now and have not had the time to get to it.

Thanks for your patience

Sandy

GreyWolf · Oct 11, 2003

Hello Sandy,

I wish to offer to help you (when time permits for you) in any way that I can. I fully understand that the knowledge and content will have to be solely yours, but if there any any tasks I can offload for you I would be willing to do them. I can fully appreciate the many hours it takes to compile an article with resource checking, proof reading, spelling and such.

Just wishing to make it easier for you if I can.

Kind Regards,

sanking · Oct 13, 2003

GreyWolf said:
Hello Sandy,

I can fully appreciate the many hours it takes to compile an article with resource checking, proof reading, spelling and such.

Just wishing to make it easier for you if I can.

Hi Grey Wolf,

I appreciate the offer help but what I had planned to write up for the forum was a fairly straightforward working flow on how I make digital negatives, from scanning to final output. It was not my intention to write a full-blown article on the subject, not that I would not like to do so, but frankly this is an area where I feel like a beginner and I have only marginal and specific information to offer. I say this because my skills with Photoshop are really fairly rudimentary, even though I have learned enough to use it well for the kind of work I do. But I am absolutely sure that there are others on the forum that could do a much better job than me in preparing a comprehensive article on this subject.

Jeremy · Oct 13, 2003

Sandy, I know myself and a few others here have had quite a bit of experience with photoshop and such. If you could post your workflow then we can reply with a few tweaks to speed up the process and/or increase the quality of the final output.

roy · Oct 14, 2003

sanking said:
what I had planned to write up for the forum was a fairly straightforward working flow on how I make digital negatives

I think that is a good idea Sandy. It would be useful to a lot of us as I am sure that a 'working knowledge' of the basics and pitfalls you are likely to have encountered would be helpful. Too much detail about Photoshop would sink me, I am sure.

ian_greant · Oct 15, 2003

Grey wolf,

I had no idea you lived close to Calgary when you first started looking for help with digital negatives several months ago or I would have volunteered some real help earlier.

If you'd like a hands on digital negative making tutorial just drop me a line.

cheers,
Ian

sanking · Oct 16, 2003

Jorge,

I sent a small write-up about my procedures for making digital negatives yesterday to admin@apug.org as an article submission, but so far have not gotten any reply or acknowledgment of the submission.

I tried to place it directly here on this forum but it was apparently too long so I sent it as an article to let you fellows decide what to do with it.

Sandy

Jorge · Oct 17, 2003

Great Sandy, I am sure Sean has it, but has not had time to post it. Articles are a bit different since they are usually too long for normal posting so Sean has to post them directly. I will ask him to make sure.

Thanks!

rogein · Oct 23, 2003

Jorge said:
Great Sandy, I am sure Sean has it, but has not had time to post it. Articles are a bit different since they are usually too long for normal posting so Sean has to post them directly. I will ask him to make sure.

Any idea when Sandy's article will be posted?

Cheers,
Roger...

Jorge · Oct 23, 2003

Sean has been swamped so he has not gotten time to post it, he assured me he will get to it this weekend....

Julian · Oct 24, 2003

I've been making digital BW prints almost since Cone introduced his workflow so I have some digital 'chops'. I've recently been trying to make dig negs with an inkjet printer and have reached a deadend.
Firstly, anyone who thinks this is easy is dead wrong. You need excellent scanning and digital chops as well as good printing skills. Secondly forget about using someone elses curves except as a starter. You need to develop your own set of curves for your light source/paper/developer combo.
To do this you need to print a 25 step wedge on your inkjet. Expose it with your wet processing m,ethod on the paper of choice so that the black is as deep as it goes, but no more. Then use a densitomter to measure the wedges and make and adjustment curve inPhotoshop or your imaging software. ideally you need to match the output to the tonal range of your paper, but be warned that a good digi neg will have more tones than the paper will hold, so you need to choose your compromises. You also need to be using an inkset that prints on glossy film and have that process linearised and profiled. Another problem is your sharpening technique as th eneg seems to react in a different way to the print so trial and error here.
My deadend: I can't get rid of the dither pattern. I'm trying a rip next month with epson LF printers with various kinds of dithers to see if I can get around it - anyone having any success??

ernesto18 · Dec 7, 2010

"Magic brush"

[My pesonal recommendation is to go with the brush, either a Hake, or best of all, the brush that we folks on the alt-photo-process list call the Magic brush, a very fine synthetic brush made by Richeson.
[/QUOTE]

Does anyone know of a source of these Magic Brushes in UK? What material are they made of? (perhaps they exist this side of the pond, but with a different name).
Many thanks

TheFlyingCamera · Dec 7, 2010

I don't know a UK supplier per se, but Richeson is a UK company, so I would imagine your garden variety art supply store that handles watercolor supplies will carry them.

What type of alternative process?

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