[alt-photo] Re: wet-plate collodion

[Bob Barnes]

sorry Jeremy... I love the photographic potentials of Ambrotype, but  
because I am facilities-challenged, I' am curious.
BTW, I did make 300 lpi imagesetter negs for any contact printing  
almost twenty years ago :-)

Bob

On Apr 13, 2010, at 5:35 PM, Jeremy Moore wrote:

> Bob, this last post has really confused me:
>
> Are you wanting to use an enlarger or digital negatives to create  
> positive
> ambrotypes or are you wanting to use an enlarger/digital negatives  
> to print
> wet plate collodion negatives as positives on silver gelatin paper?
>
> On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 5:32 PM, Bob Barnes <bb333 at earthlink.net>  
> wrote:
>
>> thanks, Etienne....I do PT/PD now... I have an Ambrotype and I am
>> hopelessly infatuated,
>> but not to the point of doing it, "in camera" if you would please  
>> excuse
>> the horrendous legal pun.
>> PS what about proportional intensifiers, like Selenium?
>> Bob
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Apr 13, 2010, at 5:08 PM, etienne garbaux wrote:
>>
>>  Bob wrote:
>>>
>>>  I am asking for advice about about starting wet-plate collodian and
>>>> Ambrotypes.
>>>> I would appreciate any advice, links, on-list as well as off-list.
>>>> I am very interested in printing wet-plate
>>>>  on my  Omega DXL enlarger. I have a 4x5, an 8x10 as well as a  
>>>> large
>>>> antique studio camera, and I do want advice
>>>> about finding or adapting wooden film holders, but I am very
>>>> interested in enlarging or digital negs.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Wet-plate collodion ("WP") tends to make negatives with a  
>>> substantially
>>> longer density range ("DR") than the exposure scale ("ES") of most
>>> enlarging-speed printing materials, and IME the process does not  
>>> respond
>>> well to "minus" development (the usual technique for reducing the  
>>> contrast
>>> of film negatives).  You have choices -- for example, you could make
>>> printing masks for the collodion negatives, but punch presses  
>>> tend to make a
>>> mess out of glass plates (<g>) and achieving alignment manually  
>>> will make
>>> you want to go make daguerrotypes over an open dish of hot  
>>> mercury in an
>>> unventilated tent.  So, my advice would be to focus on solutions  
>>> other than
>>> enlarging wet plate negs.
>>>
>>> On the other hand, I don't much see the point of making wet-plate
>>> collodion negatives just to scan them or print them on enlarging  
>>> materials
>>> -- there isn't much "look" to WP negs, aside from the long DR and  
>>> blue
>>> [only] sensitivity (which can be duplicated with a blue filter).   
>>> Of course,
>>> "just to do it" is a perfectly legitimate justification.   
>>> However, may I
>>> suggest that you also take up Pt, albumen, or collodion paper  
>>> printing while
>>> you're at it?  Those are the printing media that were in use by  
>>> the folks
>>> who originally made WP negs.
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>>
>>> etienne
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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